The rookie MP already looking to his next term
It’s been six months since New Plymouth’s first-time National candidate David MacLeod toppled Labour in a landslide. Reporter Glenn Mclean asks what he thinks of the job so far.
The first six months of his political tenure has not put rookie MP David MacLeod off his desire to serve a lengthy career in the hallowed halls of Parliament. Six months on from his smiling victory under the appropriately coloured blue balloons at the Plymouth International Hotel on election night, the New Plymouth representative’s enthusiasm for the job has grown stronger.
That was evident from the broad smile on his face as he sat discussing the first 26 weeks, ignoring the stifling heat of his electorate office where the air-conditioning remains a work in progress.
“I can tell you we have got a prime minister who is driven on delivery, and I’m impressed,” he said without even the prompt of a first question.
“What he says he’s going to do, he does, and he’s very clear on what he wants to achieve.”
MacLeod won his seat with an almost 7000-vote majority over the Labour incumbent, Glen Bennett (who is now back in Parliament as a list MP).
He was always careful to toe the party line during his campaign. It wasn’t always easy.
He took some brutal shots from environmentalists, Māori and the left wing, but he usually managed to hold his ground with a party position that at least sounded like his own personal conviction.
Even on the campaign trail, months out from the election, it was clear he admired his boss, Christopher Luxon, who was quick to elevate him to the chairperson’s role for the parliamentary select committee on environment. He is also a member of the finance and expenditure select committee. As the environment committee chairperson, MacLeod’s annual salary rose to $179,713 from that of a normal backbench MP’s $163,961. After years as the chairperson of the Taranaki Regional Council and even more years as a successful businessman, the money was probably largely beside the point. His enthusiasm for the job was abundantly clear as he sat talking about the first half-year, despite what could be perceived as negative influences on a Māori National MP through the opening 100 days of office. During his maiden speech to Parliament, MacLeod started with a Te Ātiawa ngeri, or short haka, before he explained to those in the House his connections to Ngāi Tahu in the south, Ngāti Porou on the
East Coast and finally to Taranaki.
How then does he feel about the ongoing criticism the National-led coalition has faced, including claims that it was acting in a racist way, in relation to the likes of the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority, the reverting back to English the name of the New Zealand Transport Agency and other public service departments, and changes to Māori ward seats at local government level?
“I felt that many of the Māori MPs within this coalition Government had to defend our position,” he said.
“And I think there are far too many voids that have been filled up with rubbish.”
While he believed communication about the changes could have been better, the real crux of the issue was not about limiting Māori influence, but developing better outcomes, he said.
That’s especially true in the health sector, he said, where it was about cutting away at the bureaucracy that had not served the country well under the previous government.
“It’s never about removing Māori or removing te reo off the landscape of New Zealand; it’s quite the opposite. We have to make sure our public services are user friendly and people understand who they are dealing with.
“With regards to the Māori health provider, there was not enough rhetoric. It was not about getting rid of a partner because it was Māori; it was about outcomes it was producing,” he said.
“This is about putting decisions closer to the communities. [Health Minister] Shane Reti wants health decisions made closer to the parties rather than centralisation which we saw from the previous government.”
MacLeod can make the party line sound reasonable, but it flies in the face of feedback from Māori and health experts, some of whom have characterised the closure of Te Aka Whai Ora and moves to liberalise smoking laws as ideologically driven and racist.
Questioned on the progress he thought he was making as a first-term MP, MacLeod said he believed he was taking good steps forward after going through a lengthy induction process, while also coming to grips with the demands of a full-time political role.
Although he’s busy, he has fallen short of his pre-election hopes. When he announced he was the National candidate for New Plymouth, MacLeod outlined some ambitious political goals, including seeking a ministerial role.
“The reality is I feel absolutely humbled for what I’ve been given,” he said. “I was privileged enough to be [one of] less than a handful of new MPs that are actually chairing a select committee. But I’m also on a second select committee and both of them are pretty nuggety.”
Given the pace at which the coalition Government worked to tick off the 49 points of its first 100-day plan, and the time that took to be in the House, MacLeod admitted he was in “catch-up” mode when it came to work with his New Plymouth constituents.
Despite that, he believed he had a handle on how to balance his time between Wellington and New Plymouth and being more of the public figure he wanted to be.
“People don’t realise how restrictive it is to be an MP,” he said.
“It is almost 24/7, and they say you should diary out one day a week. But it doesn’t work. You hear the saying that busy people have to make a date with themselves – that’s the case in this role.
“People ask what it’s like in Wellington, and the best way I can describe it would be to compare it to boarding school, even though I didn’t go to boarding school. If you are on the precinct of Parliament, the only time you are allowed to leave is either on your lunch or dinner break or with your whip’s approval.”
When he has been afforded the opportunity to work out of his innercity New Plymouth office, he said the honeymoon was well and truly over when it came to the public demands of him.
Digging deeper into what exactly most people want with him, he said it quickly became apparent there was widespread frustration from the likes of developers and contractors with the red tape they needed to go through to get things done.
And while MacLeod’s hands were largely tied to what he could do for them individually, he believes changes to the Resource Management Act should bring some respite.
“Locally there is a lot of frustration at just how hard it has become to do things,” he said.
The act was a piece of legislation he was very familiar with given his time at the regional council, and he was also across the proposed Fast-track Approvals Bill that was before the environment select committee.
“My job is to endeavour to make sure that bill is fit for purpose,” he said.
“What I mean by that is we are making good-quality decisions on behalf of the country, and I’m clear in my mind that no development should adversely affect the environment.”
His inclusion on that committee is especially relevant to Taranaki, where would-be seabed miner Trans-Tasman
Resources is seeking consent to mine millions of tonnes of iron-rich sand off the seabed in the South Taranaki Bight.
Though promoted as being a job creator and massive generator of income, the proposal is deeply unpopular in the region over fears about what it will do to the offshore environment.
Looking ahead, MacLeod was confident New Plymouth would see measurable economic benefits by the end of his Government’s first term.
“This is about the economy, the cost of living, about law and order and public service,” he said.
“I’ll be very surprised after three years if we are not seeing an incremental gain. This term will not be full of roses and shiny things; it’s about cutting our cloth because we are trying to right the country.”
MacLeod said he planned to be in the job until that happened.
“It would be wrong for an individual to come in and be a one-term wonder kind of thing. I’m here for a number of terms.”