Acting in his best interests
After ACT took a beating at last year’s election, leader and Epsom MP David Seymour has returned to Wellington to prepare for the party’s grand comeback in 2020. Laura Walters reports.
The day after September’s election are hazy for ACT’s David Seymour. He knows he woke up on the Sunday, and he knows he would have hit the phone to thank his loyal supporters.
After driving the length of the country to meet with the party’s defeated candidates in person, he jumped on a plane.
Rather than sitting in his Auckland flat feeling sorry for himself, Seymour decided to begin the journey towards what he hopes will be ACT’s rebirth. His destination? Germany.
Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) is about as close as any party comes to ACT, Seymour says. It supports a free-market economy, and has been in government as a support partner under Germany’s MMP system.
But in the European country’s 2013 election, the party failed to meet the 5 per cent threshold. After 64 years in Germany’s Parliament, it lost representation in the Bundestag for four years.
That debacle was blamed on weak leadership and the perception the FDP was interested in holding power, not enacting concrete policies.
Last year, when Germany went to the polls just before New Zealand’s general election, a newlook FDP returned to Parliament.
Seymour says his trip let him study the party’s overhaul to learn how the FDP came back from such a devastating defeat.
While ACT continues to be represented in Parliament, thanks to strong support in his Epsom seat, the party managed to secure just 13,075 party votes – that’s a 0.5 per cent share.
To put this in perspective, ACT received fewer votes than the ousted Ma¯ ori Party (30,580 or 1.2 per cent), and the novice Opportunities Party (TOP), with 63,261 votes or 2.4 per cent.
Seymour knows his party needs a makeover, a change of vision, a rebrand.
About six months out from the general election, the FDP shared its plan with the country, and watched its popularity climb in the polls. The master sheet containing the party’s vision was distilled down to a single A3 sheet of paper.
Seymour likes this idea. ACT has spent too long trying to be too many things for too many people, he says.
ACT needs to figure out what it stands for: is it New Zealand’s ‘‘altRight’’ party? The party for urban liberals? The party of personal responsibility? Is ACT the low-tax party? Or the hard-on-crime team?
Late last year, Seymour says he was ‘‘completely over it’’. He had ‘‘worked like hell’’, and was proud of what he’d achieved for his electorate and charter schools. But that wasn’t borne out in the results. ‘‘The stuff we’ve done, to
‘‘The stuff we’ve done, to date, hasn’t worked.’’
date, simply hasn’t worked.’’
When asked what he thinks the new ACT will look like, Seymour says he doesn’t know – it’s too soon to tell. If he knew that answer, then he should have known it five months ago. And if he knew the answer five months ago, why didn’t he call on it during the election campaign? He has a point.
The first step to this muchanticipated makeover is to talk to the party’s membership. ACT is nothing without its members, he says. They’re the ones who handdelivered 600,000 pamphlets and raised $900,000 before September’s election. And they will be the ones who will have a say at its upcoming regional membership meetings and AGM.
Their input will help create a party with a concise vision, probably presented on A3 paper.
In the meantime, Seymour is busy firing out press releases in response to policies and announcements by rival parties, and he doesn’t discriminate.
A big chunk of his political capital is spent on championing the charter school model, which he spearheaded as under-secretary to former education minister Hekia Parata. Labour says this is a lost cause but Seymour’s not giving up. If nothing else, he’s dogged.
The other issue close to his heart is his private member’s End Of Life Choice Bill. The proposed legislation on assisted dying might not be supported by all of ACT’s support base but a Curia Market Research poll from 2015 shows 64 per cent of the party’s voters supported the bill, just behind Green voters (65 per cent).
Recently, he added another portfolio to his already hefty load: spokesman for ballroom dancing.
Seymour will compete in the next season of TV show Dancing With The Stars, despite claiming to be ‘‘the most disadvantaged person in New Zealand when it comes to dancing ability’’.
When asked why he’s following in the twinkly-toe footsteps of former ACT leader Rodney Hide, Seymour cites his passion for raising money for telephone counselling service Kidsline.
But he’s quick to point out Hide took ACT from two MPs to five during the parliamentary term in which he starred on the reality show. He even extended his Epsom majority from 3000 to 12,000.
So while Seymour’s desire to raise money for charity is genuine, he’s also looking to raise something else.