Act power player turning his sights on boosting foreign investment
David Seymour has emerged as a key change agent
Let’s get real here. David Seymour is not a natural empath. But the Act Party Leader and Cabinet Minister has emerged as a key change agent who is not afraid to take a ‘no prisoners’ approach to critics, as we repeatedly saw this week.
On Monday, he will take to Cabinet a paper which will advocate opening wide the doors to foreign investment. The only major restriction in his view should be for national security reasons — “we’re not opening the door to Russia”, as he observed during a catchup at his Beehive office.
New Zealand prides itself on being an “open trading nation”.
In truth, we are anything but. NZ’s screening regime is not only one of the most protectionist in the OECD, it is also excruciatingly slow and ponderous.
As the NZ Initiative has pointed out, other developed economies like France, Britain and Ireland do not even have laws with “character and competence” and “sensitive lands” requirements like our foreign investment regime.
Seymour’s contention is that outside of national security concerns, where there should be a filter in these geo-strategically challenged times, foreign investors should be subject to just the same laws as NZ businesses.
As an Associate Finance Minister, Seymour has delegated authority in this area. Along with Cabinet Minister Paul Goldsmith, he has ultimate signoff on offshore applications to either buy existing businesses or establish greenfield ventures here.
Behind the scenes, Cabinet has been troubled that several investments — including in data centres — have either lapsed or stalled due to perceived intransigence by the Overseas Investment Commission.
Seymour’s approach still has to get Cabinet approval. But it would appear to dovetail neatly with the coalition’s moves to increase the country’s economic momentum by introducing fast-track consenting legislation which promises a shakeup of the way consents are granted for major projects.
As Seymour puts it, the existing foreign investment legislation makes the assumption it is a privilege to invest in NZ. But NZ also needs international capital and investment to grow the economy and create jobs. We are competing for such globally.
He believes any change could be done through a ministerial directive.
Not, however for Seymour, softening the language on his ministerial change agenda where clarity is obviously called for, rather than political smudge.
This is becoming a hallmark of Christopher Luxon’s Cabinet members, who have a refreshing “get real” approach as they roll out their major change agenda. This is an agenda which will succeed or fail on the outcome of the policy shifts the coalition Government makes in its first year in office.
When Seymour was appointed to Cabinet last year, with a promise extracted from Luxon that he would become Deputy Prime Minister at the midway point of the parliamentary term, he was clear about what changes the Act party expects to achieve.
Early on, his proposal for Waitangi Treaty Principles legislation was polarising. It has not deterred him even though Luxon has made him an Associate Justice Minister with direct responsibility in this area.
Three months in, it is clear his role is much more significant than at first appearances.
Not only is he the Minister of Regulation — a bit of a misnomer as the agency he is setting up is all about stripping out nonsensical regulations.
As an associate minister, he is driving change in education (the rebirth of charter schools and also, and controversially, reassessing the school lunches programme); as an associate for the health portfolio he is reassessing Pharmac, and, as an Associate Finance Minister he has delegated authority for 19 of the StateOwned Enterprises (SOEs) as a shareholding minister alongside Goldsmith.
Seymour has disestablished the Productivity Commission and used its budget to establish the new regulatory agency.
This week, it was confirmed that the Parliamentary Services Commission had appointed Grainne Moss as the interim chief executive for the agency.
Seymour is pleased Moss is in the role. Particularly with her experience in setting up a new agency, Oranga Tamariki, from scratch.
Moss was earlier driven out of that role after media controversy over the children’s agency, but Seymour contends she is a person with high energy, and much earlier criticism was unfair.
It won’t trouble Seymour that the radical transformation agenda he is now driving risks being negatively disintermediated because journalists are affronted by his denigration of their professionalism. Not to mention the personal swipe at a TVNZ colleague, even as New Zealand news media arguably finds itself in the midst of what the New Yorker magazine has famously labelled an “extinction-level event”.
Considerable media coverage of the Government’s agenda has in fact been negative.
Like other ministerial colleagues, he is angered by government-funded players like Professor Joanna Kidman, who lashed out on X, formerly
Twitter, at the Government’s young offenders’ boot camp proposal and plans to cut back the free school lunches programme, questioning: “Is this a Government or a death cult?”.
Seymour’s also had a crack at the Hurricanes Poua’s “redneck” haka, calling it “stupid” and more.
But there is an exquisite irony that Seymour softened his public image and first endeared himself to the public by twerking away on Dancing with the Stars — part of the jeopardised Three network’s arsenal.