NZ News
David Seymour questions Christopher Luxon’s loyalty to conservatism ahead of election year
The ACT Party is promising it will put a stop to what its leader says is pattern of past National governments campaigning from the right and governing from the left.
In a sit-down interview with RNZ, ACT’s leader David Seymour talks about the year in review and what people might expect from a National-ACT government if both parties come out on top in next year’s election.
Support for the ACT Party has polled steadily this year, potentially putting it in the prime position of having the numbers the National Party may need to form the next government.
History has shown minor parties can wield a lot of power under New Zealand’s MMP system, as seen in the 2017 coalition arrangement between Labour and New Zealand First.
A ‘circuit-breaker’ promise
Looking ahead to the 2023 Election, Seymour is clear he sees any potential governing partnership between ACT and National as a “much bigger opportunity” for his party to deliver for its own voter base.
He’s concerned National will “babysit” the Labour Party’s ideas, and insists ACT’s role will be ensuring promises to repeal Three Waters and the Māori Health Authority come to bear.
“The lesson from history is crystal clear right from Sid Holland in 1949; he said Labour were applying socialism, destroying the country and then got in and didn’t change a thing. That’s happened another four times with Holyoake in 1960, Muldoon in 1975, Bolger in 1990 and Key in 2008.”
Seymour has appeared more willing to criticise National’s leader Christopher Luxon this year, and now says ACT is needed to hold them to the right of the political spectrum.
“There’s so far nothing to indicate that Chris Luxon will be anything different from the last five incoming National prime ministers who’ve said a lot of very aggressive things about Labour’s policies – but also kept Labour’s politics. The reason you vote ACT is that you don’t think that’s going to be good enough this time,” he says.
“I just make the point that he is, we hope, an incoming National Party prime minister and the last five of them have been utterly consistent in campaigning from the right and governing from the left. ACT is the circuit breaker to that pattern.”
Seymour faces questions from the media. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
In October, Seymour said redefining the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and putting them to a public and binding referendum would be a bottom line in any governing negotiations.
Asked again, he softens his language to say a referendum on co-governance – shared decision making between the Crown and Māori – will be a “top priority”.
“I just think if we can’t get an interpretation of Te Tiriti that is consistent with liberal democracy, then New Zealand is going to have enormous difficulty solving its other problems.”
A ‘proud’ year
ACT grew from a one-man band to a caucus of 10 in the 2022 Election, after a groundswell of support for the party which has in the past relied on National’s endorsement for the Epsom seat.
Since then, polling has showed steady support for ACT: the last 1News Kantar political poll had the party up 2 points to 11 percent of the party vote, which would net them 15 seats.
Summing up 2022 Seymour is “proud”, framing the polling numbers as a reflection on him and his wider team of MPs brought in after the 2020 election.
“It’s enormous progress. To maintain that position is good for us but to maintain it on the strength of a wider team is a massive positive. I think it shows that ACT actually has a lot more to offer than perhaps a lot of people have been prepared to accept even 12 months ago.”
Seymour says his caucus has made enormous progress as a team. Photo: RNZ / Anneke Smith
He says his 2022 highlight is marking one year of the End of Life Choice Act, a member’s bill he shepherded through Parliament rather than take up a ministerial position available in John Key’s government.
“It’s been a real high to see that the people who criticise the bill and forecast doom and gloom, you can’t find them now that the evidence is in that it works and it’s one of the most compassionate and humane things New Zealand lawmakers have done.”
His passionate opposition to co-governance aside, Seymour says his lowlight was witnessing what he describes as attacks on the New Zealand democratic system itself in Parliament: for example, the controversial entrenchment provision against privatisation in Labour’s Three Waters legislation.
“Regardless of what you think about three waters – obviously, we oppose it – this is actually a substantial issue for New Zealand’s whole way of governing that has been really undermined and not treated with the respect it deserves.”
Education a focus for 2023
Seymour is concerned skills aren’t transferring from one generation to the next and says people could expect to see ACT go “much bigger” on education issues next year.
“I think there’s a real risk that we’ll for the first time have a generation less educated than their parents so I think you’ll see a lot more on education; mainly around what sort of attendance and achievement the government demands in return for taxpayer money and how much flexibility educators get to deliver on it.
“Right now, we’re not demanding the results and we’re also not empowering and enabling the teaching profession to actually be a profession that’s respected and has autonomy.”
He says a highly skilled population would be able to solve problems previous generations have not been able to.
Source – RNZ
Latest News
Opportunities to mitigate multi-million-dollar RNZ budget blowout likely missed – experts
Multiple opportunities to identify and mitigate a multi-million-dollar budget blowout at RNZ appear have been missed, according to the former executive director at Audit New Zealand.
The public broadcaster on Monday revealed a near $12 million shock financial loss after a litany of financial blunders, which will now lead to sweeping job cuts.
The $11.8m loss is more than 25 times the $470,000 RNZ had expected to lose over the year to June.
CEO Paul Thompson took responsibility for the result, and said internal reports gave an inaccurate picture of the finances, meaning the scale of the loss only became clear in October.
RNZ’s former chief financial officer Hilary Parker resigned unexpectedly in early October.
The board said it would commission an independent review into what went wrong.
Independent contractor Stephen Walker, who left the Audit Office earlier this year, said the size of the loss was surprising, as was the length of time it took to identify it – months after the financial year ended.
Supplied / OAG
“Probably more of a concern is that they had seemingly been unaware that they were running up a significant deficit until they were in the preparation stage of their annual report in October.”
Walker said public entities typically produced monthly financial reports.
An interim audit also took place before the end of the financial year, he said, but if the organisation hadn’t identified significant losses at that stage, the auditor could also be in the dark.
“It seems that there’s a real weakness in forecasting and budgeting that’s occurred here and that the monthly accounts, when they’re produced, either haven’t identified these significant variances against budget or the magnitude of them really hasn’t come to light until right towards the end of the financial year,” Walker said.
“And really at that point, there’s no opportunity for the chief executive, the leadership team to take, and the board to take, any corrective action because the year has effectively been completed.”
Walker said the “significant miss” was difficult to account for given it was more than 10 percent of RNZ’s total funding.
He said based on RNZ’s annual report, financial complexity didn’t appear to be a factor.
“This $11.8m loss isn’t made up of one particular item … it seems to have been contributed to by a number of separate expense lines running over budget. So I don’t think it’s necessarily to do with complexity.”
Among the errors, RNZ wrongly counted $2m from land sales as income in its budget. Staff costs also came in $3.2m over budget, including $1.4m in redundancy payments.
Professor at Auckland University’s business school Norman Wong said based on media reports the issues identified were “significant and troubling”.
Supplied / University of Auckland
“But recognising the sale of land as income in their budget is a basic error that one would have expected to have been caught and corrected well before it got to this point.”
With funding reductions at RNZ over the past two years, Walker expected greater scrutiny of financial results.
“Virtually every public entity has had their annual budget reduced. And so you would expect … the leadership team on a monthly basis and board – I’m not sure how frequently the board will consider the information – but you would expect them to be interrogating the results on a regular basis throughout the year,” he said.
Walker said initiating an independent review was the correct course of action and that he’d want to understand what information the leadership team and the board were regularly receiving.
He said he’d “love to say” surprising financial results were rare, but conceded they occured on a semi-frequent basis during his time leading the Audit Office.
“The benefit of independent scrutiny by the Audit Office – and the auditors providing that support to the Auditor General – [is] that the reporting is fairly presented at the end of the year, whether it’s good, bad or ugly.”
rnz
Police say person who fired gun at officers still at large
New Zealand sides named for RLWC finals
Parliamentary Service working on extra chairs and offices for increased number of MPs
-
Latest News2 months ago‘Chilling’: Business groups speak out against National’s supermarket break-up plan
-
NZ News2 months agoTom Phillips report: The missed opportunities to find the children
-
Politics2 months agoNational vows to try to split Pak’nSave and New World
-
Latest News2 months agoCars bearing Chinese police markings stir unease in Auckland
-
Fiji News2 months agoPlans to have new Constitution by Dec 24th 2026
-
NZ News2 months agoCop who stole $68,000 can now be named as champion Muay Thai fighter Haimona Tamati-Te Paki
-
Politics2 months agoMBIE confirms botched biometric projects costs blown out to $50.7 million
-
Latest News2 months agoFive Karangahape Road venues lose their liquor licences after police intervention