If the setting for Act’s campaign launch on Sunday wasn’t enough to make you think it resembled a Trump-style rally, the tagline “Making New Zealand affordable again” certainly might have.
Hundreds of attendees sat on bleachers around a stage at Auckland’s Shed 10, set up almost like a boxing ring for the party’s sold-out AGM.
A large New Zealand flag dominated the backdrop as energetic music pumped through the speaker, welcoming party leader David Seymour onto the stage.
He rattled off nicknames given to every party which had worked in a coalition with Labour – a key message of the rally being to “keep Labour out” and the ways in which the party would unlock the country’s potential.
The party named Nicole McKee as new deputy leader, an unsurprising choice to succeed Brooke van Velden, who had announced her retirement from politics at November’s election.
McKee, who beat out three other caucus colleagues for the role, said she never saw herself becoming deputy leader of a political party. “In fairness, I never really saw myself becoming a politician,” she added.
Meanwhile, Seymour announced the party would campaign on halving the number of government departments, as well as limiting beneficiaries’ spending.
Under its policy, state agencies would shrink in number from 43 to 19, with a corresponding reduction in ministers (from 28 to 18).
It would also get rid of the Public Service Commission and instead allow ministers to appoint department chief executives on fixed-term contracts.
Each department would report to one minister for its budgets and outcomes.
In one example, a Ministry of Justice and Law would take on the current responsibilities of the Ministry of Justice, Department of Corrections, Serious Fraud Office, New Zealand Police, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, National Emergency Management Agency and Office of Treaty Settlements and Takutai Moana.
The Treasury, Department of Conservation, Oranga Tamariki, and ministries of regulation, foreign affairs and trade, and primary industries would remain standalone departments.
“We cannot reach our potential when government and councils together suck up 40 percent of the economy but produce mediocre results and often use our own money to hold us back. To unlock our potential, we must have a smaller, more efficient government,” Seymour told the crowd.
“Making New Zealand affordable again, starting at the top.”
Seymour told reporters after the event the reduction in departments was the party’s “top priority so far”.
When asked whether allowing ministers to directly appoint chief executives amounted to politicising the public service, Seymour responded: “We’ve got to a stage in New Zealand where having a democratically elected person in charge is somehow dirty, and if you put an unelected person in charge, that’s somehow better. We reject that.
“When the Government takes $142 billion of your money, that is political, and the people responsible for spending that money should be politically accountable.”
The party also pledged to put in more control over how those on the Jobseekers benefit could spend their money.
For those on a work-ready benefit for more than four months, their benefit would be paid through a state-run electronic payment card which would limit spending.
It would block its use on alcohol, gambling, tobacco and cash withdrawals.
Seymour also said all health and disability benefits would be independently issued by an MSD-approved doctor.
Some of the policies had been “half implemented” since coming into office, but he questioned why there had been an increase in beneficiaries.
“The Government has not gone far enough. We’re spending $837 million per year on back-to-work schemes, but the progress is meagre, because we’re also spending nearly $25 billion, paying people to stay home.
“The logic is simple: if we want people to work, we need to stop paying them not to work.”
While Seymour started his speech by saying he did not want to talk about Act’s rivals, it appeared he could not resist. There was “Hana Haka Party and Te Pāti Māori”, “Business Class Chlöe from the Greens”, “Cynical Chris Hipkins and the Labour Party”, and “Wily Winnie and New Zealand First”.
“Clever Chris and the National Party” were deemed maybe a “Labour Lite” – at least in the past, Seymour said.
“What we’ve shown is that working with Act, the National Party can actually do the right thing.”
With intermittent chanting from the crowd saying: “Lock Labour out”, Seymour also made sure to remind the crowd it did not stand for “identity politics”.
“We’re sick of starting meetings with ceremonies that most people get nothing from, but are too afraid to question. We’re sick of pretending that some people can be born with special insights that others have to study and work for. Again, the Act Party will be the clearest and bravest party on one law for all and one future together.”
When asked about the inspiration for the event, Seymour said a former staffer, understood to be Maddy Stieva, had organised proceedings. Stieva campaigned for Act in 2017 before moving to Canada where she worked for opposition leader Pierre Poilievre.
What about “the touch of Trump” in the rally? “I think if you look at the seriousness of the policy, the values that we bring, they’re a million miles apart,” Seymour responded.
In the most recent 1News Verian poll, Act had dropped to 6 percent. He acknowledged there had been “perhaps some drop” but said it was not dramatic.
“The Act Party has had its head down, doing the work, while others have been out campaigning.
“From today, guess what folks, we’re out campaigning too, so today is where it starts.”
Correction, 29 June: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Maddy Stieva was an Act Party candidate at the 2017 election, when she was in fact a staffer.
