September 28, 2025 • 6 mins
The Act Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister has his say on Ecan, Paris and Palestine.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
David Seymour was the Act Party leaders. Today we're going
to talk about e Can, Paris and Palestine. David, let's
start with mid Canterbury. You visited there last week for
reality check, which included meeting with some frustrated farmers, including
David Clark. You were quoted as saying it seems we
are in a republic of Ecan where citizens are very
(00:22):
much under yoke and not happy.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, first of it, I just say, actually it was
a good reality check. It was uplifting. We had a
great public meeting there in Ashburton and most of the
people I met were really upbeat and positive. Good prices
are helpful. The one fly in that particular appointment was
I felt there was almost a civil war going on
(00:46):
between e Can and the rest of Canterbury. In fact,
even the local Ashburn District Council was against the Canterbury
Regional Council and it spoke to the need for change,
which I believe the is delivering with new resource management laws.
But even in the interim, the pressure people are under
(01:07):
is quite severe and it seems that while I understand,
of course the council has to follow the law and
enforced laws that exist when it comes to prioritization. If anything,
they seem to be doing as much enforcement as possible
before the law changes, instead of dialing it back and saying, look,
the law's going to change soon anyway, so maybe we
(01:28):
can relax a little.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Do you support Shane Jones's call to get rid of
regional councils?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, potentially the answer in relation to ECAN may well
be to simply punch out the city and have a
predominantly rural voter base setting the priorities. At the moment,
the council is largely elected by christ Church, Its activities
(01:54):
are largely regulating the region, and so the people who
are regulated don't actually we have much of a say
numerically when it comes to vote. However, the people who
are voting and majority don't actually have the concerns of
the people being regulated. So there may be a simplest solution.
Of course, the answer. The other answer is to make
(02:15):
every council unitary, But then you do run into some
issues that sometimes water catchments and so on flow across
those boundaries, so it may not be as simple as
just get rid of them. It may be that it's
better to get a giant whole punch and take Christch
out of the middle. You can make similar arguments for Parmeston,
Orphan horizons, toned in Otago and so on.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
You and Winston don't agree on that much, let's be
honest about it. But it seems to me that you
agree on Paris and Palestine.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, I mean, you know, we've been pretty consistent on
Paris and been pretty consistent on the zero carbon acts,
which you know we can point to an honest record
of having a posed all along. It seems that they
are on the same page as us for now, so
we'll take that. In terms of the Palestine issue. It's
(03:04):
actually our whole government has taken a view that I
think is the right one. And the thing that's really
surprised me as the breadths of feeling the number of people,
sometimes unexpected, who have not seen anything about this before,
but they've said, we're really pleased, we're proud to the
New Zealanders. I think what people thought was that because
(03:27):
there's a lot of the usual suspects jumping up and down,
making them all is virtue signaling and moralizing, that the
government would just buckle. Well, actually we haven't. We've thought
for ourselves and it's a triumph of reason and logic
over emotion in the mob. And that is something I
think a lot of New Zealanders have been waiting for,
even if the particular issue doesn't have an everyday impact
(03:50):
on them.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
We live in a democracy, so you are allowed division
around the cabinet table. There are, obviously while some around Palestine.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well I wouldn't say it's obvious, but you know how
the old saying goes first rule of the fight club
as you don't talk about fight club, and it's the
same with cabinet. You know, once we make a decision,
we all hang together.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Was Winston running the cutter on that decision?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Well, again, I'm not going to get into what goes
on in cabinet. One of the rules of cabinet is
that we don't make that decision. I just make the
point that this is a position that the whole cabinet
has signed up to. Winston is the person who made
the announcement, but it's really a government position.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
So Winston Peters did say, and I agree with him
on this, he's not going to recognize or we aren't
going to recognize Palestine until this peace. And obviously are.
There are issues and fault on both sides of this argument,
But as long as Hamas is running the cutter, do
we want to recognize that?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, Well, I've said that, Chris Luckson said that, Winston
said that. So it's a government position. And I think
one of the thing about this decision, besides the issue itself,
which is a horrible situation. No one's denying that, but
it's shown a couple of things. One is that the
coalition can work well together and be united on an issue.
(05:13):
We've certainly shown that. And second of all, we've shown
that actually, sometimes when something's really terrible, the right thing
to do is to use reason and logic, to think
for yourself, not be ruled by emotion and the mob.
And I think there's a lot of quiet approval for
that approach. Imagine if it caught on, what else we
could achieve in the country.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
I'm looking forward to your earthquake announcement this afternoon. Will
the earth move for me? Metaphorically?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Well, it's not my announcement, it's Chris Pens and I
think he's done good work on it. But all I'd
say is that I was the only one to oppose
these crazy earthquake rules. You look at places like oh
amrou the costs that have been put on the abandoned
buildings in the main streets of provincial New Zealand. It
was a crazy rule. I voted against it, one vote
(05:59):
versus one hundred and nineteen some nine years ago and
it's taken a while, but were subsequently one another election
formed a new government and there's going to be a
massive return to sanity, as has been reported in the
Post this morning, saving billions of dollars from just having
a basic reason to logical approach. None of us is hard.
(06:21):
We're just starting to do a little bit of it
and I'll be particularly pleased for all those people. I'm
just sorry that there was only one of me and
I couldn't stop it. Nine years ago. We could have
saved billions of dollars, but we got there.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
And you and Winston Ale besties. Hey David Seymour, thanks
for your time on the country.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, not aware. You have a great day.
David Seymour was the Act Party leaders. Today we're going
to talk about e Can, Paris and Palestine. David, let's
start with mid Canterbury. You visited there last week for
reality check, which included meeting with some frustrated farmers, including
David Clark. You were quoted as saying it seems we
are in a republic of Ecan where citizens are very
(00:22):
much under yoke and not happy.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, first of it, I just say, actually it was
a good reality check. It was uplifting. We had a
great public meeting there in Ashburton and most of the
people I met were really upbeat and positive. Good prices
are helpful. The one fly in that particular appointment was
I felt there was almost a civil war going on
(00:46):
between e Can and the rest of Canterbury. In fact,
even the local Ashburn District Council was against the Canterbury
Regional Council and it spoke to the need for change,
which I believe the is delivering with new resource management laws.
But even in the interim, the pressure people are under
(01:07):
is quite severe and it seems that while I understand,
of course the council has to follow the law and
enforced laws that exist when it comes to prioritization. If anything,
they seem to be doing as much enforcement as possible
before the law changes, instead of dialing it back and saying, look,
the law's going to change soon anyway, so maybe we
(01:28):
can relax a little.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Do you support Shane Jones's call to get rid of
regional councils?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, potentially the answer in relation to ECAN may well
be to simply punch out the city and have a
predominantly rural voter base setting the priorities. At the moment,
the council is largely elected by christ Church, Its activities
(01:54):
are largely regulating the region, and so the people who
are regulated don't actually we have much of a say
numerically when it comes to vote. However, the people who
are voting and majority don't actually have the concerns of
the people being regulated. So there may be a simplest solution.
Of course, the answer. The other answer is to make
(02:15):
every council unitary, But then you do run into some
issues that sometimes water catchments and so on flow across
those boundaries, so it may not be as simple as
just get rid of them. It may be that it's
better to get a giant whole punch and take Christch
out of the middle. You can make similar arguments for Parmeston,
Orphan horizons, toned in Otago and so on.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
You and Winston don't agree on that much, let's be
honest about it. But it seems to me that you
agree on Paris and Palestine.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, I mean, you know, we've been pretty consistent on
Paris and been pretty consistent on the zero carbon acts,
which you know we can point to an honest record
of having a posed all along. It seems that they
are on the same page as us for now, so
we'll take that. In terms of the Palestine issue. It's
(03:04):
actually our whole government has taken a view that I
think is the right one. And the thing that's really
surprised me as the breadths of feeling the number of people,
sometimes unexpected, who have not seen anything about this before,
but they've said, we're really pleased, we're proud to the
New Zealanders. I think what people thought was that because
(03:27):
there's a lot of the usual suspects jumping up and down,
making them all is virtue signaling and moralizing, that the
government would just buckle. Well, actually we haven't. We've thought
for ourselves and it's a triumph of reason and logic
over emotion in the mob. And that is something I
think a lot of New Zealanders have been waiting for,
even if the particular issue doesn't have an everyday impact
(03:50):
on them.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
We live in a democracy, so you are allowed division
around the cabinet table. There are, obviously while some around Palestine.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well I wouldn't say it's obvious, but you know how
the old saying goes first rule of the fight club
as you don't talk about fight club, and it's the
same with cabinet. You know, once we make a decision,
we all hang together.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Was Winston running the cutter on that decision?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Well, again, I'm not going to get into what goes
on in cabinet. One of the rules of cabinet is
that we don't make that decision. I just make the
point that this is a position that the whole cabinet
has signed up to. Winston is the person who made
the announcement, but it's really a government position.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
So Winston Peters did say, and I agree with him
on this, he's not going to recognize or we aren't
going to recognize Palestine until this peace. And obviously are.
There are issues and fault on both sides of this argument,
But as long as Hamas is running the cutter, do
we want to recognize that?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, Well, I've said that, Chris Luckson said that, Winston
said that. So it's a government position. And I think
one of the thing about this decision, besides the issue itself,
which is a horrible situation. No one's denying that, but
it's shown a couple of things. One is that the
coalition can work well together and be united on an issue.
(05:13):
We've certainly shown that. And second of all, we've shown
that actually, sometimes when something's really terrible, the right thing
to do is to use reason and logic, to think
for yourself, not be ruled by emotion and the mob.
And I think there's a lot of quiet approval for
that approach. Imagine if it caught on, what else we
could achieve in the country.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
I'm looking forward to your earthquake announcement this afternoon. Will
the earth move for me? Metaphorically?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Well, it's not my announcement, it's Chris Pens and I
think he's done good work on it. But all I'd
say is that I was the only one to oppose
these crazy earthquake rules. You look at places like oh
amrou the costs that have been put on the abandoned
buildings in the main streets of provincial New Zealand. It
was a crazy rule. I voted against it, one vote
(05:59):
versus one hundred and nineteen some nine years ago and
it's taken a while, but were subsequently one another election
formed a new government and there's going to be a
massive return to sanity, as has been reported in the
Post this morning, saving billions of dollars from just having
a basic reason to logical approach. None of us is hard.
(06:21):
We're just starting to do a little bit of it
and I'll be particularly pleased for all those people. I'm
just sorry that there was only one of me and
I couldn't stop it. Nine years ago. We could have
saved billions of dollars, but we got there.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
And you and Winston Ale besties. Hey David Seymour, thanks
for your time on the country.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, not aware. You have a great day.
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