May 29, 2025 • 19 mins
Act Party leader David Seymour will become New Zealand’s deputy prime minister tomorrow, taking over from Winston Peters.
He will be the 19th person to be the country’s second in command.
First elected to Parliament in 2014 – the last decade and a bit has seen Seymour’s meteoric rise from being his party’s sole MP to now sitting alongside 10 colleagues after Act’s best ever result in the 2023 election.
That result has allowed him to push through big changes around issues like regulation and government spending – but championing legislation such as the Treaty Principles Bill has also made him a lightning rod for controversy and backlash.
Today on The Front Page, Seymour joins us to talk his new role, backlash, regulations – and his thoughts on the opposition.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Kiota.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Presented by the New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
ACT Party leader David Seymour will become a New Zealand's
Deputy Prime Minister tomorrow, taking over from Winston Peters. Will
be the nineteenth person to be the country's second in command.
First elected to Parliament in twenty fourteen, the last decade
and a bit has seen Seymour's meteoric rise from being
(00:35):
his party's sole mpte now sitting alongside ten colleagues after
Act's best ever result in the twenty twenty three election.
That result has allowed him to push through big changes
around issues like regulation and government spending, but championing legislations
such as the Treaty Principles Bill has also made him
a lightning rod for controversy and backlash. Today, on the
(00:59):
Front Page Age, Seymour joins us to talk about his
new role. Backlash has faced, regulations and his thoughts on
the opposition. So, David, this Deputy Prime minister handover has
been on the cards for some time now.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Are you excited about this change?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah? Look, it's one of those things you probably didn't
think would happen in your life, but here we are.
I think it's good for New Zeland. Shows a few
bit quirky, but if your heart's in the right place
and you put in the work, you know it's crowded house,
so you can get somewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
And can you believe it's come around so quickly?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Though?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
As well?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I think it's just one of those times in life
where you know, everything goes at a million miles an hour.
Idea reading on Sunday, kebinet on Monday, caucus on Tuesday,
question time on Wednesday, go campaigning on Thursday, ipsom on Friday,
have Saturday off and rinse and repeat. It's pretty much
what it's been like for the last seventy weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Do you expect this to be a shift in power
in the coalition? Is act in the front seat now
alongside National or has it been kind of a three
way from the get go?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
No? I don't think so. The coalition is a very
respectful one. Everyone has a role to play, everyone has
their own interest. I don't think it's fair to say
that New Zealand First have been in any way leading
actors a larger party, and that has been the case
for the last eighteen months and will be for the
next eighteen months.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Are you happy how the coalitions work together?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah? I think the coalition has been dangerously united. Our
opponents thought it would all fall.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Apart, the Coalition of chaos.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well they said all those things, didn't they, But they
underestimated that even though we're all quite different, we're all
quite committed to trying to dig New Zealand out of
a pretty big hole. And look where the crime race, relations,
cost of living, the healthcare system. I mean, hell, there's
a lot of shoffling to do.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Winston Peters has ruled out working with the Chris Hepkins permanently.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
What about you? Would you roll out working with Hepkins?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Well, the difference is I don't need to say it. Look,
I mean, this is a guy who was the Police
Minister when the crime got out of control. He was
in charge of the COVID response, which speaks for itself.
He was the Minister of Education when kids stopped going
to school on mass and he was the Minister of
(03:14):
Health when the health budget went up sixty percent and
the outcomes got worse. So you know, this guy has
got the opposite of the Midas touch I think they
call him a pooh midas and he's suddenly done some damage.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
So you wouldn't work with him?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Well, no, because that would require him to be working,
and as far as I can see, he doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Is there anyone else that you wouldn't work with that
you'd rule out working with?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I am constantly astonished that our country has a political
party that is named for a race of people that
cast everything in racial terms and is somehow given a
free pass. Funnily enough, the fact that Tiparty Maori held
to a lower standard, not just by other politicians, not
(03:58):
just by the media, but actually by themselves, I think
is really shameful, and we need to start working towards
a vision of New Zealand as a nation of human
beings with hopes and dreams, rather than different collectives sharing
common ancestry and forever divided, which seems to be their
vision of Tonga Tongua Ta Titi are different partners and
(04:23):
on each side of a compact. It's never worked anywhere
in the world, but it's been disastrous where it's gone wrong.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Well, speaking of the Treaty Principal's bill, I mean, I'm
sure you're sick of talking about it.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
But no, no, not at all.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
We haven't had you on since the bill was actually
officially voted down. Are you surprised by how much backlash
there was towards the bill over the last year.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Not at all. We took on a direction in this
country which is toxic and corrosive, but also quite profitable
for a lot of people. If you think about John Tamaheri,
who is behind Toyitu Teti, which is really just the
Maldi party, who makes a huge amount of money through
(05:04):
the ypered Aida Trust. They're a major provider. My experience
of working with him is that he believes that they
should not be accountable for what they deliver on behalf
of the taxpayer, because the treaty elevates them above accountability
to the crown. They're rather a partner to the crown.
I had this whole experience with John Tammaheadak signing up
(05:26):
to run a partnership school or charter school kudahodu call
it what you will, and then trying to renegotiate the
contract at the last minute for no accountability. Now, if
you're a person who believes that you basically are a
parallel state, that you are not accountable to the same
government and crown and taxpayer as everyone else. Then, of course,
(05:47):
when someone comes along with a treaty principal spill that says, hey,
guess what, folks were all equal. You don't like that
very much. And I look at some of those people
who came and gave submissions, know how many of them
are lawyers or advocates advocate casing in a world where
as a treaty partner, some people have different rights from others.
Then I come along and say, guess what, folks, everyone
has equal rights. That will get you a backlash. But
(06:11):
at the end of the day, because a lot of
the opponents were covering for I guess vested interests that
they masqueraded as moral principle, they weren't able to put
forward convincing arguments. And you watch that debate on the
second reading. Yeah, we lost the vote, but we won
the argument because nobody who was against the bill said
(06:33):
the bill says X, I don't believe X, because Y,
I instead believe that New Zealand should be run according
to Z. You didn't hear that X, y Z. You
just heard lots of Haystien rhetoric. On the other hand,
the idea that Parliament has the rights to make laws,
that Parliament and the government have the obligation to uphold
all people's rights and duties, and that all people's rights
(06:55):
and duties are equal. Those three principles weren't No one
laid a glove on them.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Well, we had British philosopher ac Grailing on the podcast
a few weeks ago when he was here for the Writers' Festival.
He said, to treat people equally is not always to
treat them fairly.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
If you had an Olympic athlete who needed five thousand
calories a day and you had a little old lady
who needed fifteen hundred calories a day, and you forced
them to eat the same number of calories let's say
three thousand calories a day each, you're unfair to both.
You're treating them equally, but you're unfair to both. Equity
or fairness is the goal, not just crude equality. However,
(07:36):
equality matters when it comes to what are sometimes called
equality of concern. So people should be treated equally before
the law.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Now, how would you respond to that?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Because I know that act believes the bill promises equal
rights for all new Zealanders.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
But would that still be fair?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Well, I went to see Ac Grayling because I actually
quoted his book Towards the Light of Liberty in my
maiden statement to Parliament, and I was so disappointed with
the speech he gave his I think in the last
ten to fifteen years he's deteriorated from being quite a
principal person to an apologist, which is a real shame
(08:14):
because I quoted him in my speech first speech to Parliament. However,
putting him aside, it's possible to address inequities amongst people
without categorizing us into racial groups. I just give you
one little example. We have recently changed beow cancer screening
from sixty years old for European people and fifty years
(08:35):
old for Mara and Pacific people to just fifty eight
for all people. And why because the data is really
clear people have the same chance of contracting bowl cancer
for any given age, regardless of their ancestry. So not
only are we better targeting need because fifty nine year
olds and fifty eight year olds who are European and
(08:56):
have the same risk now gets access, we are also
removing the sickness of having to partition the population based
on their ancestry. I don't want that aickiness. I just
want to treat each person as a fallow human being
and deal with people based on their actual need rather
than their ancestry.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
There are worse health outcomes though, for Mali and Pacifica
in certain circumstances.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Though, isn't there that is true? But you've said something
that you may not have realized. You've also said that
your preferred lens for partitioning human beings is race. Actually,
there are differences between rich and poor. There are differences
based on education. There are differences based on whether people
choose to spoke crites. There are differences based on dietary
(09:41):
There are so many different ways that you can categorize people.
I just reject choosing one which is quite clumsy, quite icky,
and doesn't actually get us to target the people in
greatest need.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
If we move on to the budget twenty twenty five, now,
it feels like a key message from this budget was
that people need to do more for themselves. So look
at the key we saver change is that seems to
be signaling that people need to do a bit more
for themselves to save for retirement, rather than relying on
the government contributions.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Is that a fair takeaway, Well, it's probably a clarification
of the situation. You see before people were getting the
five hundred and twenty dollars, but it was all being borrowed.
Every extra dollar the government spends at the moment is
part of the deficit, and therefore the Debt Management Office
at the Treasury has to go out to the market
(10:40):
and say, will you loan us some money? Now, sure
it feels like something was being done for you because
you were getting that five hundred and twenty dollars, but
also your future tax bill or money that's not available
for your future healthcare or some other benefit, it was
also being taken away. You may not have heard of
the debt Management officer, Tree's true, but that's where it
(11:01):
was happening. So I think what we've really done, rather
than saying making people more reliant on themselves, we've just
made it more transparent that the government cannot actually solve
as many problems as may have been promised under our predecessors.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
The Regulatory Standards Bill is the next big bill from
the act Party.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
I know, I see you grinning. This is a big
area for you.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
As regulations Minister, it's going through Parliament at the moment.
Can you explain what it is to people who may
have only heard of it in passing?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Sure? Well, go back to our core problem. Why are
we poor? We are compared with Australia, in fact, compared
with most of the Pacific RIM. We are a comparatively
poor country and that hits in so many ways. Only
to go through them all, but it dispirits people. It's
the younger people leaving the country, and particularly when it
comes to housing poverty, you're being able to afford your
(11:57):
own place. So that isn't my view. Our big problem
has two basic kinds of activity. One is taxing and
spending money. So we just talked a bit about that,
and we have a pretty good system for publishing the accounts,
showing people who's responsible for what, and what results are
they getting and how much data are they taking on them.
You may not agree with everything the government does, but
it's pretty easy to find out. It's pretty easy for
(12:18):
the media to report it, pretty easy for voters to
make decisions if they like it or don't like it.
The other thing that the government can do, apart from
taking your money, taxing it and then spending it on stuff.
Is it can make rules for how you use the
property that you still own. Are you what it hasn't taxed?
And I would argue that power of making rules about
who can lend money to who, how you can run
(12:38):
a daycare, how you can develop your property, who can
build a water treatment plant, to build a new subdivision,
whatever it is, those rule making powers, I would argue,
you have a bigger effect on our long term productivity
and prosperity and ultimately how long we live and how
healthy and wealthy we are effect than the government spending money.
(13:02):
I mean, I think this government spending money is important,
but regulating your property is more important. All we're trying
to do with the regulatory standard spill is have a
similar framework where you know, if our government makes a law,
it's got to publish the effects of it on your property,
on your liberties, got to state what problem it was
trying to solve, and why I thought this was the
(13:23):
best solution. It's really just making sure that voters can
start to get a handle on the impact of regulation
as easily as they can on spending.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So how much would the build cost per anim across
an estimated twenty years. I'm sure you saw that reporting
from the Herald last week. It said that it was
twenty million per anim what of officials that the Ministry
of Regulation actually said, well, that's true.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
I mean that's from the Ministry for Regulations analysis. If
you start making the bureaucracy analyze the rules that it's
pushing on people, it'll cost twenty million to do it.
And then the criticism has been well, what will the
benefits of that be? And the truth is, it's very
hard to calculate, but we know that the benefits are
going to be much greater than the cost for the
simple reason that if it's going to cost this much
(14:08):
money just for the bureaucracy to write up and monitor
the rules it's making, imagine the cost of all the
poor buggers out there that have to follow the rules.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Are there many jobs that are going to be like
I can imagine that a lot of consultancy firms and
everything like that making pretty big bank over these kind
of regulatory changes.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Well, I'll just give you one example. I mean that
the estimate of the town planning industry is one point
three billion dollars a year, So to put that in perspective,
that's sixty five times the twenty million we just talked
about just in one area, which is resource management. That
the cost of this red tape and regulation is enormous,
(14:48):
but that's actually a tiny portion of the overall cost
the real cost of that urban planning industry, and my
view is not for the cost for the projects that
go ahead. It's the projects that don't go ahead. And
when pros don't go ahead, there's less supply of housing,
and when there's less supply, the price goes up for
what remains. And so the real cost to a younger
(15:09):
generation of New Zealanders of bad regulation and land use
development make it more expensive to put in place of
water treatment plant, et cetera, is incalculable. So anything we
can do to get some transparency around regulation making I
believe we'll have a major payoff, just basically getting the
country's mojo back and making a few things, especially housing,
more affordable.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
I think, you know, I think New Zealand is a
right to be concerned that democracy will be under threat.
David Seymour's Deputy Prime Ministy doesn't it, ever, so he
doesn't have any respect for basic democratic norms, doesn't have
any respect for the idea that people should ever say
on the law changes that affect them. This government seems
to think that everything can be passed through with no scrutiny,
you know, just ram it through under agency and hope
no one notices. Like cutting the future paychecks of women
(15:53):
who have been claiming pay equity, pushed that through hope
no one notices. And David Seymour is right at the
heart of that, as regulatory rules should apply to everybody
else except for him. Almost everything he does seems to
be exempt from the high principles that he seems to
espouse for other people.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Do you ever feel like people have just got it
in for you because you read comments online? I mean,
you go to a comedy show, you talk to people
in the street, and it feels like a lot of
people are blaming you personally for a lot of tension
that the government faces.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
What do you reckon about that?
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Yeah? I get that. I think there's a couple of
reasons for it. One is that a lot of what
AX proposes is for the government to do less, and
people assume that if we want the government to do less,
it's because we disagree with underlying intention. So, for example,
I look at a minimum wage. I want everyone to
be rich. I want everyone to be paid more. I
(16:49):
just happen to think that the government making a law
saying people have to be paid more is silly. It
can't really work. If it did work, we'd make it
much higher, but it's just kind of a pantomime. We
make it about as high as we can without too
many people getting priced out of having a job at all.
So I think it's a silly law. Then people say, oh, well,
David Seama obviously wants poor people to be paid less. No,
I don't. I just don't think that the solution that
people have cu up with is a very good one.
(17:10):
But people mix it up with the intention simply healthy homes.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I know of people who have homes that they could
be renting out where a person could live, but doesn't.
It's been made illegal to rent it out. They've looked
at the cost of upgrading it to healthy homes, that
they're not doing it, and as a result, people are
actually missing out. So I think healthy homes are silly.
I think people want to go to renovate their homes
as much as they can afford, and when they can
afford to do it, better, they'll do some more. Why
(17:34):
make a law? But people say, oh, well, David Seymour wants,
you know, people to live in drafting No. I don't
want people to live in drafting homes. I just think
the solution. So I think it's a big part of
the problems because we're often opposed to the government's solution.
People think we're opposed to the intention. I think the
other reason is that I don't do conformity. I unashamably
o me. I'm quirky, I am going to I believe
(17:57):
I have a good heart and I work hard, but
I'm going to be myself and I'm not going to apologize.
And I think in New Zealand, you know, that's a
dangerous way to be because sometimes one of the things
I don't like so much about our culture, which I
mostly love, is that we tend to value conformity over truth.
And I don't do conformity for the sake of it. Plus,
as a bonus, I'm actually providing a huge public service
(18:19):
because I am providing the left and the losers and
many in the media, and sometimes I repeat myself with
something they desperately need after their election loss, and that
is someone to blame. You're welcome And.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Finally, David, you're going to be Deputy PM. As we
head into the next election, are you in planning more
for twenty twenty six yet?
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Well both, I mean you start planning for the next
election a day after the election. That's just the reality
of what they call the continuous campaign. However, it's also
true that take the job really seriously. Are going to
be a good deputy for christ and for New Zealand.
And I think one of the best things I can
do for the next election as show people that if
(19:02):
you like X ideas, you also have competent operators that
you can work with.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Thanks for joining us, David.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and tune in on Monday for another
look behind the headlines.
Kiota.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Presented by the New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
ACT Party leader David Seymour will become a New Zealand's
Deputy Prime Minister tomorrow, taking over from Winston Peters. Will
be the nineteenth person to be the country's second in command.
First elected to Parliament in twenty fourteen, the last decade
and a bit has seen Seymour's meteoric rise from being
(00:35):
his party's sole mpte now sitting alongside ten colleagues after
Act's best ever result in the twenty twenty three election.
That result has allowed him to push through big changes
around issues like regulation and government spending, but championing legislations
such as the Treaty Principles Bill has also made him
a lightning rod for controversy and backlash. Today, on the
(00:59):
Front Page Age, Seymour joins us to talk about his
new role. Backlash has faced, regulations and his thoughts on
the opposition. So, David, this Deputy Prime minister handover has
been on the cards for some time now.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Are you excited about this change?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah? Look, it's one of those things you probably didn't
think would happen in your life, but here we are.
I think it's good for New Zeland. Shows a few
bit quirky, but if your heart's in the right place
and you put in the work, you know it's crowded house,
so you can get somewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
And can you believe it's come around so quickly?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Though?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
As well?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I think it's just one of those times in life
where you know, everything goes at a million miles an hour.
Idea reading on Sunday, kebinet on Monday, caucus on Tuesday,
question time on Wednesday, go campaigning on Thursday, ipsom on Friday,
have Saturday off and rinse and repeat. It's pretty much
what it's been like for the last seventy weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Do you expect this to be a shift in power
in the coalition? Is act in the front seat now
alongside National or has it been kind of a three
way from the get go?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
No? I don't think so. The coalition is a very
respectful one. Everyone has a role to play, everyone has
their own interest. I don't think it's fair to say
that New Zealand First have been in any way leading
actors a larger party, and that has been the case
for the last eighteen months and will be for the
next eighteen months.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Are you happy how the coalitions work together?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah? I think the coalition has been dangerously united. Our
opponents thought it would all fall.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Apart, the Coalition of chaos.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well they said all those things, didn't they, But they
underestimated that even though we're all quite different, we're all
quite committed to trying to dig New Zealand out of
a pretty big hole. And look where the crime race, relations,
cost of living, the healthcare system. I mean, hell, there's
a lot of shoffling to do.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Winston Peters has ruled out working with the Chris Hepkins permanently.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
What about you? Would you roll out working with Hepkins?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Well, the difference is I don't need to say it. Look,
I mean, this is a guy who was the Police
Minister when the crime got out of control. He was
in charge of the COVID response, which speaks for itself.
He was the Minister of Education when kids stopped going
to school on mass and he was the Minister of
(03:14):
Health when the health budget went up sixty percent and
the outcomes got worse. So you know, this guy has
got the opposite of the Midas touch I think they
call him a pooh midas and he's suddenly done some damage.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
So you wouldn't work with him?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Well, no, because that would require him to be working,
and as far as I can see, he doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Is there anyone else that you wouldn't work with that
you'd rule out working with?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I am constantly astonished that our country has a political
party that is named for a race of people that
cast everything in racial terms and is somehow given a
free pass. Funnily enough, the fact that Tiparty Maori held
to a lower standard, not just by other politicians, not
(03:58):
just by the media, but actually by themselves, I think
is really shameful, and we need to start working towards
a vision of New Zealand as a nation of human
beings with hopes and dreams, rather than different collectives sharing
common ancestry and forever divided, which seems to be their
vision of Tonga Tongua Ta Titi are different partners and
(04:23):
on each side of a compact. It's never worked anywhere
in the world, but it's been disastrous where it's gone wrong.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Well, speaking of the Treaty Principal's bill, I mean, I'm
sure you're sick of talking about it.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
But no, no, not at all.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
We haven't had you on since the bill was actually
officially voted down. Are you surprised by how much backlash
there was towards the bill over the last year.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Not at all. We took on a direction in this
country which is toxic and corrosive, but also quite profitable
for a lot of people. If you think about John Tamaheri,
who is behind Toyitu Teti, which is really just the
Maldi party, who makes a huge amount of money through
(05:04):
the ypered Aida Trust. They're a major provider. My experience
of working with him is that he believes that they
should not be accountable for what they deliver on behalf
of the taxpayer, because the treaty elevates them above accountability
to the crown. They're rather a partner to the crown.
I had this whole experience with John Tammaheadak signing up
(05:26):
to run a partnership school or charter school kudahodu call
it what you will, and then trying to renegotiate the
contract at the last minute for no accountability. Now, if
you're a person who believes that you basically are a
parallel state, that you are not accountable to the same
government and crown and taxpayer as everyone else. Then, of course,
(05:47):
when someone comes along with a treaty principal spill that says, hey,
guess what, folks were all equal. You don't like that
very much. And I look at some of those people
who came and gave submissions, know how many of them
are lawyers or advocates advocate casing in a world where
as a treaty partner, some people have different rights from others.
Then I come along and say, guess what, folks, everyone
has equal rights. That will get you a backlash. But
(06:11):
at the end of the day, because a lot of
the opponents were covering for I guess vested interests that
they masqueraded as moral principle, they weren't able to put
forward convincing arguments. And you watch that debate on the
second reading. Yeah, we lost the vote, but we won
the argument because nobody who was against the bill said
(06:33):
the bill says X, I don't believe X, because Y,
I instead believe that New Zealand should be run according
to Z. You didn't hear that X, y Z. You
just heard lots of Haystien rhetoric. On the other hand,
the idea that Parliament has the rights to make laws,
that Parliament and the government have the obligation to uphold
all people's rights and duties, and that all people's rights
(06:55):
and duties are equal. Those three principles weren't No one
laid a glove on them.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Well, we had British philosopher ac Grailing on the podcast
a few weeks ago when he was here for the Writers' Festival.
He said, to treat people equally is not always to
treat them fairly.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
If you had an Olympic athlete who needed five thousand
calories a day and you had a little old lady
who needed fifteen hundred calories a day, and you forced
them to eat the same number of calories let's say
three thousand calories a day each, you're unfair to both.
You're treating them equally, but you're unfair to both. Equity
or fairness is the goal, not just crude equality. However,
(07:36):
equality matters when it comes to what are sometimes called
equality of concern. So people should be treated equally before
the law.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Now, how would you respond to that?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Because I know that act believes the bill promises equal
rights for all new Zealanders.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
But would that still be fair?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Well, I went to see Ac Grayling because I actually
quoted his book Towards the Light of Liberty in my
maiden statement to Parliament, and I was so disappointed with
the speech he gave his I think in the last
ten to fifteen years he's deteriorated from being quite a
principal person to an apologist, which is a real shame
(08:14):
because I quoted him in my speech first speech to Parliament. However,
putting him aside, it's possible to address inequities amongst people
without categorizing us into racial groups. I just give you
one little example. We have recently changed beow cancer screening
from sixty years old for European people and fifty years
(08:35):
old for Mara and Pacific people to just fifty eight
for all people. And why because the data is really
clear people have the same chance of contracting bowl cancer
for any given age, regardless of their ancestry. So not
only are we better targeting need because fifty nine year
olds and fifty eight year olds who are European and
(08:56):
have the same risk now gets access, we are also
removing the sickness of having to partition the population based
on their ancestry. I don't want that aickiness. I just
want to treat each person as a fallow human being
and deal with people based on their actual need rather
than their ancestry.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
There are worse health outcomes though, for Mali and Pacifica
in certain circumstances.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Though, isn't there that is true? But you've said something
that you may not have realized. You've also said that
your preferred lens for partitioning human beings is race. Actually,
there are differences between rich and poor. There are differences
based on education. There are differences based on whether people
choose to spoke crites. There are differences based on dietary
(09:41):
There are so many different ways that you can categorize people.
I just reject choosing one which is quite clumsy, quite icky,
and doesn't actually get us to target the people in
greatest need.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
If we move on to the budget twenty twenty five, now,
it feels like a key message from this budget was
that people need to do more for themselves. So look
at the key we saver change is that seems to
be signaling that people need to do a bit more
for themselves to save for retirement, rather than relying on
the government contributions.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Is that a fair takeaway, Well, it's probably a clarification
of the situation. You see before people were getting the
five hundred and twenty dollars, but it was all being borrowed.
Every extra dollar the government spends at the moment is
part of the deficit, and therefore the Debt Management Office
at the Treasury has to go out to the market
(10:40):
and say, will you loan us some money? Now, sure
it feels like something was being done for you because
you were getting that five hundred and twenty dollars, but
also your future tax bill or money that's not available
for your future healthcare or some other benefit, it was
also being taken away. You may not have heard of
the debt Management officer, Tree's true, but that's where it
(11:01):
was happening. So I think what we've really done, rather
than saying making people more reliant on themselves, we've just
made it more transparent that the government cannot actually solve
as many problems as may have been promised under our predecessors.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
The Regulatory Standards Bill is the next big bill from
the act Party.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
I know, I see you grinning. This is a big
area for you.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
As regulations Minister, it's going through Parliament at the moment.
Can you explain what it is to people who may
have only heard of it in passing?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Sure? Well, go back to our core problem. Why are
we poor? We are compared with Australia, in fact, compared
with most of the Pacific RIM. We are a comparatively
poor country and that hits in so many ways. Only
to go through them all, but it dispirits people. It's
the younger people leaving the country, and particularly when it
comes to housing poverty, you're being able to afford your
(11:57):
own place. So that isn't my view. Our big problem
has two basic kinds of activity. One is taxing and
spending money. So we just talked a bit about that,
and we have a pretty good system for publishing the accounts,
showing people who's responsible for what, and what results are
they getting and how much data are they taking on them.
You may not agree with everything the government does, but
it's pretty easy to find out. It's pretty easy for
(12:18):
the media to report it, pretty easy for voters to
make decisions if they like it or don't like it.
The other thing that the government can do, apart from
taking your money, taxing it and then spending it on stuff.
Is it can make rules for how you use the
property that you still own. Are you what it hasn't taxed?
And I would argue that power of making rules about
who can lend money to who, how you can run
(12:38):
a daycare, how you can develop your property, who can
build a water treatment plant, to build a new subdivision,
whatever it is, those rule making powers, I would argue,
you have a bigger effect on our long term productivity
and prosperity and ultimately how long we live and how
healthy and wealthy we are effect than the government spending money.
(13:02):
I mean, I think this government spending money is important,
but regulating your property is more important. All we're trying
to do with the regulatory standard spill is have a
similar framework where you know, if our government makes a law,
it's got to publish the effects of it on your property,
on your liberties, got to state what problem it was
trying to solve, and why I thought this was the
(13:23):
best solution. It's really just making sure that voters can
start to get a handle on the impact of regulation
as easily as they can on spending.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So how much would the build cost per anim across
an estimated twenty years. I'm sure you saw that reporting
from the Herald last week. It said that it was
twenty million per anim what of officials that the Ministry
of Regulation actually said, well, that's true.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
I mean that's from the Ministry for Regulations analysis. If
you start making the bureaucracy analyze the rules that it's
pushing on people, it'll cost twenty million to do it.
And then the criticism has been well, what will the
benefits of that be? And the truth is, it's very
hard to calculate, but we know that the benefits are
going to be much greater than the cost for the
simple reason that if it's going to cost this much
(14:08):
money just for the bureaucracy to write up and monitor
the rules it's making, imagine the cost of all the
poor buggers out there that have to follow the rules.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Are there many jobs that are going to be like
I can imagine that a lot of consultancy firms and
everything like that making pretty big bank over these kind
of regulatory changes.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Well, I'll just give you one example. I mean that
the estimate of the town planning industry is one point
three billion dollars a year, So to put that in perspective,
that's sixty five times the twenty million we just talked
about just in one area, which is resource management. That
the cost of this red tape and regulation is enormous,
(14:48):
but that's actually a tiny portion of the overall cost
the real cost of that urban planning industry, and my
view is not for the cost for the projects that
go ahead. It's the projects that don't go ahead. And
when pros don't go ahead, there's less supply of housing,
and when there's less supply, the price goes up for
what remains. And so the real cost to a younger
(15:09):
generation of New Zealanders of bad regulation and land use
development make it more expensive to put in place of
water treatment plant, et cetera, is incalculable. So anything we
can do to get some transparency around regulation making I
believe we'll have a major payoff, just basically getting the
country's mojo back and making a few things, especially housing,
more affordable.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
I think, you know, I think New Zealand is a
right to be concerned that democracy will be under threat.
David Seymour's Deputy Prime Ministy doesn't it, ever, so he
doesn't have any respect for basic democratic norms, doesn't have
any respect for the idea that people should ever say
on the law changes that affect them. This government seems
to think that everything can be passed through with no scrutiny,
you know, just ram it through under agency and hope
no one notices. Like cutting the future paychecks of women
(15:53):
who have been claiming pay equity, pushed that through hope
no one notices. And David Seymour is right at the
heart of that, as regulatory rules should apply to everybody
else except for him. Almost everything he does seems to
be exempt from the high principles that he seems to
espouse for other people.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Do you ever feel like people have just got it
in for you because you read comments online? I mean,
you go to a comedy show, you talk to people
in the street, and it feels like a lot of
people are blaming you personally for a lot of tension
that the government faces.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
What do you reckon about that?
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Yeah? I get that. I think there's a couple of
reasons for it. One is that a lot of what
AX proposes is for the government to do less, and
people assume that if we want the government to do less,
it's because we disagree with underlying intention. So, for example,
I look at a minimum wage. I want everyone to
be rich. I want everyone to be paid more. I
(16:49):
just happen to think that the government making a law
saying people have to be paid more is silly. It
can't really work. If it did work, we'd make it
much higher, but it's just kind of a pantomime. We
make it about as high as we can without too
many people getting priced out of having a job at all.
So I think it's a silly law. Then people say, oh, well,
David Seama obviously wants poor people to be paid less. No,
I don't. I just don't think that the solution that
people have cu up with is a very good one.
(17:10):
But people mix it up with the intention simply healthy homes.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I know of people who have homes that they could
be renting out where a person could live, but doesn't.
It's been made illegal to rent it out. They've looked
at the cost of upgrading it to healthy homes, that
they're not doing it, and as a result, people are
actually missing out. So I think healthy homes are silly.
I think people want to go to renovate their homes
as much as they can afford, and when they can
afford to do it, better, they'll do some more. Why
(17:34):
make a law? But people say, oh, well, David Seymour wants,
you know, people to live in drafting No. I don't
want people to live in drafting homes. I just think
the solution. So I think it's a big part of
the problems because we're often opposed to the government's solution.
People think we're opposed to the intention. I think the
other reason is that I don't do conformity. I unashamably
o me. I'm quirky, I am going to I believe
(17:57):
I have a good heart and I work hard, but
I'm going to be myself and I'm not going to apologize.
And I think in New Zealand, you know, that's a
dangerous way to be because sometimes one of the things
I don't like so much about our culture, which I
mostly love, is that we tend to value conformity over truth.
And I don't do conformity for the sake of it. Plus,
as a bonus, I'm actually providing a huge public service
(18:19):
because I am providing the left and the losers and
many in the media, and sometimes I repeat myself with
something they desperately need after their election loss, and that
is someone to blame. You're welcome And.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Finally, David, you're going to be Deputy PM. As we
head into the next election, are you in planning more
for twenty twenty six yet?
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Well both, I mean you start planning for the next
election a day after the election. That's just the reality
of what they call the continuous campaign. However, it's also
true that take the job really seriously. Are going to
be a good deputy for christ and for New Zealand.
And I think one of the best things I can
do for the next election as show people that if
(19:02):
you like X ideas, you also have competent operators that
you can work with.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Thanks for joining us, David.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and tune in on Monday for another
look behind the headlines.
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