Reissue: David Seymour talks Opposition, regulation and backlash as he becomes Deputy Prime Minister
January 7, 2026 • 20 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
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Kyota at Chelsea Daniels here, host of the Front Page.
We're taking a week breakover summer, but to help build
the gap, we're re issuing some of our most significant
episodes of twenty twenty five on behalf of the Front
Page team. Thanks for listening and we look forward to
being back with you on January twelfth, twenty twenty six. Kiyota,
(00:43):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. 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
(01:06):
elected to Parliament in twenty fourteen, the last decade and
a bit has seen Seymour's meteoric rise from being his
party's sole mpte and 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
(01:30):
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 about his new role,
backlash has faced regulations and his thoughts on the opposition. So, David,
(01:50):
this deputy Prime minister handover has been on the cards
for some time now.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Are you excited about this change? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
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 Zealand. Shows the 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 2 (02:09):
And can you believe it's come around so quickly?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Though?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
As well?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
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, Cabinet on Monday, Caucus on Tuesday,
question time on Wednesday, go campaigning on Thursday, EPSOM on Friday,
have Saturday often, rinse and repeat, and it's pretty much
what it's been like for the last seventy weeks.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Do you expect this to be a shift in power
in the coalition? Is actor in the front seat now
alongside National or has it been kind of a three
way from the get go.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
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
act as a larger party, and that has been the
case for the last eighteen months and will be for
the next eighteen months.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Are you happy how the coalitions work together?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah? I think the coalition has been dangerously united. Our
opponents thought it would all fall apart.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
The Coalition of chaos.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
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, relation,
the cost of living, the healthcare system. I mean, hell,
there's a lot of shuffling to do.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Winston Peters has ruled out working with the Chris Hepkins permanently.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
What about you? Would you roll out working with Hepkins?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
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
(03:52):
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 2 (04:04):
So you wouldn't work with him, Well, no.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Because that would require him to be working, and as
far as I can see, he doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Is there anyone else that you wouldn't work with that
you'd roll out working with?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I am constantly astonished that our country has a political
party that is named for a race of people, that
casts everything in racial terms and is somehow given a
free pass. Funnily enough, the fact that Tiparty Maori are
held to a lower standard, not just by other politicians,
(04:36):
not 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
share and common ancestry and forever divided, which seems to
be their vision of Tongua ten Tonguai are different partners
(05:00):
and on each side of a compact, and it's never
worked anywhere in the world, but it's been disastrous where
it's gone wrong.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Well, speaking of the Treaty Principal's Bill, I mean, I'm
sure you're sick of talking about it.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
But no, not at all.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
We haven't had you on since the bill was actually
officially voted down. Are you surprised by how much backlashed
there was towards the bill over the last year?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
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 Tomaherti,
who is behind Toyitu, which is really just the Maori party,
who makes a huge amount of money through the wiper
(05:43):
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
tax payer, 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 Tomahera signing up to
(06:04):
run a partnership school or charter school kudahodua 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, when
(06:25):
someone comes along with a treaty principal's bill 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, advocating 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
(06:48):
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
(07:11):
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 haste and rhetoric. On the other hand,
the idea that Parliament has the rights to make laws,
that Parliament and the government of the obligation to uphold
all people's rights and duties, and that all people's rights
(07:33):
and duties are equal. Those three principles worth. No one
laid a glove on them.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Well. We had British philosopher Ac Grayling 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 (07:50):
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,
(08:14):
equality matters when it comes to what are sometimes called
it equality of concern. So people should be treated equally
before the law.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Now, how would you respond to that?
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Because I know that Act believes the Bill promises equal
rights for all New Zealanders, but would that still be fair?
Speaker 5 (08:31):
Well?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
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 because
(08:52):
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 balcancer screening from
sixty years old for European people and fifty years old
(09:13):
for mari 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 have
(09:34):
the same risk now gets access, we are also removing
the ickiness of having to partition the population based on
their ancestry. I don't want that ackiness. I just want
to treat each person as a fellow human being and
deal with people based on their actual need rather than
their ancestry.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
There are worse health outcomes though, for multi and PACIFICA
in certain circumstances.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
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 so it's There are differences based on
(10:19):
dietary There are so many different ways that you can
categorize people. I just reject choosing one, which is quite clumsy,
quite iicky, and doesn't actually get us to target the
people in greatest need.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
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.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Do more for themselves.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
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 (10:57):
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
(11:17):
and say will you loan 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 was also being
taken away. You may not have heard of the Debt
Management Office at Treasury, but that's where it was happening.
(11:39):
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 1 (11:56):
The Regulatory Standards Bill is the next big bill from
the Act Party. I know, I see you grinning. This
is a big area for you 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 (12:13):
Sure? Well, go back to our core problem. Why are
we poor? We are compared with Australia, in fact, can
compaired with most of the specific 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 these younger people leaving the country and particularly when
it comes to housing poverty, you're being able to afford
(12:34):
your own place. So that isn't my view, our big problem.
The government 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 debt are
they taking on them. You may not agree with everything
the government does, but it's pretty easy to find out.
(12:55):
It's pretty easy for 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.
Ah you what it hasn't taxed. And I would argue
that power of making rules about who can lend money
(13:15):
to who, how you can run 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,
(13:37):
a bigger effect than the government spending money. 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. It's got to state what problem it
(13:59):
was trying to solve and why I thought this was
the 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 1 (14:10):
So how much would the build cost per animal cross
an estimated twenty years? I'm sure you saw that reporting
from the Herald last week It said that it was
twenty million per annam. What have officials at the Ministry
of Regulation actually said.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Well, that's true, and 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
(14:46):
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 1 (14:54):
Are there many jobs that are going to be Like
I can imagine that it's a lot of consultancy firms
and everything like that making pretty big bank over the
over these kind of regulatory changes.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Well, let's 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,
(15:26):
but that 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 projects 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
(15:47):
generation of New Zealanders of bad regulation and land use
development make it more expensive to put in place of
water treatment plart 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 (16:08):
I think, you know, I think New Zealand has a
right to be concerned that democracy will be under threat.
David Symour is Deputy Prime Ministy.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Doesn't the episode.
Speaker 5 (16:15):
He doesn't have any respect for basic democratic norms in
any respect, to the idea that people should never 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
who have been claiming pay equity. Push that through, hope
no one notices. And David Seymour is right at the
(16:36):
heart of that. He thinks regulatory rules should apply to
everybody else except for him. Almost everything he does seems
to be exempt from the higher principles that he seems
to espouse for other people.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
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 2 (17:05):
What do you reckon about that?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Yeah, I get that. I think there's a couple of
reasons for it. One is that a lot of what
X 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
(17:27):
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 lest No,
I don't. I just don't think that the solution that
people have cu up with is a very good one.
(17:48):
But people mix it up with the intention simply healthy homes.
You know, 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 kind of renovate their homes
(18:09):
as much as they can afford, and when they can
afford to do it better, they'll do some more. Why
make a law, But people say, oh, well, David Seymour wants,
you know, people to live in drafty 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 unashamably or me.
(18:32):
I'm quirky. I am going to I believe over 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
(18:54):
a bonus, I'm actually providing a huge public service 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.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
And finally, David, you're going to be Deputy PM as
we head into the next election.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Are you in planning more for twenty twenty six yet?
Speaker 5 (19:19):
Well?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
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. I got 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 is show people that if you
(19:40):
like X ideas, you also have competent operators that you
can work with.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Thanks for joining us, David.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzadherld dot co, dot z. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front
Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
(20:13):
tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.
Kyota at Chelsea Daniels here, host of the Front Page.
We're taking a week breakover summer, but to help build
the gap, we're re issuing some of our most significant
episodes of twenty twenty five on behalf of the Front
Page team. Thanks for listening and we look forward to
being back with you on January twelfth, twenty twenty six. Kiyota,
(00:43):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. 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
(01:06):
elected to Parliament in twenty fourteen, the last decade and
a bit has seen Seymour's meteoric rise from being his
party's sole mpte and 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
(01:30):
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 about his new role,
backlash has faced regulations and his thoughts on the opposition. So, David,
(01:50):
this deputy Prime minister handover has been on the cards
for some time now.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Are you excited about this change? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
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 Zealand. Shows the 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 2 (02:09):
And can you believe it's come around so quickly?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Though?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
As well?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
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, Cabinet on Monday, Caucus on Tuesday,
question time on Wednesday, go campaigning on Thursday, EPSOM on Friday,
have Saturday often, rinse and repeat, and it's pretty much
what it's been like for the last seventy weeks.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Do you expect this to be a shift in power
in the coalition? Is actor in the front seat now
alongside National or has it been kind of a three
way from the get go.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
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
act as a larger party, and that has been the
case for the last eighteen months and will be for
the next eighteen months.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Are you happy how the coalitions work together?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah? I think the coalition has been dangerously united. Our
opponents thought it would all fall apart.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
The Coalition of chaos.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
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, relation,
the cost of living, the healthcare system. I mean, hell,
there's a lot of shuffling to do.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Winston Peters has ruled out working with the Chris Hepkins permanently.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
What about you? Would you roll out working with Hepkins?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
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
(03:52):
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 2 (04:04):
So you wouldn't work with him, Well, no.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Because that would require him to be working, and as
far as I can see, he doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Is there anyone else that you wouldn't work with that
you'd roll out working with?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I am constantly astonished that our country has a political
party that is named for a race of people, that
casts everything in racial terms and is somehow given a
free pass. Funnily enough, the fact that Tiparty Maori are
held to a lower standard, not just by other politicians,
(04:36):
not 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
share and common ancestry and forever divided, which seems to
be their vision of Tongua ten Tonguai are different partners
(05:00):
and on each side of a compact, and it's never
worked anywhere in the world, but it's been disastrous where
it's gone wrong.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Well, speaking of the Treaty Principal's Bill, I mean, I'm
sure you're sick of talking about it.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
But no, not at all.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
We haven't had you on since the bill was actually
officially voted down. Are you surprised by how much backlashed
there was towards the bill over the last year?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
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 Tomaherti,
who is behind Toyitu, which is really just the Maori party,
who makes a huge amount of money through the wiper
(05:43):
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
tax payer, 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 Tomahera signing up to
(06:04):
run a partnership school or charter school kudahodua 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, when
(06:25):
someone comes along with a treaty principal's bill 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, advocating 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
(06:48):
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
(07:11):
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 haste and rhetoric. On the other hand,
the idea that Parliament has the rights to make laws,
that Parliament and the government of the obligation to uphold
all people's rights and duties, and that all people's rights
(07:33):
and duties are equal. Those three principles worth. No one
laid a glove on them.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Well. We had British philosopher Ac Grayling 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 (07:50):
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,
(08:14):
equality matters when it comes to what are sometimes called
it equality of concern. So people should be treated equally
before the law.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Now, how would you respond to that?
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Because I know that Act believes the Bill promises equal
rights for all New Zealanders, but would that still be fair?
Speaker 5 (08:31):
Well?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
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 because
(08:52):
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 balcancer screening from
sixty years old for European people and fifty years old
(09:13):
for mari 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 have
(09:34):
the same risk now gets access, we are also removing
the ickiness of having to partition the population based on
their ancestry. I don't want that ackiness. I just want
to treat each person as a fellow human being and
deal with people based on their actual need rather than
their ancestry.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
There are worse health outcomes though, for multi and PACIFICA
in certain circumstances.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
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 so it's There are differences based on
(10:19):
dietary There are so many different ways that you can
categorize people. I just reject choosing one, which is quite clumsy,
quite iicky, and doesn't actually get us to target the
people in greatest need.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
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.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Do more for themselves.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
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 (10:57):
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
(11:17):
and say will you loan 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 was also being
taken away. You may not have heard of the Debt
Management Office at Treasury, but that's where it was happening.
(11:39):
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 1 (11:56):
The Regulatory Standards Bill is the next big bill from
the Act Party. I know, I see you grinning. This
is a big area for you 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 (12:13):
Sure? Well, go back to our core problem. Why are
we poor? We are compared with Australia, in fact, can
compaired with most of the specific 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 these younger people leaving the country and particularly when
it comes to housing poverty, you're being able to afford
(12:34):
your own place. So that isn't my view, our big problem.
The government 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 debt are
they taking on them. You may not agree with everything
the government does, but it's pretty easy to find out.
(12:55):
It's pretty easy for 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.
Ah you what it hasn't taxed. And I would argue
that power of making rules about who can lend money
(13:15):
to who, how you can run 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,
(13:37):
a bigger effect than the government spending money. 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. It's got to state what problem it
(13:59):
was trying to solve and why I thought this was
the 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 1 (14:10):
So how much would the build cost per animal cross
an estimated twenty years? I'm sure you saw that reporting
from the Herald last week It said that it was
twenty million per annam. What have officials at the Ministry
of Regulation actually said.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Well, that's true, and 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
(14:46):
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 1 (14:54):
Are there many jobs that are going to be Like
I can imagine that it's a lot of consultancy firms
and everything like that making pretty big bank over the
over these kind of regulatory changes.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Well, let's 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,
(15:26):
but that 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 projects 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
(15:47):
generation of New Zealanders of bad regulation and land use
development make it more expensive to put in place of
water treatment plart 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 (16:08):
I think, you know, I think New Zealand has a
right to be concerned that democracy will be under threat.
David Symour is Deputy Prime Ministy.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Doesn't the episode.
Speaker 5 (16:15):
He doesn't have any respect for basic democratic norms in
any respect, to the idea that people should never 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
who have been claiming pay equity. Push that through, hope
no one notices. And David Seymour is right at the
(16:36):
heart of that. He thinks regulatory rules should apply to
everybody else except for him. Almost everything he does seems
to be exempt from the higher principles that he seems
to espouse for other people.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
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 2 (17:05):
What do you reckon about that?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Yeah, I get that. I think there's a couple of
reasons for it. One is that a lot of what
X 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
(17:27):
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 lest No,
I don't. I just don't think that the solution that
people have cu up with is a very good one.
(17:48):
But people mix it up with the intention simply healthy homes.
You know, 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 kind of renovate their homes
(18:09):
as much as they can afford, and when they can
afford to do it better, they'll do some more. Why
make a law, But people say, oh, well, David Seymour wants,
you know, people to live in drafty 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 unashamably or me.
(18:32):
I'm quirky. I am going to I believe over 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
(18:54):
a bonus, I'm actually providing a huge public service 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.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
And finally, David, you're going to be Deputy PM as
we head into the next election.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Are you in planning more for twenty twenty six yet?
Speaker 5 (19:19):
Well?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
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. I got 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 is show people that if you
(19:40):
like X ideas, you also have competent operators that you
can work with.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Thanks for joining us, David.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzadherld dot co, dot z. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front
Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
(20:13):
tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!