David Seymour: ACT Party leader ahead of swap to Deputy Prime Minister role

A Deputy Prime Minister swap is on the cards this week.

NZ First leader Winston Peters and ACT Party leader David Seymour are sharing the role as part of the Government's coalition agreement.

Peters serves as the Deputy until Saturday this week.

Seymour says he's already filled in the role before.

"It doesn't actually change my job day-to-day, it means I'll spend a bit more time covering for Chris if he's out of Wellington or out of the country."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News talks'b So this time.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Next week we will have a new Deputy Prime Minister.
As part of the coalition agreement, it was decided the
role would be shared with Winston Peters covering the first
half of the term and David Seymour taking the second.
So what can we expect from David Seymore as Deputy
Prime Minister? Does it actually mean anything and how does
he rate the coalition government's first eighteen months. David Seymour
is in the studio with me. Good morning, good morning,

(00:34):
Thank you very much for popping in.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
So next time we talk you will be Deputy Prime Minister.
And I think I've got so probably two parts to
this question here. What does that role mean to you?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
In a way? It is highly symbolic. It doesn't actually
change my job day today. It means that I'll spend
a bit more time covering for Chris Sooph he's out
of Wellington or out of the country. However, for the
most part, my job remains the same as a Minister
for Regulation. We're trying to deal to red tape and
a few jobs, health and education and so on beside that.

(01:10):
But in another sense, I think it does mean a lot,
because X represents a group of people who, for various reasons,
have been pretty beaten down. You know, you think about
the period of the last six years, if you were
a small business owner or a farmer, if you're a landlord,
if you're a licensed firearm owner. As someone who maybe

(01:30):
had a slightly different view about the government's response to COVID,
you had a pretty rough time. And I think in
a way, to see that your party can be at
the center of government and hold a position like that,
I think will mean something for a lot of people
who felt they'd been a bit marginalized in New Zealand society.
What about for you personally, Oh, I'm proud of the achievement.
I think of anything, it shows we live in a

(01:53):
great country. You know, if you be yourself and back yourself,
you might be surprised how much support you get. And
I think that's an important thing for all of us.
You know, I don't claim to be you know, the great,
just hard work of it. I work pretty hard and
I don't claim to be the most virtuous person, but
I think I have my heart in the right place,

(02:15):
and I know I'm a bit quirky. That's called self awareness,
but it shows if you're a bit quirky, you work
hard and you've got a good heart, you can succeed
in this country. And I think that's great.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
You mentioned that sort of funkally. Day to day it
doesn't change your job, but when the Prime Minister does
leave the country doesn't have an impact.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Well, it means I'm the acting Prime minister. Some people
are terrified of what this will mean, and I just
want to give you some reassurance. It's actually already happened
a few times when Chris and Winston have been away.
I've been acting PM, and it can have a bit
of an effect. I mean you might remember there was
that crowd strike problem where some software had blown up,

(02:54):
some security software ironically, and it looked like there could
be major computer failures of systems through the financial sector
and calling an ambulance or dispatched systems for police. So
I heard about this on the radio is breaking news
that it was happening somewhere else in the world, and
I thought, oh, yes, someone ought to do something about that.

(03:16):
In check New Zealand's all right, And then I thought, oh,
hang on, yeah, yeah, I'm acting PM today, So I
called the officer. Guys, are you hearing this? So we
better find out what's going on.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
If we're erecting Prime minister, what would be the worst
thing that could happen? Do you have a little nightmare scenario.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
In your well? I mean, you know the really terrible
things that have happened in New Zealand. I mean you know, earthquakes, shootings, floods.
I mean I'd rather none of those, although although the
other time I've probably done it half a dozen times.
But another time I was doing it and the Chinese
government decided to send a flotilla of warships past.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
So maybe you're jinxing things about has Winston done a
good job?

Speaker 3 (03:59):
I think he's done a very good job and the
thing that he loves doing and actually the thing will
continue to do, which has been Foreign Minister. You know,
Winston has some really unique talents. He is a person
who I think is very charismatic, and if you've got
to pick a citizen to go and sort of be
representative as Foreign Minister, then I think he's done a
good job at that. And the good news is, you know,

(04:21):
just as the DPM thing doesn't make that big a
practical difference here, he can keep doing it.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Will we notice any difference? And with you in this role,
you know, as you say, you're quirky, you're quite outspoken.
Will you be at all restrained by the title in
some ways?

Speaker 3 (04:38):
I mean, you have a job speaking on behalf of
the government, but I already have that to some extent.
I mean, if I'm talking as the Leader of ACT,
then I'll quite openly say, look, this government's getting a
lot of stuff right, but you know there's stuff that
ACT would do differently, and we don't hide that. I
think it's healthy to have differences that you can discuss

(04:59):
in a mature way. On the other hand, if I'm
speaking as the Minister of X, Y or z on
behalf of the government, then I absolutely support the government
position and I'll certainly be aiming to show people I
can do a very good job as DPM too.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Because there have been times when you have publicly disagreed
with your coalition partners, including the Prime Minister, or corrected
one of them and things. How does that go down?

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Well, I just make the point that every time I've
had any kind of public disagreement, it has been in
response to comments made about me, So I don't. I
know some people will say that sounds like the adult
equivalent of he started it, but that's actually true in

(05:45):
each case, and in reality, we have a changing system
of government. If you look at Europe, you know there's
twenty thirty odd democracies there and for the most part
they have sometimes three four parties working together in one government.
We traditionally haven't had that in New Zealand, but with
MMP we seem to be moving towards it.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
We're around halfway through this parliamentary term and it has
been a reasonably fast moving government. Have you achieved what
you set out to achieve? You happy with where you're at?

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (06:16):
I think it's. First of all, it's a work in progress,
but we can point to very good progress. Let me
point to Chris Hipkins quote. He said the government change
because of the three seas, the cost of living, the crime,
and the co government. And in each case I think
the government can point to substantial action and improvement. But

(06:38):
also our critics can rightly say that we are not
ready to do victory laps either. The fourth issue that
has emerged is health. But if you go through them,
you know we inherited inflation at five and a half
percent five point six I think it's now two and
a half. Interest rates peaked at five and a quarter
at the Reserve Bank, now down to three and a

(07:00):
half and looking likely to keep falling. So you know,
we've I think in terms of the cost of living
and getting the economy moving. Still a lot of pain
out there, but it's really moved in the right direction.
The crime we've abandoned being kind to criminals and waiting
for them to be kind back. Now we're saying, look
consequences first. Then we can rehabilit or for rehabilitation, but

(07:20):
lock them up first. And I'm proud that one of
Ak's things was we've got to increase prison capacity and
potentially population of people offen We just put half a
billion into more prison capacity, so we're proud of that.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
How do you approach the second half of this term?
Is it about pushing axe agender or tightening the coalition
for re election?

Speaker 3 (07:40):
It's both of those things. My goal will be to
keep the government because I just saw Chloe Swarbrick's budget
speech and Chloe's someone I came in three years before her.
I've got a lot of time for Chloe at a
personal level, but I think the economics that she's pushing
is increasingly unhinged and has nothing to do with the environment.

(08:03):
It's the other big thing about the Greens Party these days.
We've got to keep them out. The second thing is
while the government I think has done pretty well on
the three c's and will continue to do well, there
are bigger challenges that New Zealand faces, longer term challenges,
and I think one of the big debates of the
next five years is we can either tax more to

(08:27):
fill in a deficit, we can spend less or keep borrowing.
And that keep borrowing is not really an option, it's
a delaying tactic. So eventually we're going to have to
tax more or spend less. Now people may not realize
that it's, oh, you have a capital gains tax. New
Zealanders already pay more tax than anyone else on the

(08:48):
Pacific RIM. You know, you go to Japan, Mexico, Canada, Singapore,
wherever Australia is the obvious comparator, we already pay more tax.
We are going to have to have a smaller, more
efficient government in my view, because if you put more tax,
more people will leave and we can't afford that.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
David, is there a little handover on Saturday the thirty first?
Is there sort of a handshake between you and Winston?
Does anything official happen?

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Well, Winston's actually off. I'm not sure exactly where he
is now. He was going from Australia to Sri Lanka
last night, I think, and then he's going to India,
so I assume. I assume he hasn't scheduled that because
of this. But no, he won't be there, but I
am doing a short ceremony with the Governor General. I

(09:33):
hope she's not. I hope it's not going to involve
swords or anything, but it might be something like that.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Never know. David Simol, thank you very much for your
time this morning and coming in. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
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