David Seymour: ACT leader defends attempt to drive Land Rover up Parliament's steps

David Seymour is playing down criticism after he drove a 77-year-old Land Rover up the front steps of Parliament. 

Parliamentary security stopped the ACT leader before he got further than a few stairs.

Seymour says it was just a bit of fun and he was doing it for charity - to raise money for children's heart disease.

"I think if the people from 1948 were around, they'd be astonished that I got to talk on the wireless for doing this rather mundane act."

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Actly to David Seymour was on a bit of a well,
he's on a roll today. The Prime Minister has called
his decision to write to police over their investigation, and
to Philip Polkinghorn quote ill advised. And just a few
hours ago Seymour drove a land drover up the steps
of Parliament and security guard had to order him back down.
He's with me this evening, David, Good evening, Minister, good evening.
We'll start with the polking Horn letter. Why did you

(00:22):
send it?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Because my job as a local MP is to be
a bit like a fallback, the last line of defense
for people who live in the Epshom electorate that selected
me to represent them. And if I've got a distraught
person in my office, someone who's very upset, then I'm
going to do my best to help them, as I
have for hundreds of not thousands of constituents over the

(00:48):
last ten years. It might interest people to know that
if you go on the police website, it says one
of the things you can do if you feel that
you've been unfairly treated by Lease as go and see
your local MP, which this man did. I subsequently wrote
a letter which details quite a large number of concerns

(01:11):
where he felt he had been treated unfairly. I was
very careful to write the letter, and I explicitly said
I respect the constitutional separation between members of Parliament and police.
I did not comment on whether they should or shouldn't
be prosecuting or investigating him, only to point out that
he was someone that had lost his wife, regardless of

(01:34):
what people may think of that, and that he had
was in some distress and felt he'd been treated unfairly.
And I would do that for anyone, because I think
the job of a local MP is very important. There's
been some towdry innuendo from Caroline nen Yi, a journalist
at The Herald, suggesting that somehow I only would help

(01:59):
people if they were owners. I think that's outrageous. I've
helped people who are penniless. I've helped people that are
on the hard left to publicly criticize me and the
ACT Party and hate everything we stand for. But if
they live in the electorate, I'll help them. In one example,
Bradbury's actually.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Did you have your well?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
First of all, we publish all of our donations that
were required to. Second of all, I don't know I
didn't know then. I don't know now if he's given
a minor amount, but I know that he hasn't given
an amount that's de cleared because that's in the public record.
If you get to a point where politicians have to

(02:41):
explain who every single person that has ever made a
donation is, whether are saying yes, all of us saying no,
you've introduced a totally different level of trust in our society,
and certainly people might start asking journalists if they're on
the take for the stories that they write. I don't
think that Carolyn Menyi would like that, and I certainly

(03:03):
would never suggest it, So I don't think.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
You kind of just did in a roundabout way.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, well, I tell you what, that's what she would say.
But actually, you know, one of the things about the
media is you tend to believe it until you've been
in a story, and I personally wouldn't believe a story
that that journalist wrote.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Again, all right, let's go to the tractor. Not the tractor, sorry,
that was SHANEA. DuRane, but SHANEA.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Dourne.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Actually when he drove the tractor up the steps of Parliament,
he got in trouble with the police, they charged him.
Have the police been in touch with you about the landrover?

Speaker 2 (03:40):
No, I certainly haven't had anyone in touch with me.
But it does show just how crazy our world has got,
just for people that may not know. The person that
had the land rover is a professor Peyton from Auckland University.
He's someone I first came across. Funnily enough, when he
moved to the EPSOM electorate. I helped a lot an

(04:02):
unrelated matter as a constituency MP and he got on touch.
He's doing this fundraising. He's actually doing research at the
university to use the skin cells of a baby to
grow a heart valve that will be a living heart
valve that grows with the baby's heart, so that unlike

(04:22):
if they have saved Romance.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
It's an amazing thing. How did we get from this
medical America to you on the steps of Parliament driving
a car?

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Well, the miracle hasn't happened yet. He's trying to raise
three hundred thousand dollars. He's raised about forty eight. I
just checked on his website and I've encouraged people, you know,
Google Drive for Hearts and I think it's a good
cause that people might want to chip in for so
his plan was to re enact something that happened eighty
years ago was the first land rover imported to New Zealand,

(04:53):
and to demonstrate its ability and power as a vehicle,
they drove it up the steps of Parliament. If you
are to see how mad the world has got. I'm
now getting interviewed on multiple media channels about doing this.
I think it's the people from nineteen forty eight were around.
They'd be astonished that I got to talk on the
wireless for doing this rather mundane act.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
David Seymour, thank you very much for your time, the
Act party leader and a government minister. I suppose, I mean, look,
I couldn't really give a toss whether he drives are
trackedor up there, whether he drives or land rover up there,
whether he drives a skateboard up the steps of Parliament.
My only concern is if it was any Joe Bloggs
who did it, you know, during the Treaty protest or

(05:38):
during the COVID protest, would they have been treated differently?
That's my question. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive
listen live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
Or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio