David Seymour spoke at an Act meeting in New Plymouth, now it’s my turn to speak – Kate Paris

Act leader David Seymour addresses his people at New Plymouth. Photo / LDR-Te Korimako o Taranaki.

THREE KEY FACTS

• David Seymour is leader of the Act Party and an MP for 10 years.
• At the 2023 General Election, Act won a record 11 seats.
• David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill had its first reading in Parliament on November 14 and has been sent to select committee.

Dear David,

In Ngāmotu New Plymouth, I sat in a room filled with your supporters. You spoke so proudly of being part of a Government that’s doing what it said it would.

You trash-talked previous leaders, the media, the poor, the criminal shadow of our land you so rightly identified as needing healing – but who, you say, need to heal themselves.

To the clucks of an adoring crowd last Thursday, you suggested our hungry kids ought to be fed by their parents, not our schools.

Act Leader David Seymour addresses his people at New Plymouth. Photo / LDR Te Korimako o Taranaki.

You celebrated the first arrest, at 12.03 am last Thursday, of a man in a patch.

You said we should “relax” our restraint laws so that teachers can better respond to our neurodiverse.

I bit my tongue.

You’re pleased those who voted for your party are getting a disproportionate amount of representation.

The relationship between police officers and gang members in small Northland towns could face a shake-up with the new gang patch law, the Police Association has warned. Photo / NZME

No one seemed to mind when you acknowledged a strange dedication to misleading the public, admitting you were determined to like the school lunch that journalists made you taste, even if it was disgusting.

You said the end of the oil and gas era in Taranaki ought to be delayed.

You called the thousands who united to make their voices heard as part of the Toitū Te Tiriti movement a “few”. Accused the organisers of preying on the vulnerable, offering a sense of belonging and purpose that most people get from rugby and beer.

You spoke of New Zealand being a leading light in the world, with equal rights and equal opportunities for all, dismissing our true champions of equality as obsessed with things that happened a hundred years before any of us were born.

The Hīkoi Mo te Tiriti in front of Parliament that drew more than 50,000 people to Wellington. Photo / Murdoch Ngahou

The scale you used to measure our treatment of indigenous people in Aotearoa was a pitiful comparison with native American reservations.

“New Zealand has a good rep because we’d never do that,” you said.

Then you chuckled at your little joke about Ukraine when the ringtone of someone in the front row sounded like a bomb. Which surely reminded you to also chuckle at Jenny Shipley’s claim that you’re dangerously close to inciting civil war.

A young man asked how you would ensure a place for him at university when there was a queue for preferential treatment.

A farmer got to air her frustration that viable land is being wasted by planting trees. And a fellow teacher, who so eloquently lamented the tragedy that is our broken education system, wasn’t offered an answer. Instead, he was awkwardly branded a future Act candidate.

You asked for money, shared a weird anecdote about Michael Hill’s heroic earthworks after a building wrecked the view from his Queenstown golf course then rushed off to catch your 8pm plane.

I bit my tongue.

I’ve worked for more than a decade to raise the achievement of students in Avondale and Pātea and have come to understand the issues that keep them hungry.

I bit my tongue because of the countless volunteer hours I’ve spent listening to criminals and addicts grasping for hope so they can access the kind of healing they need to become healthy, contributing members of society – to heal from abuse in state care, from backgrounds littered with poverty, violence, and unmet mental health needs.

People who were thrown in “the bin” as teenagers and came out fighting, often turning to the protection of a patch to survive.

I bit my tongue because as an activist who cares about preserving our wild places. and the creatures that call them home, who cares about leaving an environment for my moko that’s worth inheriting,

I have stood alongside mana whenua over the years to help amplify their warnings to change how we do things – before the urupā need to be moved to higher ground. Before the floods and storms and droughts intensify.

Kate Paris on board the Greenpeace Action trained boat. Photo / Supplied

I bit my tongue because the world is burning and you’re fanning the flames.

A country I was so proud to call home has been embarrassed on the global stage by your smug insistence on pushing a bill you know will never pass.

So many gains have been lost through your backward gaze. You asked supporters to spread the word that David Seymour seems like a decent chap “worth supporting”.

But instead, I feel compelled to explain why my tongue is so sore.