Act Party’s Brooke van Velden targets National Party’s Simon O’Connor in bid for Tāmaki electorate

ACT Party deputy leader Brooke van Velden with leader David Seymour. Photo / Lynn Grieveson

The Act Party is making a pitch to expand its empire from the Epsom electorate to include the neighbouring Tāmaki seat, targeting National’s support for housing intensification and incumbent National MP Simon O’Connor’s conservatism on social issues.

Act will announce today that deputy leader Brooke van Velden will stand in Tāmaki, a seat that takes in Auckland’s eastern bays, and that it intends to fight for the electorate vote in that seat as well as the party vote.

It will also announce that leader David Seymour is standing again in the Epsom electorate, held by Act since 2005.

Seymour said the two seats in Auckland were the only ones in which it would actively push for the candidate vote. Its other candidates would predominantly be seeking the party vote.

Seymour made it clear that O’Connor’s conservative views on social issues, including his anti-abortion and euthanasia stances, were factors in that decision.

“There’s a lot of people [who] feel very disappointed [in O’Connor] and to have a young, fresh candidate that shares the values of the electorate and doesn’t frequently shoot their mouth off with all sorts of inappropriate gaffes might be a very appealing option for the people of Tāmaki.”

O’Connor had to apologise last year for a social media post that celebrated the US Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion law.

Tāmaki will not be an easy seat to win – it has long been one of National’s safest seats. O’Connor held it with a margin of about 8000 votes in 2020 but the margin has previously been well over 10,000.

However, van Velden has a higher profile than previous Act candidates and the party polls fairly strongly in the seat. Van Velden said it got about 12 per cent support there last election, compared with its overall result of 7 per cent.

“I think we will have a battle on our hands but I think the people of Tāmaki are ready for a change, and they want change for the better.”

She said some of O’Connor’s views were not shared by those in the electorate.

O’Connor suggested he would not be worried by a challenge, saying Act had stood candidates before without success “and this election will be no different”. He said he was happy to stand by his work in the electorate.

“I don’t ever take elections for granted, though, and always enjoy going up against candidates from any other party.”

Act has also identified Tāmaki as an option because of the unpopularity of the housing intensification rules in the area. Those allow people to develop their land with buildings up to three storeys high and were brought in under an accord between National and Labour.

Act has opposed those changes and van Velden said the infrastructure was not in place to deal with such a degree of intensification. “I don’t believe the people of Tāmaki had their voice heard [on that rule change] and I’m willing to stand up for them and their infrastructure concerns about what this will mean for the area.

“So Labour and National overriding the unitary plan and wanting to force intensification into areas where it doesn’t currently have the infrastructure is going to cause chaos. And I’m willing to stand up and give the people of Tāmaki a voice with those concerns.”

She said she had chosen Tāmaki because people had asked her to stand there and it was a beautiful part of Auckland.

“A lot of people there are people who are aspirational, who own small businesses, who care about the economy and want to see it thriving. People want a strong, youthful, vibrant voice and someone who will work as hard as David Seymour does in Epsom for them. I’ll do that for them.”