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Welcome to Inside Politics.
It is a long time since the appointment of a new Deputy Prime Minister has been so anticipated.
To say David Seymour’s instalment is “keenly anticipated” would be overstating it. Nervous anticipation might be more like it.
Not since 1996 when Winston Peters became Deputy Prime Minister for the first time has there been such anticipation about what should, for the most part, be a wallpaper role.
Peters has been Deputy Prime Minister to Jim Bolger, Jenny Shipley, Jacinda Ardern, and, until Saturday afternoon when he hands over the baton to Seymour, Christopher Luxon.
By and large, Peters has been disciplined. He has made the job look easy.
So what is the source of that nervous anticipation around Seymour? It is not about the times when he will be Acting Prime Minister. He is likely to take his role in those weeks very seriously.
It is the rest of the time when he’s not that will be the worry.
Seymour’s natural inclination is to call it as he sees it. He is unpredictable, he is a master of the one-liner and a magnet for attention.
And whether he likes it or not, despite the stated aim of eliminating division in society, he has become a figure of division.
He sometimes puts Act ahead of the Government. Why else would he say Act’s cuts to future pay equity had saved Nicola Willis’ Budget?
And he knows that despite an exasperated call this week by Bolger for Luxon to tell Seymour to “shut up”, Luxon won’t tell him and Seymour won’t shut up.
The only guardrails for Seymour will be the ones he sets himself, not Luxon.
Willis’ regular spot on Heather du Plessis-Allan’s Newstalk ZB drive show on Monday was highly amusing.
The Finance Minister claimed ignorance about the importance of this Saturday to the Government. Du Plessis-Allan told her it was the day Seymour becomes Deputy PM.
“You can imagine it is not marked as an enormous love heart on my calendar,” Willis said, claiming not much would change.
Du Plessis-Allan replied: “I want to say ‘stop pretending’ but I know you have to pretend because you have to work with the guy”.
Willis has been on a tour of the country selling her second Budget and, along with the Education and Health ministers, has been making post-Budget announcements such as detail around redevelopments and upgrades for Nelson Hospital, Wellington Regional Hospital, and Taranaki Base Hospital.
The Opposition has remained active in opposing pay equity restrictions passed under urgency, and supported the establishment of an alternative “select committee” of former MPs led by Dame Marilyn Waring to look at what a real select committee might have assessed.
But some of the strongest criticism of the Budget came from Act.
In its Free Press newsletter this week, promoting much bigger cuts, it compared it to the last Labour Government.
“The coalition hasn’t seriously reduced spending,” it said. “Even Grant Robertson was spending far less as a percentage of GDP (28%) than the current Government (33%). That five-point difference equates to about $23 billion more.”
• Before leaving for his current trip to Australia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and India, Peters gave a fascinating interview to political editor Thomas Coughlan in which he said he permanently ruled out going into any coalition with Labour’s Chris Hipkins.
• If the guy from the Motor Trade Association on the telly this week talking about the police retail crime memo looked familiar, it’s because it was James McDowall, a former Act MP from 2020 to 2023.
Advice from former Prime Minister Bolger to Seymour: “Keep out of the road of the Prime Minister and let the Prime Minister get on with the job, and just remind himself he is not Prime Minister”.
Which four politicians in modern times have held the position of Treasurer? (Answer below.)
Goes to the Ministry of Health for needing Simeon Brown to remind it not to reduce its public posts on X (formerly Twitter until Elon Musk acquired it), where it has 48,000 followers. It chose to talk up X competitor BlueSky, where it has just 972. It should be “and”, not “or”.
To Chris Bishop and other National men who responded to criticism of Willis’ Budget-day dress by sending up the critics and the media (yes, the Herald) for giving the story oxygen it didn’t deserve. She’s hardly the Princess of Wales.
Peters interview: New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says he won’t be working with Labour after the next election if it’s still led by Chris Hipkins.
Bolger interview: “He is not Prime Minister″ – Former PM Jim Bolger on David Seymour, handling kidney failure and turning 90.
Deputy PM switch: Act leader David Seymour says Māori have nothing to fear from him when he takes over from Winston Peters as Deputy Prime Minister.
Hairdressing rules: Separate hairdressing regulations are set to be scrapped, with Cabinet agreeing to all four recommendations from a regulatory review into the hairdressing and barbering industry.
Immigration comments: Senior minister Erica Stanford’s comments about not replying to people from India seeking immigration advice could have been expressed better, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says.
Quiz answer: Winston Peters, Bill Birch, Bill English, and Michael Cullen, initially.
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