Act leader David Seymour. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Since Christopher Luxon took over as National Party leader and started marching up the polls at Act’s expense, life has got a bit more difficult for its leader, David Seymour.
The Act Party leader talked to the Herald on Sunday about how Luxon has changed things, National’s “self-immolation”, and what he would want for getting into government with National.
David Seymour does not have his own office at Parliament, choosing instead to sit at a desk in the open-plan staff area with a "David" sign on it to mark it as his.
He uses his deputy Brooke van Velden's office for the interview. The press secretary rushes over to rub some notes off the whiteboard after we sit down.
Seymour says he has no idea what the notes said. "I don't know. It was probably something like 'and then we get rid of David'."
He thinks this is hilarious. But the other nine MPs know full well they are only there by dint of Seymour.
Seymour made hay for Act while the sun shone for him but the rain poured down on the National Party. That was what Seymour calls National's era of "self-immolation" between 2019 and the end of 2021 when it steamed through Simon Bridges, Todd Muller and Judith Collins in quick succession.
Despairing National voters switched to the more stable force of Act, delivering it 10 MPs in the last election.
Those weather patterns have changed since Collins was rolled as leader at the end of last year and replaced with Christopher Luxon – and Seymour's fortunes have changed with it.
Act has been the main casualty of National's march up the polls since Luxon took over. It has dropped from highs of 14 per cent last September and November back down to 8 per cent this month in the 1News Kantar Public Poll. National has risen from 26 and 28 per cent to 39 per cent.
Seymour is no longer a home for as many disillusioned National voters but he takes some heart that Act is still at around its 2020 election result of 7.6 per cent and his own favourability remains strong. The donations have been rolling in - Act recently declared $850,000 from a round-up of wealthy business people. New candidates are also lining up and being put through Act's candidate school.
"We are as competitive as ever. We just have to give clear reasons for people to actually tick the box, and we are now more clearly focused on that than we have been all term."
More importantly, some of National's poll gains have been at the expense of the Labour Party and that means the chances of the centre-right getting into Government are greater. Seymour, perhaps optimistically and definitely prematurely, puts it as high as 70 to 80 per cent.
Seymour is muted on his personal ambitions in any future governing arrangement.
Asked if he would want to be Finance Minister, he answers, "I am very prepared to be. But I think I am one of the very few politicians in New Zealand who could say the policy has always been more important than the position."
He is also coy on whether he would want a full-blown coalition with Act ministers at the Cabinet table, or the distance a confidence and supply agreement outside Cabinet affords. But he does point out that if it does transpire that National could form a government with Act's votes, Act would have a better bargaining position than it had ever had before.
"The real power comes from the fact they'd need Act for the votes. It's up to them what sort of relationship they want. The policies are non-negotiable. The positions, if they want a closer working relationship, then sure, we are able to offer that.
"But the National Party are going to be asked to do things they have never done before. One is to genuinely share power. Two is to actually be a government of change. Whether that requires positions in Cabinet doesn't matter that much to me."
Restoring charter schools is very high on his agenda for a future government – but this time he hoped to find a way to make it harder for a future Labour government to simply wind them down again. "We have to be more strategic about how we do it so it's harder to sink."
Seymour has also styled himself as the champion of the uncomfortable conversation - betting National under Luxon will not dabble quite so heavily in controversial issues such as race relations and co-governance.
It's not an area Luxon has been silent on – he has flagged concerns about the Māori Health Authority and co-governance over Three Waters.
But Seymour has gone further. Last week Seymour went deep into National Party heartland – Milford on the North Shore – to deliver a speech on co-governance and his proposal for a referendum on the meaning of the principles of the Treaty.
He has said that would be one of his bottom lines. It is a stand Te Pāti Māori has objected to, decrying it as racist and divisive.
But Seymour doesn't rule out the prospect of an arrangement with that party – although his reasoning won't do much to win Te Pāti Māori over: "If that's the cards the electorate dealt I would rather see the Māori Party contained by working with Act than carrying out the kind of deep constitutional reform they would like to carry out in an unfettered relationship with Labour."
His preference, obviously, would be a "genuine two-party government".
Being in a position to make grand demands will depend on Act holding its polling up.
Asked how he is adjusting to the post-Collins environment, Seymour admits he has had to adjust his strategy.
That has not been totally by choice. Luxon has successfully wrestled the momentum on the cost of living issue away from Act, although Act claims National simply cut and paste some of their own best lines.
But rather than standing in as the main Opposition leader, Seymour has shifted back to focusing on issues the more centrist Luxon will not prosecute and where Act can have a point of difference.
He points to the old Act policies – either repealed or about to be repealed by Labour – of 90-day trials, three-strikes and charter schools. There is also fuel for Act in bucking the housing accord between National and Labour over intensification in the inner-city suburbs.
"It has probably taken us back to our roots. It's more competitive, so we have to focus on what do we offer and what do we stand for. For a while there, I think we were probably behaving as a bit of a generic Opposition party, and our polling continued to rise as they self-immolated.
"Now I think you see a bit more focus on, well if the National Party has stopped self-immolating, why do you vote for Act? And the answer to that is because if we say there is going to be a change of government then we want the change to be real."
Seymour has been playing more nicely with National than in the past when he was often as critical of National as Labour. That is part of a bid to present the pair as a constructive partnership for government.
"I think you can create contrast without directly attacking. That seems to be a more effective strategy."
He gets on better with Luxon than he did with Collins, whom he says he rarely talked to.
"Chris [Luxon] and I have a good relationship, we used to be next-door neighbours. So we have that relationship. We recognise we are in a partly co-operative and partly competitive relationship. But the underlying thing is we can work together."
He is unlikely to need the lifeline National has thrown him in the Epsom electorate this time round - he would hold the seat on his own merits. But he is considering helping National out by not standing a candidate in Tauranga.
That would only be the case if polling showed the Tauranga byelection could be a close contest and there was a risk of splitting the vote and seeing the seat go to Labour.
Seymour says National's polling has shifted since 2020 and it was likely National would hold the seat but he will wait to see initial polling before deciding whether to stand an Act candidate.
The seat would not make a difference to the shape of the current government but it would be a gesture by Act to the importance of the seat to National.
But Luxon need not think Seymour will obediently go to the back seat and give him a totally clear run.
Seymour is a master in the key skill of getting media coverage in Opposition: being available at the drop of a hat.
That has meant even now it has often been Seymour who is first to front from the Opposition the day of major Government announcements. First in, best dressed.
Much of the South Island is set to plunge below 0C tonight and tomorrow.