NZ’s political maverick says party has teal streak

Mr Seymour said while his party did not share the same views as the teals on climate action, he believed both gave voters the option to support economically liberal policies without endorsing a social conservative.

“Around the world, people feel that in order to pay low taxes, they’ve got to vote for people who have quite antiquated moral views or, in order to be socially progressive, vote for someone who is probably going to crash the economy,” he said.

In less than seven years, Mr Seymour’s ACT Party has grown from a political minnow to one of the most critical voting blocks. Polling suggests ACT could claim as many as 14 seats in the country’s 120-seat parliament, with those numbers crucial to the centre-right National Party’s hopes of claiming government on Saturday.

Referendum on co-governance

However, an ACT-National coalition may not have enough seats to form government, with the country’s other right-wing minor party, New Zealand First, possibly required to get National’s Christopher Luxon over the line.

Tightening polling figures and growing tension between Mr Seymour and Winston Peters, the leader of New Zealand First, has even led to speculation of a potential second election if the three parties could not come to an agreement.

While his party has railed against co-governance initiatives, which currently gives Maori people more representation across government, Mr Seymour has also supported cannabis law reform, abortion rights and euthanasia legislation.

“I think that, ultimately, we’re all social liberals. We’re in favour of getting government out of the boardroom in the bedroom,” he said of ACT and the teals.

ACT, which stands for Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, was formed in 1993 by former National MP Derek Quigley and former Labour MP Roger Douglas who also served as finance minister. Mr Douglas’ neoliberal economic policies, nicknamed Rogernomics, transformed New Zealand’s economy from a protectionist to a more market and open-trade one via extensive deregulation.

ACT wants to slash government spending, which has ballooned from $NZ76 billion in 2017 to $NZ128 billion, and flatten the country’s tax rate.

Mr Seymour also wants a referendum on co-governance measures in New Zealand, a lightning rod issue that has produced criticism with echoes of Australia’s No campaign to the Indigenous Voice.

Mr Seymour said the Voice appeared to have been a “half-hearted” attempt to provide Aboriginal Australians with representation.

“It seems that they’re accepting the premise that some people should have a different role in society based on race, but it’s a sort of halfway or minor role and I don’t see how that is a sustainable proposition,” he said.

With New Zealanders struggling through a cost-of-living crisis, Mr Seymour said many voters were feeling frustrated by the Ardern-Hipkins government’s priorities, while they also were not convinced National, the alternative major party, could be trusted to implement change.

“It’s a bit of a luxury for most people to think about an issue that has no practical or immediate effect when there are very practical and immediate concerns people have,” he said of the Voice and New Zealand co-governance.

“At a time when New Zealanders overwhelmingly see the country as going in the wrong direction, they are hesitant to vote for parties that have, between them, been empowered continuously for 90 years.”

He dismissed suggestions ACT could be compared to some conservative right-wing Australian parties.

“We’re probably in every respect the opposite of Pauline Hanson,” he said.