Nobody is cutting through government spin like the Act Party

The Spinoff

12-05-2025

Whether it's pay equity or the Waitangi Tribunal review, the person most committed to combatting government PR is government minister David Seymour.
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When National moved to put an end to 33 fair pay claims for low-income women, it was adamant the move wasn't about rescuing finance minister Nicola Willis's upcoming budget. Prime minister Chris Luxon seemed annoyed at the suggestion of monetary motivations in a press run last Tuesday. 'It's got nothing to do with the budget, this is about making sure we have a piece of legislation that is incredibly workable, and not as complex as it has been,' he said.
Willis repeated the denial both in parliament and at a press standup alongside an honour guard of women.
More credulous observers may have been taken in by these assurances. Listening to National's senior ministers, this wasn't a case of low-income women paying for general tax cuts and interest write-offs for landlords; it was just a surprise effort to clear up some administrative issues under urgency with no public feedback, weeks out from an uncomfortably tight budget.
Unfortunately for National, its coalition partner Act was having none of that cynical government spin. Incoming deputy prime minister David Seymour was determined to pierce the PR puffery, assuring reporters Van Velden had absolutely bailed National out of having to spend money on stuff like fair wages for childcare workers and hospice nurses. 'I actually think that Brooke van Velden has saved the taxpayer billions,' he said. 'She's saved the budget for the government.'
These Act Party corrections have become common. Media organisations like to say they can cut through spin like Aragorn's sword Andúril through orc flesh, but few of them demolish government messaging more brutally than the second-largest party in the government.
Put out an anodyne press release or make a staid announcement, and Act will give it the Obama anger translator treatment. On Friday, Māori affairs minister Tama Potaka revealed plans to review the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 and the Waitangi Tribunal. The move, in his words, was about taking a load off our Tribunal members after years of hard work. 'Given the progress of historical claims and settlements and concerns about the Tribunal's current workload, it is timely to review the legislation that determines how it undertakes its inquiries.'
That sentence is almost boring enough to avoid adding to the anger over efforts to pare back Treaty redress. Potaka might have got away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling libertarians. On his Facebook page, Seymour explained the true purpose of the review. 'We're reining in the activist Waitangi Tribunal,' he wrote. 'It's time to put the Tribunal in its place.'
Act's spin-killing efforts are, if anything, ramping up. Its statement on the Waitangi Tribunal review marked the third time in a week it lobbed a truth bomb into the National caucus room. Luxon had spent the Friday prior denying Seymour's claim he oversees a 'bloated' ministerial lineup filled with 'meaningless titles'. Once again Act's claims were more convincing to the commentators. Former National minister Chris Finlayson took its side, saying ministerial baubles are given out to placate unimpressive talents in smaller coalition parties such as Act.
Most of these contradictions stem from one foundational inconsistency. Back in January, Seymour claimed Act was wielding 'disproportionate' influence in government. 'If you look at these quarterly plans, often half the ideas come from the party that has only one sixth of the MPs in the government,' he said. Luxon disagreed, telling Morning Report he 'wouldn't describe it that way'.
Their dispute gets to the heart of the government's narrative divergence. In Luxon's telling, we have a mainstream National administration deftly balancing its coalition partners' preoccupations with its own primary focus on the economy and cost of living. In Seymour's, an ideologically malleable major party is being dog-walked into a series of financially iffy and increasingly politically disastrous moves by a coalition partner that won roughly a fifth of its vote.
It's up to you who to believe. Truth is hard to gauge at the best of times in the internet age. But in these situations, it's usually best practice to trust the guys with a history of telling it like it is.