$600 Billion In Assets, $200 Billion In Debt, $0 In Sense
Press Release – ACT New Zealand
Altogether the Budget was best summed up by Damien Grant as minding the welfare state. The last Government spent a fortune but most results got worse. Some like ACT would rather cut the spending back, but the Government is a coalition.
The Haps
It's event season with ACT holding three notable ones in the next two months. This Friday's Pink Ribbon Breakfast (raising money for the Breast Cancer Foundation) is nearly sold out. This Sunday June 1 the Party is holding a thank you to supporters who've helped its leader come from political outsider to Deputy Prime Minister (just over three-quarters sold), and the party's 2025 Rally will be held on July 13 and sales have just opened. If you enjoy Free Press, please step right up and show your support in person at these events.
Debate of the Decade
Altogether the Budget was best summed up by Damien Grant as 'minding the welfare state.' The last Government spent a fortune but most results got worse. Some like ACT would rather cut the spending back, but the Government is a coalition.
Instead the Government is holding its spending almost flat, and looking to manage population and inflation pressures by getting more efficiency. The Budget had $1.3 billion of extra spending, less than a one per cent increase. It managed $6.2 billion dollars of new capital spending by saving $4.9 billion elsewhere. In other words the Government has started doing what everyone else has to, saving somewhere else when it wants to pay for something new.
A lot of this spending has ACT's fingerprints on it. Far more on defence, we will reach 2 per cent of GDP about as fast as any military can grow. Far more on prison space, locking up the worst offenders is the best money taxpayers will ever spend. There is also more for health and education, which have been stretched.
So where's the debate of the decade in all this? Interest on debt is now a major expense in its own right, at $9 billion. Interest costs more than Police and Prisons combined, or about as much as Primary, Intermediate, and Secondary schooling.
That's because the debt is nearly $200 billion, and welfare is over $50 billion a year. Nearly half of that is pensions, which rise by a billion and a half each year as more people retire and live longer. Put it another way: $50 billion is nearly $10,000 per person. If you're in a family of four that is not getting $40,000 of taxpayer cash a year, you are below average.
Health is up $13 billion in seven years, but results seem worse. We could go on, but the point is the Government is currently borrowing $14.7 billion a year, and its plan to borrow only $3 billion in four years' time depends on nothing going wrong for four years. What we're doing is not sustainable.
The options are either:
Tax more, such as the Greens' and Labour's wealth or capital gains tax
Just keep borrowing and see what happens (some people genuinely think this is the answer)
Spend less.
This is going to be one helluva fight. If we do nothing, it is a matter of time before the left gets back in and defaults to option 1. More taxes that are really tall poppy syndrome in tax law. Your problems are caused by others' successes, the story goes, and your solution is to take their money. It will deaden our society from the inside out.
Option 2 is the road to some sort of banana republic status. The problem is some would default to it through inaction, and some others think using debt is actually an enlightened idea. The problem is the spiral that goes like this:
Investors lose faith in the New Zealand Government paying back its bonds, so they demand higher interest rates to buy its bonds. That makes it harder to pay. The spiral that so many South American and South East Asian countries have experienced.
If you're not keen on new taxes, or the Government going broke, you're with us. The next five years of New Zealand politics will be in large part about which of the three options to choose. The Greens have set out their stall. Labour can't decide, but we predict they'll campaign on more taxes. Te Pāti Māori wouldn't understand this newsletter.
The coalition hasn't seriously reduced spending. 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.
That leaves ACT as the only party unashamedly promoting the only option left. If the Government's going to balance its budget without more taxes, it'll need to be smaller and more efficient. There's three ways we can think of to do that.
One is to do the same stuff more efficiently. David Seymour halved the price of school lunches, and now they're getting 100 per cent on time delivery with better meals. The number of Ministers, portfolios and departments is too many, leaving everybody and nobody in charge of everything and nothing. It should be simplified. The number of public servants hasn't really budged, the head counts should be reduced. The Government has around 800 boards. No one person in the entire world knows what they all do. The Government could maintain its service levels with a smaller, simpler structure.
Another way is to transfer less cash. We can keep paying Superannuation at 65 but Australia, the U.S., U.K., Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain are all increasing their ages. We will be left alongside France, Greece, and other places of questionable economic and fiscal management. We'll also be paying more for Superannuation than anything else except healthcare. Young people might decide they don't want to stick around and pay for it. Ditto the fact that one-in-six working-aged New Zealanders are on a benefit.
Then there's ownership. The Government has $600 billion, over half a trillion dollars, in assets. Most of them deliver negligible returns, but the taxpayer pays interest on $200 billion of debt. Is that sensible?
Those are the choices. More tax, more debt, or a smaller, more efficient Government that splashes less cash. How this debate resolves in the next two electoral cycles will probably decide if New Zealand is a big Singapore, or a big Samoa.
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Speech – ACT New Zealand Todays an opportunity to thank you for all your efforts setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of New Zealanders, and recommit ourselves to the mission of promoting a free society, says ACT Leader David Seymour. Speech ACT Leader David Seymour Sunday 1 June, 2025 ACT New Zealand Celebration Brunch Intro 'It does not take a majority to prevail … but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men and woman.' That was Sam Adams, one of the United States' founding fathers. So many people here today, and some who sadly couldn't be, fit Sam Adams' description: I know one or two here are, occasionally, irate. To get this far, we've had to be tireless. I suspect we'll always be a minority, but we succeed by setting brushfires in people's minds. Human freedom, to do what you like if you don't harm others, is the only thing truly worth fighting for. Only when that principle prevails can we turn our efforts on fighting problems in the natural world, instead of each other. This is no swansong, just a little rest before the next climb, perhaps the next setback, we've had lots of both, and we'll have lots more. Today's an opportunity to thank you for all your efforts setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of New Zealanders, and recommit ourselves to the mission of promoting a free society. Challenges I've faced and people who've helped/what I've learned from them Now, it hasn't always been easy. If I had to pick a theme song for the last ten years, it could be one of Mark Knopfler. The Scaffolder's Wife. Mark always writes with great empathy for the struggling. 'In the wicked old days, when we went it alone. Kept the company goin,' on a wing and a prayer.' Those words really stick with me, because sum up my first six years of leading ACT. In fact, it hasn't just been a bit difficult. Most of the time it seemed bloody impossible. It's a happy miracle our party exists. There is no party committed to human freedom anywhere in the world as successful as ACT. Most politicians find it too easy to get votes by promising other people's money, or promising to regulate other people's choices. We take the hard road. We seek political power by promising voters only the freedom to make the most of their own lives. We do so because only the creative powers of a free society can generate the wealth to overcome our challenges. Not only is our mission fundamentally hard, but sometimes we've made it harder than necessary. I hesitate to bring it up, but we've burned ourselves on one or two of our own brushfires along the way. Our perk buster took a perk. Our tough on crime guy got convicted. Our leadership had a civil war. We were subject to an unconventional coup. In 2011, ACT ran one of the most corageous three-pronged election campaigns in modern history. Supply side economics, one law for all, and freeing the weed. There are constituencies for all three causes, but they don't all get along. John Banks steadied the ship, and I want to thank him for his unconditional support. John didn't just allow the party to survive, he allowed it to survive as a liberal party. I imagine being turned around to vote for gay marriage wasn't easy for him. On the other hand, saying no to Jenny isn't easier either. John's sacrifices allowed Jamie Whyte and I to run a ticket in 2014, but things could still get much worse. It turned out my dear friend with a CV from heaven was brilliant at everything but politics. I say all this because it's the backdrop to one hell of a climb. You have to see where we started to see how far we've come. That is, to see the full achievement of the people in this room and some who can't be here today. We've made ACT the world's most successful classical liberal party. For five years, nothing we did made a jot of difference. There was a Facebook group called 'Is ACT polling 1 per cent yet,' and it seemed like it would be forever. People said our party was not legitimate. They said we shouldn't even be in Parliament. They said we had no real agency, being an offshoot of another party. When they talked about us, they didn't talk about what I was saying in the present. Instead, they judged us by others had taken while I myself had been living in another country. After the election disaster of 2017, I said that it didn't matter what our shop was selling. We just couldn't get anyone in the door, let alone buying. This kind of relentless doomism was the opposite of everything ACT stands for. We believe, as Richard Prebble says in I've Been Thinking, that life isn't like bad weather, you can make a difference in your time on Earth. Unfortunately, some things were like the weather. We couldn't make it rain financially. Eric Clapton said nobody knows you when you're down and out. I can tell you from experience that very few donate to your political party, either. Lindsay Fergusson is one who can't be here, may he rest in peace. I remember we got to $7,000 left. We'd miss rent on the office and be kicked out if something didn't change. Lindsay put $5,000 in ACT's account and said 'don't tell Lynne.' Lynne, I hope the secret's ok to let out now. I used to try to call two ACT members every week day. One day I called a guy called Chris Reeve. I noticed his email address was superman. He also said he wanted to donate. Could this guy be for real? I earnestly explained where the party was up to and what I needed to raise in a year to keep it going. He looked at me and said 'I'll do half if that Jenny Gibbs will do the other half.' I still remember clearly the first time I met Jenny, in 2005. 'I'm a social liberal, too,' she said. Her generous support of ACT is published by the Electoral Commission, but her personal support of successive ACT leaders is not. She is one of the warmest and wisest women in New Zealand and we're lucky to have her. Not every donor gives in the thousands, but thousands have given donations to keep our party alive, even when it might have seemed like palliative care. I thank everyone who's given to ACT, whether you gave $5 or $5,000. Some people give their time. In the wicked old days when we went it alone, I was never really alone. So many people helped, delivering mail, erecting signs, filing the party accounts, and opening up their homes for house meetings. Alison and Stu Macfarlane rapidly edited my second book Own Your Future. They said the timeline was mad. I said we couldn't move the election. I think that book helped keep the party together. Most parties couldn't publish a book of their policies. Some probably think books are a symbol of colonisation anyway. What sets ACT apart is that we are a party of ideas. People think a political party is an enormous enterprise with limitless resources required to Govern a country. If you were taking hope or reassurance from that, I'm sorry to disappoint. We're more reliant on wings and prayers than massive resources. One person who found this out the hard way was Malcolm Pollock. Chis Fletcher, Auckland's mother, introduced him to me. He thought he might get a minor role making the tea on the sidelines of this vast edifice. We walked out of Fraser's café as the bewildered new Chair of the Party's only functioning electorate committee! In similar circumstances, Ruwan Premathilaka became party President. So many Malcolms and Margarets up and down this country have volunteered to make our party possible. ACT has ten times more members today than it did when Malcolm joined. Perhaps the hardest role in the Party is being the President. You're legally responsible for the organization, but to survive it needs to change strategy at a moment's notice. It must be the Governance equivalent of riding a mechanical Bull. We've been lucky to have very patient presidents, who've been prepared to hold the ship together. The current President, John Windsor, is perhaps New Zealand's greatest political activist. John has never met a problem he can't quickly and quietly fix. Signs, mail, volunteers, no problem. They say amateurs talk strategy, professional's talk logistics. In that sense John is a true professional, and a great ACT President. Some roles are so difficult we need to pay people to do them. That would be our parliamentary staff. If I've done anything right in politics, it's been attracting and retaining great people. Yesterday my electorate office staff came with me to Government House for the swearing in ceremony. I wanted them to be there because they're be best electorate team in the country. They get swamped with requests for help from other electorates. There's three positions and we've had one change in ten years, if turnover rates mean anything then we have a great team. The same thing goes for ACT's team in Wellington. We've been ranked by far the best working environment on the Parliamentary Precinct, and we keep attracting great talent. One talent stood out more than any. When Brooke van Velden came to work in Wellington, the End of Life Choice Bill was still possible, but far from inevitable. It got stuck in Select Committee for sixteen months, and the antis refused to be constructive. We couldn't make the changes we needed to get political buy in, let-alone make good law. We'd have to make these changes in The Committee of the Whole House stage, where each MP can individually vote on every word of the legislation. One wrong vote and the Bill could end up a nonsense, sinking a three-year project in a heartbeat. That's when we came up with the Sponsor's Report. If the eight MPs on the Select Committee, supported by the Ministry of Health, couldn't come up with a coherent set of reforms, then a 26-year-old woman with a sharp mind would. The Sponsor's Report remains one of the most effective policy documents ever produced in New Zealand. It was written by Brooke but, like Helen Clark, I just signed it. In the end we got MPs to vote for every change we needed to make the law, and oppose every change that would have stuffed it up. Besides Brooke, there have been 13 other new ACT MPs in the last decade, and they have been extraordinary. Nicole, Chris, Simon, James, Karen, Mark, Toni, Damien, Todd, Andrew, Parmjeet, Laura, and Cameron have been an exceptional team of players. However, they've also formed a great playing team, and we know a playing team always beats a team of players. Today our MPs in Government are delivering that real change that you asked for and we campaigned on. Our Parliamentarians are taking on the scourge of deepfake porn. I bet Roger Douglas never thought that would be come a cause when he founded the Party. We're standing up for academic freedom. We're keeping a watchful eye on bureaucracy for farmers and tradies alike. In Government, our Ministers are reforming, reforming, reforming. Brooke is taking on our calcified Health and and the hoary old Holidays Act. Nicole is finally delivering a rational approach to firearms law even as she changes the courts to speed up the clogged system. Karen is turning the department that failed her so deeply and personally into an effective protector of those who came after her. Andrew is standing up for the property rights of farmers when he defends New Zealand's biosecurity. Simon is the unsung hero of this Government, because delivering resource management law based on property rights will do more for the people who live in this country than any other reform this term. Of course, the Party's also bringing back charter schools, opening up overseas investment, saving the taxpayer billions, bringing Pharmac into the 21st century, slashing red tape, and legislating the Regulatory Standards Bill so for the first time our property rights will be in law. We've been busy. Some people have helped ACT in more creative, unexpected ways. When the female pro dancers first met for the 2018 season of Dancing with the Stars, they all agreed on one thing. Nobody wanted to be paired with 'that guy'. It was a guaranteed ticket home on the first elimination. Even my own family came to opening night. They thought it would be their only chance, and I might need consolation after the show. If I'd had any partner except Amelia McGregor, they would have been right. But we ended up campaigning as much as dancing. We took on the bullies and fought for the downtrodden, the overlooked, and the physically uncoordinated up and down New Zealand! The kindest thing the judges said is that I proved absolutely anyone can dance. I think that's what our tireless minority has proven over the years. With quiet determination we can change our future, and the future course of this country. Anyone can dance. That's why we stand for the farmers, the landlords, the licensed firearm owners, the free speech advocates, the small business owners, and the ethnic and religious minorities. Everyone has the right to live free in the country, because anyone can dance. Why New Zealand needs more of a movement like ours Now, this must all sound very nostalgic. If our opponents have listened this far, they're probably hoping I'm building up to a retirement. I've talked about how we got to today because it's worth pausing and looking back. It's essential to acknowledge and thank the many people who got us this far. We should, as our stalwart member Vince Ashworth says, foster a culture of appreciation. That said, I'm not going anywhere but ahead. Sorry Labour, ACT remains your worst nightmare, and New Zealand's best hope. Nearly every single press release, fundraising email, talking point from Labour lately has been about how dangerous David Seymour is. I get so much free accommodation living in Willie Jackson's head, I might need to declare it to Parliament's register of interests. To Labour, yes I am dangerous, but only to you and your batty outriders. What's more your strategy of directing more attention to ACT will backfire. To paraphrase Br'er Rabbit, we're born and bred under political pressure. When you put the spotlight on ACT, you show people the party and the attitude this country needs. We can be down and out, through wicked old days, and rise again. We've been able to do it because we have something you can never take away, our philosophy. Our core beliefs are the beliefs that founded this country. Wave after wave of migrants have taken huge risks to give their children a better life on these islands. We are a nation of pioneers united in the belief that things can get better, no matter how hard they seem there is always hope. We don't discriminate against each other, based on things we can't change about ourselves. We only discriminate based on the choices we do make. Human freedom, and personal responsibility under the law. We know the world is unpredictable, and the only path to success is letting a thousand flowers bloom, looking for success that we can push up, instead of pull down. Our opponents are a Labour Party best described as lost. There is a Green Party that barely talks about the environment. There is the extraordinary spectre of a race-based party that increasingly threatens violence against its opponents, tolerated by the media. What unites them is a poverty of spirit. The idea that other people's success is not an example of what's possible, but somehow the source of their supporters' problems. They traffic in the idolisation of envy, and even if they manage to sell it, it still won't work. ACT on the other hand, and our celebration today, shows that anyone can dance. Yes our country faces problems, but ACT knows how to overcome them. It starts with belief. When seemed easiest to give up, you may find you were really just turning the corner. Today there are too many Kiwis leaving, and not enough believing. I believe New Zealand remains a good bet. We have no excuses for not creating a great country, but it's the culture that matters. The real culture war today is not about which bathroom you go to, it is about whether we are here to push people up or pull them down. Can we move past the dark underbelly of tall poppy, and celebrate the achievements of Sheppard, Rutherford, Ngata and Hillary, with many more to come? We have to believe life is a positive sum game, that win-wins are possible if we treat each other with mutual respect and dignity. We can become a kind of Athens of the modern world, a place where creative people are welcomed to move and invest, joining people already here who fundamentally believe the point of our country is to make success possible. Every policy should be measured against the simple test, will this create the environment for New Zealanders to solve problems and make tomorrow better than today. It's what we used to call, progressive. It used to be an idea owned by the left, but today they are far too busy tearing people down and putting them in boxes, virtue signaling, categorising, and otherwise discriminating. If there's any party that can offer the values and the grit to take this country out of the doldrums and constant 'meh' that befalls New Zealand today, it's the party that's had to overcome the great Kiwi knocking machine from palliative care to the centre of Government. That effort would not have been possible without the people in this room and beyond who believed in us when no-one else would, because they believe in the Party's ideas.
