Latest news with #TreatyPrinciplesBill
Otago Daily Times
20 hours ago
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Using principles and the making of laws
Where principles and law-making meet. Photo: ODT files What are we to make of the various principles we have been hearing about recently: a principle of neutrality that is supposed to support the principle of free speech; a principle of tolerance; three principles in the Treaty Principles Bill; the Waitangi Tribunal's Treaty principles; and the principles of the Act New Zealand party. Some try to live by the principle of moderation in all things, others by the 10 pre-eminent biblical principles. Many would apply the principle of equality as equal pay for equal work. Then there are the principles of human rights and indigenous rights. It would seem that a majority of people write and speak of principles as if they are infallible statements to be read off verbatim — and that is usually the intention. It was United States psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg who formally reinforced a belief that acting in accordance with universal principles is the highest level of moral development. But since 1958, Kohlberg's claim has been thoroughly criticised, especially for being more characteristic of a male way of thinking about the world, contrary to a caring approach. Kohlberg's claim also presupposes that universal principles override particular facts and feelings which are fundamental to moral, legal and scientific considerations. In this short space, I aim to pour doubt on uncritical confidence in the wide use of principles to steer decision-making. To do that, I would like to consider two basic characteristics of principles that such use tends to run slipshod over. They amount to an inescapable interplay of faith and reason. The first characteristic of principles is that they are expressions of beliefs. Belief is another way of looking at faith commitment, irrespective of what that commitment might be anchored in: a deity, tradition, philosophical ideology or a particular interpretation of nature. We necessarily put our trust in principles in order to guide us in decision-making because there never is access to all the facts and feelings surrounding any particular matter. However, the irony here is that although principled thinking is a key tool in rational thought, it is also essentially founded on belief that cannot be fully justified. Principles are adopted in faith. Where then do principles come from? Being beliefs, they have no observable physical existence as objects or behaviours. They exist merely as ideas, even as very useful ideas. So we always need to ask, "whose ideas?" People usually invent principles to exert power and dominate, forcing others to bend to their way of thinking — what they consider "right". Therefore, we always also need to ask, "on whose authority?" and "will I accept or challenge that authority?" Like assumptions and other beliefs, principles are not a suitable basis for discussion. Unless they are widely held, they are divisive. The idea that overarching principles can act as a check on all other principles illustrates the reality that they are designed to constrain and prevent open discussion and promote conformity. On the other hand, some other overarching principles, such as the twin principles of love God and love thy neighbour, can promote wide open inclusive discussion. It is well to acknowledge that some people presume universal principles actually do exist, somewhere out there, or within the human psyche; a core suite of affirmations about what is right and wrong (moral knowledge) that all of humanity can comprehend. Unfortunately, cultures and individuals continually disagree about which principles count because there is no aspect of reality against which to verify them. Yet, as biological beings inhabiting a global environment, the principle of interdependence is hard to beat. A second characteristic of principles that also brings into question their usefulness, is that they are generalisations. This means that they result from reflection on a host of particular situations. The important point here is that it is nonsense to suppose that generalisations, such as principles, will apply in all relevant situations. Exceptions are the rule. When considering how to legislate, act or adjudicate in a situation, particular facts and feelings are crucial. The relative importance of generalisations and particulars in discussion and decision-making is disputed territory. While some believe in the supposed authority of a generalisation (a principle or law), others believe in the supposed authority that the particulars of a case provide. Alternatively, consider scientific principles and their applicability. It is often pointed out that science cannot to be trusted because scientific knowledge keeps on changing. This happens because scientific generalisations (principles and laws) are based not on beliefs as much as they are based on data sets (grassroots information, so-called facts) which keep on changing due to new observations about a changing world, and are more often than not, generated by new technologies. A good example is the recent article in Nature that discusses the use of satellite imagery and Argo floats instead of random sampling, to determine the saltiness of the Southern Ocean. This has provided a new understanding of sea ice melting. Here, there is a fit between particulars and generalisations which the use of principles per se cannot provide. I leave the following chicken and egg conundrum: do particular observations of objects and behaviours come first, or the generalisations generated by many such observations? In any case, the solution is not straightforward, and more so when we realise, as British historian Agnes Arber brought to our attention in 1954 in The Mind and the Eye, that the observer's mind brings generalisations and ideologies to observation through their eyes. Principled thinking is then, fraught with difficulty. The introduction of overarching principles as proposed by the Regulatory Standards Bill is, according to this analysis, a serious step backwards into denial of the status of such principles as power-mongering beliefs. Such a check on existing and new legislation by overarching principles is an unnecessary, if not mischievous, rationalisation. There are so many issues in health, education, corrections, welfare and the environment that elected members can surely troubleshoot through robust discussion with a commitment to co-operative non-partisan governance, without entertaining the Act party's divisive, road-blocking principles. • Ron Adams is a former teacher of ethics and theology in Dunedin.
Newsroom
2 days ago
- Politics
- Newsroom
Anne Salmond: Freedom, for whom?
The debate over the Regulatory Standards Bill has been illuminating. New Zealanders have learned a great deal about how our society is being run at present, by whom and for whom. In this bill, a small libertarian minority is attempting to use the law of the land, past and present, to uphold the priority of private rights and property over all other values, including care for the environment, the just treatment of minority groups and the public good. A recent Post article by Andrea Vance casts light on how the Regulatory Standards Bill was conceived and drafted, and by whom. The New Zealand Initiative, a right wing think tank, with its predecessor the Business Round Table, has been trying to get such a bill passed for the past 25 years. After the last election, while the coalition Government was being formed, the Act party with just 8.6 percent of the vote negotiated the inclusion of the draft Regulatory Standards Bill in the coalition agreement, with the Treaty Principles Bill and many other measures. The Government was formed in late November 2024, with the leader of Act appointed Minister for Regulation with a new ministry, and as Deputy Prime Minister for the second half of the parliamentary term. The draft Regulatory Standards Bill was sent out for public consultation. The period for feedback was brief and included the Christmas holidays, a timing that aroused resentment. According to the Post article, during this time the New Zealand Initiative was deeply engaged in backroom discussions with the government. A primary architect of the Bill, a senior fellow of the New Zealand Initiative, was constantly in touch with the Act leader as Minister for Regulation and the CE of the new Ministry throughout, consulting on the bill. The impression one gains from the written correspondence, now in the public arena, is of a lack of wider discussion within the ministry, with critics of the draft legislation (including myself, with almost every other commentator) being dismissed in the most patronising and jaundiced terms – the opposite of a democratic exchange of ideas. In the event, and despite the unhelpful timing, 23,000 New Zealanders submitted on the draft Regulatory Standards Bill, with only .33% in favour. Nevertheless, in May 2025 the bill was brought to Parliament for its first reading, which was held under urgency, and sent to a select committee. During the consultation period, which ended in late June, a reported 150,000 New Zealanders sent in their submissions on the bill, the vast majority opposed to its measures, with 16,000 citizens asking to be heard by the select committee. Meanwhile, as Minister for Regulation, Deputy Prime Minister and Acting Prime Minister, the leader of the Act party authorised an online 'Victim of the Day' campaign, designed and delivered by staff using the logo of the Parliamentary Service on their social posts. This featured the portraits of a series of academics (including myself) and others, describing them as 'Victim of the Day' and 'deranged' for criticising the bill, and decorated with the parliamentary insignia. This effort to silence critics by online trolling, not just by the Act party but from Parliament and the highest office in the land, provoked a petition that has attracted over 24,000 signatures to date. This petition calls on the Prime Minister to uphold the requirement in the Cabinet Manual that ministers 'behave in a way that upholds, and is seen to uphold, the highest ethical and behavioural standards.' In early July, the select committee on the Regulatory Standards Bill began hearing submissions, over just 30 hours in total with no MPs in the room. Of 16,000 individual citizens who had asked to submit in person, only 208 were allowed to speak, and then for 5 minutes each. This was a further breach of the rights of citizens to have their views about legislation before parliament heard and weighed in the balance. Throughout the deliberations on this bill, in the name of individual freedom, the rights of individual New Zealanders to speak their minds and think differently from a small libertarian minority have been thwarted. This applies across the political spectrum, including many who might be described as 'conservative' in their values. New Zealanders who uphold ideas about civic responsibility as well as individual rights and property, including care for the environment, the just treatment of minority groups, Te Tiriti and legislative measures in the public interest, for instance, are dismissed as 'misinformed,' or even incapable of rational thought. If most Kiwis realised that when the bill talks about freedom for 'persons,' it's talking about freedom for corporations (which in law, are defined as legal 'persons'), not just citizens, they'd see why its backers are so keen to annihilate its critics. Individual freedom and rights sound appealing, until you understand the bill is also seeking freedom for corporations as legal 'persons' to make profits with minimal restraints. In the event, the submitters who spoke in front of the select committee were overwhelmingly opposed to the draft bill. Incisive, authoritative analyses of its flaws and negative consequences if enacted were offered from many different vantage points. In a healthy democracy, one would expect that given this kind of feedback, a select committee would recommend to reject the bill, or at least significantly revise it. A few days ago, however, an article in The Herald by Thomas Coughlan revealed that the leader of the Act party has threatened to break the coalition unless the Regulatory Standards Bill is passed as drafted. This would be another breach of the right of citizens to be heard by those in power, and for their views to be taken into account when legislation is enacted. While the Deputy Prime Minister and other advocates continue to argue this bill is simply a technical measure, aimed at smoothing the legislative process, this is clearly not the case. No political party in a coalition would threaten to bring down the Government over a trivial matter of that kind. On closer analysis, passionate rhetoric about individual rights and freedoms by Act and its supporters emerges as 'double speak,' talk that disguises an opposite intention – in this case, to force others to adopt libertarian values about the primacy of private property and the rights of corporations as legal persons, using the law to do it. This includes imposing libertarian versions of 'freedom of speech' on universities, alongside efforts to control the media in New Zealand, including the internet. Rather than the pursuit of freedom of speech, this is a fundamentally authoritarian project, underpinned by a sense of intellectual superiority. Anyone who thinks differently from the Act party, its think tanks and its backers is misguided or a fool, and must be made to pull the forelock and bow the knee, by law. 'Closed' rather than 'open' minds, backed by the exercise of political power. Faced with this kind of imposition, most New Zealanders would tell its proponents to get lost. Democratic values, a care for others and the land are still strong in this country, if not in some political parties. Distilled to its essence, that is the message coming from the electorate about the Regulatory Standards Bill – and the attempts by the same fringe party to subvert academic freedom, for instance. The majority in Parliament would be wise to listen. Act's libertarian stunts are a self-serving distraction from other, more urgent challenges – the health crisis, the energy market, resilience to climate change, and the hordes of Kiwis leaving the country, for instance. They're fiddling with old, passé ideas while the world is drowning, or burning. At the heart of the matter, a bill that requires the primacy of private property and the rights of 'persons' in all law making in New Zealand will inevitably privilege those who have 'property' and power over those who don't. While many Kiwis hold fast to ideas of 'a fair go' and a decent society, since the 1980s neo-liberal philosophies have dominated governance in this country, so that the top 1 percent in New Zealand now hold 23 percent of the wealth. Productivity suffers when there's not enough to eat at home and children go to school hungry; housing is poor or lacking altogether for many families; and low-paid workers are penalised to allow tax breaks for landlords and other wealthy interests, as in the Act-driven changes to the Pay Equity Act. The World Bank, the OECD and Nobel prize winners have all concluded that radical inequality works against sustainable prosperity. The Regulatory Standards Bill, with its privileging of libertarian ideas, will make inequality even worse, with widespread child poverty, low paid, insecure jobs and social misery. No wonder so many New Zealanders are leaving the country. Its time for National to agree to disagree with Act, and start making a positive difference for New Zealanders, or as Peter Dunne has warned, face the electoral consequences.
Newsroom
2 days ago
- Politics
- Newsroom
The (not so) little leagues turn heads while majors sit by
Analysis: With a little over a year until the campaign proper begins, all eyes are on the smaller – but no longer minor – parties. The Act Party kicked off AGM season yesterday with its so-called Free & Equal Rally. National and the Greens will both hold their AGMs next month, followed by NZ First in September and rounded out by Labour in November. Heading into the next election, every vote will count. Polling is consistently showing tight margins, so each party is looking to define itself; to stand out. On Sunday, Act attempted to do just that – walking the line between showing how it's different from its other right-wing coalition partners, without undermining the three-way union that still has more than a year to run. With Act and NZ First going head-to-head on the anti-woke vote, David Seymour called in the big guns in the form of the American author and free speech advocate James Lindsay. The controversial commentator, who's drawn attention for referring to the Pride flag as the 'flag of the hostile enemy', decried mātauranga Māori as a weapon used by the left to drive a wedge into NZ society, drew lines between policies used in Stalin's Soviet Union and modern day Aotearoa, and spoke about the importance of private property rights. He also received spontaneous applause for reminding the audience that 'communists are not good people'. Seymour hasn't defended Lindsay's comments on rainbow communities, but has defended his right to express such views. And with Lindsay addressing the anti-woke agenda, the Act leader was able to focus his speech on the party's track record in Government, his view of economic and health policy, and the path ahead. Seymour also announced party policy to fast track approval for overseas supermarket chains looking to set up in New Zealand. He believes this fast tracking (along with a guaranteed liquor licence) is the best way to ramp up competition in the market. The Act leader also used his speech to defend the coalition's policy of interest deductibility for landlords, saying this group had been scapegoated under Labour. Seymour told the crowd he knows it's a political risk to defend big business. 'The good thing is, I'm impervious to political risk.' So far, it seems to be true. Though Seymour didn't get his Treaty Principles Bill passed, he is getting a lot of what he wants from this coalition arrangement – just look at the Regulatory Standards Bill. But so has NZ First. And after shedding the title of Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters has openly declared he's shifted into campaign mode for the second half of the term. Seymour says the best form of campaigning is delivering for Kiwis. This may be a response befitting the Deputy Prime Minister, but that doesn't mean he's going to be a wallflower for the next 12-plus months. All four minor parties know it'll come down to the wire next year and whether they say it or not, they're all in campaign mode – it shows markedly in their finessing of social media staffing and strategies. The recent, shocking, death of Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp also shows there is fresh talent lining up on the left, ready to step up to the plate. Well-known broadcaster Oriini Kaipara will stand for Te Pāti Māori in the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election, and the party's lawyer Tania Waikato says she will be throwing her hat in the ring next year – though she's yet to confirm her party of choice. But while the smaller parties go head to head, National and Labour are grappling to come to terms with this changing game. The legacy parties appear to be standing a step back from the fray, biding their time to see what happens next – both with their opposition and their allies. The risk is they wait too long and lose the ability to set the narrative in the way they've always done. The major parties are still major, but the growing might of the small four means they can't take their platform or influence for granted. At some point – perhaps during AGM season, which conveniently falls more or less a year out from the election – National and Labour will need to throw themselves onto centre field. That includes unveiling policy that can help turn heads back to the centre.
NZ Herald
5 days ago
- Politics
- NZ Herald
David Seymour issues regulations bill ultimatum as committee threatens to break Parliament
Murray's explanation: he promised a gig in 'a' central park in Newark, not the Central Park in New York. Hewitt, the fictional diplomat, and Winston Peters, the real life one, have precious little in common, but Act leader David Seymour fired a warning to his colleague across the Cabinet table this week over the NZ First leader's wavering support for the Regulatory Standards Bill, just in case Peters had been taking notes from his fictional public service subordinate. Peters and his colleague Shane Jones have floated making changes after the bill returns from select committee and then passing it, as promised in the coalition agreement. Sniffing a plot to water the bill down before it is passed, Seymour went public this week to remind his partners that the coalition agreement commits them to passing 'the' Regulatory Standards Bill, not 'a' Regulatory Standards Bill. What Seymour has said in public is consistent with what had previously been said in private. Sources have confirmed to the Herald that he has made it clear behind the scenes that the Regulatory Standards Bill's passage is as bottom line as it gets – and he's willing to walk away from the coalition over it, bringing down the Government and triggering an election. It won't come to that (probably) – the polls are too close to risk an election, particularly one triggered by internal instability. But the fact it even needs to be said is an example of how fraught things have become. In the early days of the coalition, to everyone's surprise, it was relations between Act and National that were the frostiest, with National's insistence on having its way rankling Seymour and Act, who believe that way of thinking is a hangover from the first-past-the-post era. Now it seems a vector of conflict has opened between Act and NZ First too, with both sides having a different view of this Government's kaupapa: Act is willing to risk short-term unpopularity, even losing an election, for long-term foundational change; NZ First is not. Acting Prime Minister David Seymour says the coalition is committed to passing the Regulatory Standards Bill. Photo / Mark Mitchell The tension in the Cabinet room is nothing like the inferno of anxiety burning away over the Finance and Expenditure Committee's investigation of the bill held over Zoom this week. Has there ever been a select committee like this? Technological changes at Parliament, a new era of social media politicking, and profound ill feeling against the Act Party after the Treaty Principles Bill have conspired to turn what might have been a fairly bland and technical few days of hearings into something of a circus. The bill sets out principles of 'good' regulation and requires ministers to assess legislative proposals against those principles, although it does not bind their hands in any way. It also creates a Regulatory Standards Board, appointed by the Minister for Regulation (though members would require Cabinet approval), that would independently decide whether legislation complied with the principles. The board can recommend changes, but that's where its power ends. The bill has a retrospective interest, meaning existing regulations will come under its gaze too. The objectors fall into two main camps: the first thinks the bill is a colossal waste of time and resource, unnecessarily ideological and will, at the margin, hamper but not block 'public good' regulation. As Seymour's own Regulations Ministry and the Legislative Design and Advisory Committee have said about the bill, it duplicates the work done by Regulatory Impact Statements, the Legislative Design and Advisory Committee, and Parliament's Regulations Review Committee. The principles themselves are not universal and are more accurately described as Act's principles of good regulation. They're not as contentious as you may think from the public outcry; they're more liberal than neoliberal, but if Act wanted this bill to last beyond the first 100 days of the next Labour Government it might have included a Treaty clause and a nod to collective rights. Former Revenue Minister David Parker passed a slightly less powerful Tax Principles Reporting Act in the last Parliament. These principles were still mostly left of centre, but they were consulted on in a bid to form some consensus before the legislation was passed (like much consultation, it was waste of time — the law was repealed in just three days less than a month after the coalition took office). These criticisms have been made in submissions, public commentary and in a polite but bloody Passchendaele of keyboard warfare in the Newsroom comments section. Their proponents are familiar faces on the select committee circuit, Wellington academics and lawyers associated with Victoria University, Jonathan Boston, Eddie Clark, Graeme Edgeler, Dean Knight and Sir Geoffrey Palmer. To somewhat oversimplify: the conundrum of the bill, in the view of these people, is not that the bill is a powerful constitutional innovation rushed through under urgency, but given its only real power is to shame ministers into being better regulators, it's unlikely to do much more than create a lot of unnecessary and unread paperwork. Former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer is a vocal critic of the bill. Photo / Mark Mitchell A Government, using Parliament, will still be able to do almost anything it wants at any speed it wishes, with unread regulatory standards declarations filed neatly beside their section 7 Bill of Rights counterparts and their 'thanks, but no thanks' advice – the paper-thin checks and balances of our 'yeah, nah' constitution. Politics will always trump paperwork. As for unintended consequences, the biggest unintended consequence will be what the coalition does with all this advice. Ministers in a hypothetical second term may find themselves spending much of their days arguing with the Act party over why they're ignoring a regulations report arguing for change to this or that regulation. As an exasperated Boston described the effect of the law on a future government: 'why would multiple ministers want to make themselves look stupid not just once, but repeatedly, every year from here on potentially until eternity?'. Members of this group are concerned the bill will make certain things such as public health and environmental regulation more difficult, but are clear-eyed about the fact that the bill doesn't force this outcome. Power still rests with Parliament and ministers. The second camp of critics has a slightly wilder flavour. The group would include popular lawyer Tania Waikato, who is associated with the Toitū Te Tiriti group, Dame Anne Salmond and Te Pāti Māori's social media accounts. Waikato said the bill would 'entrench… far right political views' into the fabric of the country via a 'regulatory constitution' and its passage would raise 'significant red flags about the introduction of fascism to this country'. While Salmond wrote in Newsroom that the law would 'tie the hands' of the state if it wished to regulate 'private activities or initiatives that create public harm' (like smoking), by 'requiring' those who benefit from laws or regulations to compensate others for the losses of profit that may arise from such regulation. Te Pāti Māori, meanwhile, took to Instagram claiming the bill would let judges 'strike down Māori-focused laws'. The anxiety arising from this criticism was pictorially represented by submitter Annie Collins. She drew a stick figure Minister for Regulation, Seymour, sitting atop the flow chart of state, vaguely resembling, in pixelated Zoom form, the famous frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan and held it aloft to the committee while voicing her fear the bill would lead to 'international corporations suing us'. The correctness of Waikato's critique is a matter of taste. The principles are certainly right of centre but it's a stretch to link the bill to anything fascist. Salmond's criticism is more straightforwardly incorrect. A principle of the bill is that those adversely affected by regulation be compensated, but as with everything else in the bill it doesn't force the Government to compensate anyone for anything. Some in the first basket of submitters noted the principles may burrow themselves into our laws through the courts. The Legislative Design and Advisory Committee also noted courts may 'read in' the principles when making decisions in the way the Bill of Rights has been 'read in' over the past three decades, but this bill specifically excludes allowing companies to sue the government. Te Pāti Māori's attack is flat out wrong – only one Parliamentary party has, this term, proposed allowing unelected officials to strike down laws and that is Te Pāti Māori itself, whose Tiriti commissioner (depending on which co-leader you talk to) could override the will of Parliament. For those of the Act persuasion, there's also a whiff of hypocrisy here – only a few years ago, during the pandemic, these sorts of attacks were swiftly labelled misinformation in the media and the wider public. There is a real sense on their side that public enforcement of the truth has a partisan bias. Act is taking things into its own hands, with unedifying attacks on Salmond and other critics as suffering from a 'derangement syndrome'. The challenge for Parliament is that the critiques of dubious factual merit are the ones that appear to be getting most pick-up. Pity Labour's MPs on the committee, opposing the bill for reasonable and justifiable grounds, but missing out on the attentional cut through garnered by the orgy of unfounded anxiety spread by its benchmates and their supporters. A story from veteran political journalist Richard Harman this week pondered the decline of Parliament's committees as a place of serious work, saying they'd become 'platforms for political protest'. One of the challenges faced by the committees is the sheer number of submissions. Nothing can be done about that – reducing people's right and ability to participate in democracy is a far greater evil than maintaining the genteel lie that all of these submissions are properly read and listened to. A bigger challenge is people using their oral submissions as a stage set for content creation rather than engaging with the bill in any substantive way (Waikato's 'fascism' submission falls into this category). This is a new problem. The streaming of committees only began during the first term of the Ardern Government and regular streaming of all public committees only began in the last Parliament. The streaming means submitters regularly clip up their appearances for use in political campaign videos. There's always been a performative element to select committees and campaign groups have, for decades, banged their particular drum in submissions that are only tangentially related to the bill in question. But the problem Parliament has now is the sheer number of submitters who submit in this way, vastly outweighing substantive submissions. What happens when voters' main engagement with the committee room is watching a social media video deliberately misinforming them about the nature of a law going through Parliament? What happens when the committees are all theatre and not, as the Conchords might say, Business Time?
Otago Daily Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Positively polarising
Controversy has never done Act New Zealand leader David Seymour any harm in the past, and he does not think it will do him any harm in the future either, he tells political editor Mike Houlahan. As David Seymour settles into a comfy chair in a warm Dunedin hotel, a hundred or so of his bitterest political foes are standing outside in the cold wind decrying the policies of he and the government he is a part of. Polarisation seems to pursue the Act New Zealand leader wherever he goes, and today is no exception: the warm welcome he is about to receive at a Business South meeting is contrary to the frigid reception he would have received had he ventured outside and around the corner to meet the protest rally. "I think, frankly, people want politicians at all levels who are prepared to stand for something and say what they believe in a way that's conciliatory and respectful, and that's what I seek to do," he says, shrugging off the suggestion that Act always needs to be polarising voters to ensure it maintains a high profile. "There is actually a whole lot of change Act is doing that is not getting attention. These Bills have got a lot of attention: the Treaty Principles Bill got a lot of attention, and the Regulatory Standards Bill has actually got attention as a result of the Treaty Principles Bill. "Most of my career I've supported the Regulatory Standards Bill and struggled to get people interested. Now people are interested because of political hype." Few pieces of legislation have excited the general public in recent years as those two Bills — both in the name of Mr Seymour. The first was voted down by Parliament, the second is almost certain to become law despite a procession of opponents to the legislation appearing before Parliament's finance and expenditure committee this week to decry it. "The standards of debate need to rise, and frankly, so many people are saying things about the Regulatory Standards Bill that are just so demonstrably untrue. We need to be able to call a spade a spade," Mr Seymour said. "If you look at our overall agenda, if you look at what Brooke [van Velden] is doing for holidays, the health and safety, labour law, contracting, Covid law, look at Nicole McKee on anti money laundering this week, firearms law, alcohol law. "Karen Chhour is gradually reshaping Oranga Tamariki, Simon Court is doing the resource management law. Andrew Hoggard's playing a role in biosecurity agriculture, with a very safe pair of hands there, even though a few chickens had to die ... having me as the deputy prime minister, and according to most accounts, being a safe pair of hands, I think that helps reassure people that Act is a safe vote." It is always dangerous reading anything in to polls this far out from an election — the day after speaking to the ODT the latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll came out, which showed Act steady on 9.1% but overtaken by junior coalition partner NZ First, on 9.8%. But Mr Seymour's contention that Act is no longer beholden to winning his Epsom seat has some credibility. Although the party has failed to poll in the mid-teens, as it did a couple of months prior to the 2023 election, it has equally never looked like dropping down anywhere near the 5% threshold ... and lest we forget, Mr Seymour's deputy Brooke van Velden now has an electorate seat of her own. "I think we've had two polls under 7% in the last five years, and both of those were over 6. Every other poll, and there's probably literally been hundreds in the last five years, have had us at an absolute minimum of 7, some as high as 18," Mr Seymour said. "So, yeah, I think it's fair to say we've been a long way from 5 ... but, you know, you can see Act looking to win more electorate seats at the next election. We're just casting around a bit at the moment." Words which may well send a shiver up the spine of National party management, given that any seat Act may actively tackle is likely to be one that the senior coalition partner holds ... and the example of Ms van Velden in Tamaki shows that Act can walk the talk. "We're not ready to say [where], but we are actively exploring," Mr Seymour said. "Remember, the seats belong to the voters. So the question is, what's best for the voters? People in Tamaki decided that having Brooke represent them would be better than the alternative, and there may be other seats where people decide that." Before we get to that election, there is the not inconsiderable matter of the local body elections to get past. In a novel initiative, Act has decided to officially contest council election for the first time, and the party has been putting out a press release a day in recent weeks promoting its newest recruit. The party has sometimes battled to find suitable candidates in the regions, and fielding in local body elections offers a low-risk environment where contenders for higher honours can test themselves and be tested in as real a simulation of a national election as can be managed. From an initial 700 people interested in standing for Act, the party had whittled the list down to 60. Mr Seymour doubted the election, or otherwise, of any Act-aligned councillors will be an indicator of Act's possible support a year from now, and said the undertaking was an experiment. "Number one, will people vote for a national level brand at local level? And that's what it is, although our candidates are certainly self-generated and local. We didn't pick them, they came to us from their local communities. "The second thing we're testing is what's the appetite for basically three things that Act stands for at the local level. One is being tougher on rates and the role of local government in doing less and spending less. Two is we're pro-car and we want to be able to drive our cars and not be basically forced to pay for modes of transport we don't use and have our carparks taken away. "And three is we believe in equal rights. We oppose the numerous genuflections that councils are making to what we view as a misconception of the Treaty. So it will be a test of the applicability of that brand and those concepts to local government. "But I suspect that next year's election will be about quite different issues and central government where people are more familiar with us." In 2023 — and most of 2022 for that matter — Act campaigned relentlessly, holding hundreds of town hall meetings, many of which Seymour spoke at. Act's 2026 election campaign will have to be different: the party is in government now and the deputy prime minister cannot be in Wanaka or Roxburgh as often as he might like. "The other way is digital media, and we'll do a lot more of that, but I love getting up and talking to people, and it's a great way to test where you're up to with the audience," Mr Seymour said. "And often the mood of the crowd and the responses you get and the questions they ask are a really good way of testing where people are up to." No doubt his friends outside could give him a sense of where some people are up to. "We know who our likely supporters are, and they're much younger than the people that come to the public meetings. I don't know why that is," Mr Seymour continued. "I suspect it's because people with children generally don't go to public meetings. One of the reasons I knew we were on to something in 2020, for the first time ever, I saw people with prams and push chairs at our public meetings. "I thought, that's someone who is making a really big effort ... That's when I realised that people were engaged in politics, and they wanted to engage with us." Freedom of speech upheld despite controversy Act New Zealand proudly proclaims itself as being the party of freedom of speech. There could be few better examples of that than when party deputy leader Brooke van Velden made unwanted history in May by using the "c" word for the first time in parliamentary debate in New Zealand. Few people knew that Ms van Velden was going to quote quite that verbatim from a newspaper column on pay equity law changes which had greatly offended her and other opposition MPs ... but party leader David Seymour did. Knowing that Speaker Gerry Brownlee suspected what was about to happen, Mr Seymour made a point of order to ask that Ms van Velden "be given a full opportunity to respond the way she wants to" — which, eventually, she did. "It was entirely her and her office, and I talked to her about it," Mr Seymour said. "I said, 'well, if you're absolutely sure it's what you want to do, then we of course support you. I think she took a stand against what was really a form of bullying, and I'm very proud of her for doing that." Mr Seymour said that Ms van Velden had thought the column and associated reporting was "disgraceful" and that it was completely in his deputy's character to be prepared to take decisive action to draw a line under those tactics. "I think it was a very impressive piece of politics from her."
