Speaker 1: Kiota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast.
Speaker 1: Presented by the New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 2: ACT Party leader David Seymour will become a New Zealand's
Speaker 2: Deputy Prime Minister tomorrow, taking over from Winston Peters. Will
Speaker 2: be the nineteenth person to be the country's second in command.
Speaker 2: First elected to Parliament in twenty fourteen, the last decade
Speaker 2: and a bit has seen Seymour's meteoric rise from being
Speaker 2: his party's sole mpte now sitting alongside ten colleagues after
Speaker 2: Act's best ever result in the twenty twenty three election.
Speaker 2: That result has allowed him to push through big changes
Speaker 2: around issues like regulation and government spending, but championing legislations
Speaker 2: such as the Treaty Principles Bill has also made him
Speaker 2: a lightning rod for controversy and backlash. Today, on the
Speaker 2: Front Page Age, Seymour joins us to talk about his
Speaker 2: new role. Backlash has faced, regulations and his thoughts on
Speaker 2: the opposition. So, David, this Deputy Prime minister handover has
Speaker 2: been on the cards for some time now.
Speaker 1: Are you excited about this change?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Look, it's one of those things you probably didn't
Speaker 3: think would happen in your life, but here we are.
Speaker 3: I think it's good for New Zeland. Shows a few
Speaker 3: bit quirky, but if your heart's in the right place
Speaker 3: and you put in the work, you know it's crowded house,
Speaker 3: so you can get somewhere.
Speaker 1: And can you believe it's come around so quickly?
Speaker 4: Though?
Speaker 1: As well?
Speaker 3: I think it's just one of those times in life
Speaker 3: where you know, everything goes at a million miles an hour.
Speaker 3: Idea reading on Sunday, kebinet on Monday, caucus on Tuesday,
Speaker 3: question time on Wednesday, go campaigning on Thursday, ipsom on Friday,
Speaker 3: have Saturday off and rinse and repeat. It's pretty much
Speaker 3: what it's been like for the last seventy weeks.
Speaker 2: Do you expect this to be a shift in power
Speaker 2: in the coalition? Is act in the front seat now
Speaker 2: alongside National or has it been kind of a three
Speaker 2: way from the get go?
Speaker 3: No? I don't think so. The coalition is a very
Speaker 3: respectful one. Everyone has a role to play, everyone has
Speaker 3: their own interest. I don't think it's fair to say
Speaker 3: that New Zealand First have been in any way leading
Speaker 3: actors a larger party, and that has been the case
Speaker 3: for the last eighteen months and will be for the
Speaker 3: next eighteen months.
Speaker 1: Are you happy how the coalitions work together?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think the coalition has been dangerously united. Our
Speaker 3: opponents thought it would all fall.
Speaker 1: Apart, the Coalition of chaos.
Speaker 3: Well they said all those things, didn't they, But they
Speaker 3: underestimated that even though we're all quite different, we're all
Speaker 3: quite committed to trying to dig New Zealand out of
Speaker 3: a pretty big hole. And look where the crime race, relations,
Speaker 3: cost of living, the healthcare system. I mean, hell, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of shoffling to do.
Speaker 2: Winston Peters has ruled out working with the Chris Hepkins permanently.
Speaker 1: What about you? Would you roll out working with Hepkins?
Speaker 3: Well, the difference is I don't need to say it. Look,
Speaker 3: I mean, this is a guy who was the Police
Speaker 3: Minister when the crime got out of control. He was
Speaker 3: in charge of the COVID response, which speaks for itself.
Speaker 3: He was the Minister of Education when kids stopped going
Speaker 3: to school on mass and he was the Minister of
Speaker 3: Health when the health budget went up sixty percent and
Speaker 3: the outcomes got worse. So you know, this guy has
Speaker 3: got the opposite of the Midas touch I think they
Speaker 3: call him a pooh midas and he's suddenly done some damage.
Speaker 1: So you wouldn't work with him?
Speaker 3: Well, no, because that would require him to be working,
Speaker 3: and as far as I can see, he doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Is there anyone else that you wouldn't work with that
Speaker 2: you'd rule out working with?
Speaker 3: I am constantly astonished that our country has a political
Speaker 3: party that is named for a race of people that
Speaker 3: cast everything in racial terms and is somehow given a
Speaker 3: free pass. Funnily enough, the fact that Tiparty Maori held
Speaker 3: to a lower standard, not just by other politicians, not
Speaker 3: just by the media, but actually by themselves, I think
Speaker 3: is really shameful, and we need to start working towards
Speaker 3: a vision of New Zealand as a nation of human
Speaker 3: beings with hopes and dreams, rather than different collectives sharing
Speaker 3: common ancestry and forever divided, which seems to be their
Speaker 3: vision of Tonga Tongua Ta Titi are different partners and
Speaker 3: on each side of a compact. It's never worked anywhere
Speaker 3: in the world, but it's been disastrous where it's gone wrong.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of the Treaty Principal's bill, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you're sick of talking about it.
Speaker 3: But no, no, not at all.
Speaker 2: We haven't had you on since the bill was actually
Speaker 2: officially voted down. Are you surprised by how much backlash
Speaker 2: there was towards the bill over the last year.
Speaker 3: Not at all. We took on a direction in this
Speaker 3: country which is toxic and corrosive, but also quite profitable
Speaker 3: for a lot of people. If you think about John Tamaheri,
Speaker 3: who is behind Toyitu Teti, which is really just the
Speaker 3: Maldi party, who makes a huge amount of money through
Speaker 3: the ypered Aida Trust. They're a major provider. My experience
Speaker 3: of working with him is that he believes that they
Speaker 3: should not be accountable for what they deliver on behalf
Speaker 3: of the taxpayer, because the treaty elevates them above accountability
Speaker 3: to the crown. They're rather a partner to the crown.
Speaker 3: I had this whole experience with John Tammaheadak signing up
Speaker 3: to run a partnership school or charter school kudahodu call
Speaker 3: it what you will, and then trying to renegotiate the
Speaker 3: contract at the last minute for no accountability. Now, if
Speaker 3: you're a person who believes that you basically are a
Speaker 3: parallel state, that you are not accountable to the same
Speaker 3: government and crown and taxpayer as everyone else. Then, of course,
Speaker 3: when someone comes along with a treaty principal spill that says, hey,
Speaker 3: guess what, folks were all equal. You don't like that
Speaker 3: very much. And I look at some of those people
Speaker 3: who came and gave submissions, know how many of them
Speaker 3: are lawyers or advocates advocate casing in a world where
Speaker 3: as a treaty partner, some people have different rights from others.
Speaker 3: Then I come along and say, guess what, folks, everyone
Speaker 3: has equal rights. That will get you a backlash. But
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, because a lot of
Speaker 3: the opponents were covering for I guess vested interests that
Speaker 3: they masqueraded as moral principle, they weren't able to put
Speaker 3: forward convincing arguments. And you watch that debate on the
Speaker 3: second reading. Yeah, we lost the vote, but we won
Speaker 3: the argument because nobody who was against the bill said
Speaker 3: the bill says X, I don't believe X, because Y,
Speaker 3: I instead believe that New Zealand should be run according
Speaker 3: to Z. You didn't hear that X, y Z. You
Speaker 3: just heard lots of Haystien rhetoric. On the other hand,
Speaker 3: the idea that Parliament has the rights to make laws,
Speaker 3: that Parliament and the government have the obligation to uphold
Speaker 3: all people's rights and duties, and that all people's rights
Speaker 3: and duties are equal. Those three principles weren't No one
Speaker 3: laid a glove on them.
Speaker 2: Well, we had British philosopher ac Grailing on the podcast
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago when he was here for the Writers' Festival.
Speaker 2: He said, to treat people equally is not always to
Speaker 2: treat them fairly.
Speaker 4: If you had an Olympic athlete who needed five thousand
Speaker 4: calories a day and you had a little old lady
Speaker 4: who needed fifteen hundred calories a day, and you forced
Speaker 4: them to eat the same number of calories let's say
Speaker 4: three thousand calories a day each, you're unfair to both.
Speaker 4: You're treating them equally, but you're unfair to both. Equity
Speaker 4: or fairness is the goal, not just crude equality. However,
Speaker 4: equality matters when it comes to what are sometimes called
Speaker 4: equality of concern. So people should be treated equally before
Speaker 4: the law.
Speaker 1: Now, how would you respond to that?
Speaker 2: Because I know that act believes the bill promises equal
Speaker 2: rights for all new Zealanders.
Speaker 1: But would that still be fair?
Speaker 3: Well, I went to see Ac Grayling because I actually
Speaker 3: quoted his book Towards the Light of Liberty in my
Speaker 3: maiden statement to Parliament, and I was so disappointed with
Speaker 3: the speech he gave his I think in the last
Speaker 3: ten to fifteen years he's deteriorated from being quite a
Speaker 3: principal person to an apologist, which is a real shame
Speaker 3: because I quoted him in my speech first speech to Parliament. However,
Speaker 3: putting him aside, it's possible to address inequities amongst people
Speaker 3: without categorizing us into racial groups. I just give you
Speaker 3: one little example. We have recently changed beow cancer screening
Speaker 3: from sixty years old for European people and fifty years
Speaker 3: old for Mara and Pacific people to just fifty eight
Speaker 3: for all people. And why because the data is really
Speaker 3: clear people have the same chance of contracting bowl cancer
Speaker 3: for any given age, regardless of their ancestry. So not
Speaker 3: only are we better targeting need because fifty nine year
Speaker 3: olds and fifty eight year olds who are European and
Speaker 3: have the same risk now gets access, we are also
Speaker 3: removing the sickness of having to partition the population based
Speaker 3: on their ancestry. I don't want that aickiness. I just
Speaker 3: want to treat each person as a fallow human being
Speaker 3: and deal with people based on their actual need rather
Speaker 3: than their ancestry.
Speaker 2: There are worse health outcomes though, for Mali and Pacifica
Speaker 2: in certain circumstances.
Speaker 3: Though, isn't there that is true? But you've said something
Speaker 3: that you may not have realized. You've also said that
Speaker 3: your preferred lens for partitioning human beings is race. Actually,
Speaker 3: there are differences between rich and poor. There are differences
Speaker 3: based on education. There are differences based on whether people
Speaker 3: choose to spoke crites. There are differences based on dietary
Speaker 3: There are so many different ways that you can categorize people.
Speaker 3: I just reject choosing one which is quite clumsy, quite icky,
Speaker 3: and doesn't actually get us to target the people in
Speaker 3: greatest need.
Speaker 2: If we move on to the budget twenty twenty five, now,
Speaker 2: it feels like a key message from this budget was
Speaker 2: that people need to do more for themselves. So look
Speaker 2: at the key we saver change is that seems to
Speaker 2: be signaling that people need to do a bit more
Speaker 2: for themselves to save for retirement, rather than relying on
Speaker 2: the government contributions.
Speaker 3: Is that a fair takeaway, Well, it's probably a clarification
Speaker 3: of the situation. You see before people were getting the
Speaker 3: five hundred and twenty dollars, but it was all being borrowed.
Speaker 3: Every extra dollar the government spends at the moment is
Speaker 3: part of the deficit, and therefore the Debt Management Office
Speaker 3: at the Treasury has to go out to the market
Speaker 3: and say, will you loan us some money? Now, sure
Speaker 3: it feels like something was being done for you because
Speaker 3: you were getting that five hundred and twenty dollars, but
Speaker 3: also your future tax bill or money that's not available
Speaker 3: for your future healthcare or some other benefit, it was
Speaker 3: also being taken away. You may not have heard of
Speaker 3: the debt Management officer, Tree's true, but that's where it
Speaker 3: was happening. So I think what we've really done, rather
Speaker 3: than saying making people more reliant on themselves, we've just
Speaker 3: made it more transparent that the government cannot actually solve
Speaker 3: as many problems as may have been promised under our predecessors.
Speaker 2: The Regulatory Standards Bill is the next big bill from
Speaker 2: the act Party.
Speaker 1: I know, I see you grinning. This is a big
Speaker 1: area for you.
Speaker 2: As regulations Minister, it's going through Parliament at the moment.
Speaker 2: Can you explain what it is to people who may
Speaker 2: have only heard of it in passing?
Speaker 3: Sure? Well, go back to our core problem. Why are
Speaker 3: we poor? We are compared with Australia, in fact, compared
Speaker 3: with most of the Pacific RIM. We are a comparatively
Speaker 3: poor country and that hits in so many ways. Only
Speaker 3: to go through them all, but it dispirits people. It's
Speaker 3: the younger people leaving the country, and particularly when it
Speaker 3: comes to housing poverty, you're being able to afford your
Speaker 3: own place. So that isn't my view. Our big problem
Speaker 3: has two basic kinds of activity. One is taxing and
Speaker 3: spending money. So we just talked a bit about that,
Speaker 3: and we have a pretty good system for publishing the accounts,
Speaker 3: showing people who's responsible for what, and what results are
Speaker 3: they getting and how much data are they taking on them.
Speaker 3: You may not agree with everything the government does, but
Speaker 3: it's pretty easy to find out. It's pretty easy for
Speaker 3: the media to report it, pretty easy for voters to
Speaker 3: make decisions if they like it or don't like it.
Speaker 3: The other thing that the government can do, apart from
Speaker 3: taking your money, taxing it and then spending it on stuff.
Speaker 3: Is it can make rules for how you use the
Speaker 3: property that you still own. Are you what it hasn't taxed?
Speaker 3: And I would argue that power of making rules about
Speaker 3: who can lend money to who, how you can run
Speaker 3: a daycare, how you can develop your property, who can
Speaker 3: build a water treatment plant, to build a new subdivision,
Speaker 3: whatever it is, those rule making powers, I would argue,
Speaker 3: you have a bigger effect on our long term productivity
Speaker 3: and prosperity and ultimately how long we live and how
Speaker 3: healthy and wealthy we are effect than the government spending money.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think this government spending money is important,
Speaker 3: but regulating your property is more important. All we're trying
Speaker 3: to do with the regulatory standard spill is have a
Speaker 3: similar framework where you know, if our government makes a law,
Speaker 3: it's got to publish the effects of it on your property,
Speaker 3: on your liberties, got to state what problem it was
Speaker 3: trying to solve, and why I thought this was the
Speaker 3: best solution. It's really just making sure that voters can
Speaker 3: start to get a handle on the impact of regulation
Speaker 3: as easily as they can on spending.
Speaker 2: So how much would the build cost per anim across
Speaker 2: an estimated twenty years. I'm sure you saw that reporting
Speaker 2: from the Herald last week. It said that it was
Speaker 2: twenty million per anim what of officials that the Ministry
Speaker 2: of Regulation actually said, well, that's true.
Speaker 3: I mean that's from the Ministry for Regulations analysis. If
Speaker 3: you start making the bureaucracy analyze the rules that it's
Speaker 3: pushing on people, it'll cost twenty million to do it.
Speaker 3: And then the criticism has been well, what will the
Speaker 3: benefits of that be? And the truth is, it's very
Speaker 3: hard to calculate, but we know that the benefits are
Speaker 3: going to be much greater than the cost for the
Speaker 3: simple reason that if it's going to cost this much
Speaker 3: money just for the bureaucracy to write up and monitor
Speaker 3: the rules it's making, imagine the cost of all the
Speaker 3: poor buggers out there that have to follow the rules.
Speaker 2: Are there many jobs that are going to be like
Speaker 2: I can imagine that a lot of consultancy firms and
Speaker 2: everything like that making pretty big bank over these kind
Speaker 2: of regulatory changes.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll just give you one example. I mean that
Speaker 3: the estimate of the town planning industry is one point
Speaker 3: three billion dollars a year, So to put that in perspective,
Speaker 3: that's sixty five times the twenty million we just talked
Speaker 3: about just in one area, which is resource management. That
Speaker 3: the cost of this red tape and regulation is enormous,
Speaker 3: but that's actually a tiny portion of the overall cost
Speaker 3: the real cost of that urban planning industry, and my
Speaker 3: view is not for the cost for the projects that
Speaker 3: go ahead. It's the projects that don't go ahead. And
Speaker 3: when pros don't go ahead, there's less supply of housing,
Speaker 3: and when there's less supply, the price goes up for
Speaker 3: what remains. And so the real cost to a younger
Speaker 3: generation of New Zealanders of bad regulation and land use
Speaker 3: development make it more expensive to put in place of
Speaker 3: water treatment plant, et cetera, is incalculable. So anything we
Speaker 3: can do to get some transparency around regulation making I
Speaker 3: believe we'll have a major payoff, just basically getting the
Speaker 3: country's mojo back and making a few things, especially housing,
Speaker 3: more affordable.
Speaker 5: I think, you know, I think New Zealand is a
Speaker 5: right to be concerned that democracy will be under threat.
Speaker 5: David Seymour's Deputy Prime Ministy doesn't it, ever, so he
Speaker 5: doesn't have any respect for basic democratic norms, doesn't have
Speaker 5: any respect for the idea that people should ever say
Speaker 5: on the law changes that affect them. This government seems
Speaker 5: to think that everything can be passed through with no scrutiny,
Speaker 5: you know, just ram it through under agency and hope
Speaker 5: no one notices. Like cutting the future paychecks of women
Speaker 5: who have been claiming pay equity, pushed that through hope
Speaker 5: no one notices. And David Seymour is right at the
Speaker 5: heart of that, as regulatory rules should apply to everybody
Speaker 5: else except for him. Almost everything he does seems to
Speaker 5: be exempt from the high principles that he seems to
Speaker 5: espouse for other people.
Speaker 2: Do you ever feel like people have just got it
Speaker 2: in for you because you read comments online? I mean,
Speaker 2: you go to a comedy show, you talk to people
Speaker 2: in the street, and it feels like a lot of
Speaker 2: people are blaming you personally for a lot of tension
Speaker 2: that the government faces.
Speaker 1: What do you reckon about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I get that. I think there's a couple of
Speaker 3: reasons for it. One is that a lot of what
Speaker 3: AX proposes is for the government to do less, and
Speaker 3: people assume that if we want the government to do less,
Speaker 3: it's because we disagree with underlying intention. So, for example,
Speaker 3: I look at a minimum wage. I want everyone to
Speaker 3: be rich. I want everyone to be paid more. I
Speaker 3: just happen to think that the government making a law
Speaker 3: saying people have to be paid more is silly. It
Speaker 3: can't really work. If it did work, we'd make it
Speaker 3: much higher, but it's just kind of a pantomime. We
Speaker 3: make it about as high as we can without too
Speaker 3: many people getting priced out of having a job at all.
Speaker 3: So I think it's a silly law. Then people say, oh, well,
Speaker 3: David Seama obviously wants poor people to be paid less. No,
Speaker 3: I don't. I just don't think that the solution that
Speaker 3: people have cu up with is a very good one.
Speaker 3: But people mix it up with the intention simply healthy homes.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I know of people who have homes that they could
Speaker 3: be renting out where a person could live, but doesn't.
Speaker 3: It's been made illegal to rent it out. They've looked
Speaker 3: at the cost of upgrading it to healthy homes, that
Speaker 3: they're not doing it, and as a result, people are
Speaker 3: actually missing out. So I think healthy homes are silly.
Speaker 3: I think people want to go to renovate their homes
Speaker 3: as much as they can afford, and when they can
Speaker 3: afford to do it, better, they'll do some more. Why
Speaker 3: make a law? But people say, oh, well, David Seymour wants,
Speaker 3: you know, people to live in drafting No. I don't
Speaker 3: want people to live in drafting homes. I just think
Speaker 3: the solution. So I think it's a big part of
Speaker 3: the problems because we're often opposed to the government's solution.
Speaker 3: People think we're opposed to the intention. I think the
Speaker 3: other reason is that I don't do conformity. I unashamably
Speaker 3: o me. I'm quirky, I am going to I believe
Speaker 3: I have a good heart and I work hard, but
Speaker 3: I'm going to be myself and I'm not going to apologize.
Speaker 3: And I think in New Zealand, you know, that's a
Speaker 3: dangerous way to be because sometimes one of the things
Speaker 3: I don't like so much about our culture, which I
Speaker 3: mostly love, is that we tend to value conformity over truth.
Speaker 3: And I don't do conformity for the sake of it. Plus,
Speaker 3: as a bonus, I'm actually providing a huge public service
Speaker 3: because I am providing the left and the losers and
Speaker 3: many in the media, and sometimes I repeat myself with
Speaker 3: something they desperately need after their election loss, and that
Speaker 3: is someone to blame. You're welcome And.
Speaker 2: Finally, David, you're going to be Deputy PM. As we
Speaker 2: head into the next election, are you in planning more
Speaker 2: for twenty twenty six yet?
Speaker 3: Well both, I mean you start planning for the next
Speaker 3: election a day after the election. That's just the reality
Speaker 3: of what they call the continuous campaign. However, it's also
Speaker 3: true that take the job really seriously. Are going to
Speaker 3: be a good deputy for christ and for New Zealand.
Speaker 3: And I think one of the best things I can
Speaker 3: do for the next election as show people that if
Speaker 3: you like X ideas, you also have competent operators that
Speaker 3: you can work with.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, David.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 2: our sound engineer.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts, and tune in on Monday for another
Speaker 2: look behind the headlines.