The ‘impossibly ridiculous’ idea of David Seymour, Deputy PM

Sunday, 1 June 2025

Luke Malpass is the political, business and economic editor.

When David Seymour was first elected to Parliament, then attorney general and Treaty negotiations minister Chris Finlayson took him out for dinner.

Seymour recalls that Finlayson thought he might be a bit lonely but said that the goal should be for him to grow ACT and one day become deputy prime minister.

“I remember it quite clearly,” Seymour says, “and thought, that will never happen. How impossibly ridiculous.”

Finlayson, who didn’t like Parliament’s cafe Copperfield’s, remembers taking the young MP out for a bite. He doesn’t recall the specific conversation.

“But I do recall … dinner a couple of times, because it he was on his own and I felt kind of sorry for him.”

That was after the general election in late 2014. Seymour would continue to be the sole ACT MP for another two terms of Parliament. But now, 11 years later at age 41, Seymour has become deputy prime minister.

He grew the ACT party to 10 MPs after the 2020 election, winning 7.59% of the vote and increased it in 2023 with 8.64% of the vote and 11 MPs.

The “impossibly ridiculous” suggestion that Seymour recalls Finlayson making over a decade ago has come to be a reality.

Talking to the Star-Times, the ACT leader seems sombre about the new role, and undecided about what exactly it will mean.

“I sort of have two completely different views. One is that it makes no difference. The point of being in politics is to change policies, and that's my real job.

“However, it's also true that if something that seems so impossible like this can happen against huge odds through sheer determination, maybe there's something in that that's useful to the whole country.”

“What can we achieve if we take the job, but not myself, too seriously?”

He describes his working relationship with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon as warm, respectful and effective, while also noting that, “we're clearly very different people with different beliefs and backgrounds”.

Love or hate Seymour there is no denying his political achievement. Back in 2014 when he first won the seat of Epsom - but was not leader of the party - ACT was pretty widely believed to be a political hangover of the Rogernomics economic programme of the 1980s. A party that would wither and die on the political vine if National ever decided that it wanted to take back the Auckland seat of Epsom.

The personal political project of Seymour turning himself, a socially awkward policy wonk, into a sort of quirky everyman libertarian with an eye for an interesting photo op - who has positioned the party as standing athwart the rest of the political establishment, while also wanting to change it - has led to a structural change on the right of politics. On the way, supporting issues such as euthanasia reform, charter schools, the red peak flag and appearing on Dancing with the Stars.

The high polling point for ACT was in the dying days of the Judith Collins leadership of National in mid to late 2021. This was the period during which ACT arguably consolidated its position as a fixture on the right of politics.

“This was the time when we faced a very serious challenge with Covid. And you know, we were very close to overtaking the National Party at the end of 2021 because we were offering quite serious, up to the minute solutions to immediate problems. That's the high point of the last 10 years,” Seymour says.

But Seymour is under no illusion about the political challenges facing the Government at the next election and what thing might be animating voters in 2026.

“If they're the same issues as last time, I suspect the Government will really struggle to be re-elected.”

But he is confident that it has made what he calls “significant progress” in the “three Cs” that ACT campaigned on. Cost of living, crime and co-governance. The Government has made changes in the second two areas and the first has settled down mostly due to the Reserve Bank’s tighter monetary policy.

But it is in the area of fiscal repair that ACT will now turn its focus.

Few would argue the Government has moved significantly in the latter area, the political debate is over whether it represents progress or is a retrograde step.

“I think that one of the biggest issues is this fundamental question of, how will New Zealand balance the books without introducing major new taxes.

“I suspect ACT will end up almost alone in being the party that says, you know it is possible, if you're prepared to look at entitlements, ownership and the efficient operation of government; otherwise, you're going to end up with more taxes, and I don't think that New Zealand can sustain that.”

He also says high on his list of priorities is sorting out the “spaghetti Government concept”, pointing to 28 ministers over 82 portfolios atop 41 departments. He thinks it needs to be completely overhauled.

Meanwhile, he critically points to the rise of what he calls an “activist state” even on the right of politics, with some politicians who “openly talk about forcefully restructuring whole industries”.

This can be seen as a shot across the bows of Finance and Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis who has instructed officials to work on options to restructure the supermarket sector in the absence of a third player.

But he saves some of his choicest words for the general issue of Māori-Crown relations, something that has animated ACT this term and will continue to do so, he says.

According to Seymour, the Treaty Principles Bill and ensuing debate brought out into the open just how many people “genuinely believe that we should be a sort of neo-tribal or neo-feudal society where you have different roles based on your birth, and they get very angry when you're challenging.”

While the bill itself is dead for this term of Parliament, for ACT the debate is far from over, to the undoubted discomfort of its coalition partners and National in particular.

“It will return in some form, because the argument has not been defeated,” Seymour says.

He also has his eye on what he calls the second or third tier of Government which he claims “keep alive this discriminatory Zeitgeist that flourished under Ardern.”

“It's universities with their compulsory Mātauranga Māori courses, it's government departments advertising jobs that sort of, you know, you read the job description, you think that they were unaware the government changed.”

All political parties have their own mythology and both Seymour and ACT take pride in standing apart from the rest of the political firmament based on what they believe. There is, and will continue to be, tension with coalition partners National and NZ First. And there is certainly some degree of worry from both National and NZ First about Seymour’s new job.

But for the meantime, Seymour hopes his elevation to what is officially the second-to-top job in government can be seen as a classic underdog story - despite ACT’s reputation as being the party of big money donors.

“Most of the time I've been leader, we couldn't get over 1%, nothing I did made a jot of difference, it was impossible to even get recognised or get airtime it seemed. The sort of legacy of the party's preceding decade made it almost impossible to be taken seriously, and yet, with a little help from my friends, we overcame all of that.

“But it actually is a story of hope for the country that, you know, you can be a bit quirky, but if your heart's in the right place, and you put in the work, you can succeed.

“And that pretty much sums up what New Zealand needs as a country. We're a bit quirky, but our hearts are in the right place. We work damn hard, but I don't feel that we're succeeding the way we should. That's why a bit of policy change is necessary.”

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