Controversial TVNZ board member Paul Henry to stand for ACT Party
Tuesday, 14 July 2026
Disappointed in National, former broadcaster Paul Henry will run as a list-only ACT candidate with the intention of becoming a minister in the next Government.
Henry believed ACT was important because “someone needs to hold National to the oven”, and said if Labour formed the next Government it would be a “complete disaster”. “We cannot borrow our way to prosperity,” he told media in Auckland on Tuesday morning.
Henry, who has been associated with ACT before having previously spoken at a party keynote event, did not specify which ministerial role he wanted.
“One thing that you’ll know about me, if you know me or followed me or anything like that, is I’m painfully honest,” he said. “Yes, I want to be a minister. Why do I want to be a minister? … I’m 65 years old. I’m not doing this to waste my time or anyone else’s.”
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Henry said NZ First sprinkled “sugar hits”, some of which weren't bad but they weren't a “direction for the country”.
Henry last put his hat in the ring for Parliament in 1999 when he ran unsuccessfully in the Wairarapa electorate for the National Party. He had been “enormously disappointed” in the National Party, however.
He said he told the TVNZ chairman, Andrew Barclay, 20 minutes before the press conference and had resigned from the board. He would love to host The Chase TV show again but acknowledged that might not be possible now.
Broadcasting and communications minister Paul Goldsmith said he was told by ACT Party leader David Seymour about the news just before the announcement.
“I have confirmed this with the chair, who received Mr Henry’s verbal resignation around the same time.”
‘Electable, respectable’ spot likely on ACT list
Henry said he absolutely loved New Zealand and there was “no excuse for us being in the situation we're in now”.
“Why is it that people's expectations in this country are so low? You know, you look around and think it's absolute paradise. Why are people's expectations so low?”
He said he would like to build a world class cancer hospital in New Zealand, which would cost billions of dollars but he believed he could get wealthy New Zealanders to stump up the lion’s share of the cash for it. He noted it would not be something that could be done in three years.
He said having 10 grandchildren had prompted his decision to become an ACT candidate.
Seymour said he was confident Henry would be in an “electable, respectable” spot on the list but noted it would be up to the party’s board.
On the topic of the Opportunity Party, Seymour said that it seemed unlikely they could work with them.
The announcement followed the RNZ Reid-Research poll released this morning that had the party on 7.8% giving it 10 seats in Parliament.
It suggested If replicated on polling day, the results would likely return the current coalition to power with the narrow majority of 61 seats ‒ the minimum number required to form a government.
Seymour had a preferred prime minister ranking in the poll of 6.9%, Chlöe Swarbrick was on 8.2%, Winston Peters was on 13.2% Christopher Luxon got 20% while Chris Hipkins topped the list at 23.9%.
Previous controversies
Henry resigned from his role as a host of the TV show Breakfast after his remarks of former Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit. TVNZ was ordered to pay $3000 after the incident as a result of a Broadcasting Standards Authority ruling.
In the same role one year before he read viewer comments that a female guest, former Greenpeace worker Stephanie Mills, had a moustache. He then added his own comments.
“That was a moustache on a lady,” he said.
In 2010 Henry apologised after comments he made while interviewing former Prime Minister John Key about former Governor General Sir Anand Satyanand, when he asked if he was a New Zealander.