Let’s get real here. David Seymour is not a natural empath.
But the Act Party leader and Cabinet minister has emerged as a key change agent who is not afraid to take a “no prisoners” approach to critics, as we repeatedly saw this week.
On Monday, Seymourwill take to Cabinet a paper which will advocate opening wide the doors to foreign investment. The only major restriction in his view should be for national security reasons - “we’re not opening the door to Russia”, as he observed during a catch-up at his Beehive office.
New Zealand prides itself on being an “open trading nation”.
Seymour’s contention is that outside of national security concerns, where there should be a filter in these geo-strategically challenged times, foreign investors should be subject to just the same laws as New Zealand businesses.
As an Associate Finance Minister, Seymour has delegated authority in this area. Along with Chris Penk who is Minister for Land Information, he has ultimate sign-off on offshore applications to either buy existing businesses or establish greenfield ventures here.
Behind the scenes, Cabinet has been troubled that a number of investments - including in data centres - have either lapsed or stalled due to perceived intransigence by the Overseas Investment Commission.
Seymour’s approach still has to get Cabinet approval.
But it would appear to dovetail neatly with the coalition’s moves to increase the country’s economic momentum, by introducing fast-track consenting legislation which promises a shake-up of the way consents are granted for major projects.
As Seymour puts it, the existing foreign investment legislation makes the assumption it is a privilege to invest in New Zealand. But New Zealand also needs international capital and investment to grow the economy and create jobs. We are competing for such globally.
He believes any change could be done through a ministerial directive.
Not, however for Seymour, softening the language on his ministerial change agenda where clarity is obviously called for, rather than political smudge.
This is becoming a hallmark of Christopher Luxon’s Cabinet, who have a refreshing “get real” approach as they roll out their major change agenda. This is an agenda which will succeed or fail on the outcome of the policy shifts the coalition Government makes in their first year in office.
When Seymour was appointed to Cabinet last year, with a promise extracted from Luxon that he would become Deputy Prime Minister at the midway point of the Parliamentary term, he was clear about what changes the Act Party expects to achieve.
Early on, his proposal for Treaty of Waitangi principles legislation was polarising. It has not deterred him even though Luxon has made him an Associate Justice Minister with direct responsibility in this area.
Three months in, it is clear his role is much more significant than at first appearances.
Act leader David Seymour softened his public image and first endeared himself to the public by twerking away on Dancing with the Stars.
Not only is he the Minister of Regulation - a bit of a misnomer as the agency he is setting up is all about stripping out nonsensical regulations - as an associate minister, he is driving change in education (the rebirth of charter schools and also, and controversially, reassessing the school lunches programme); as an associate for the health portfolio he is reassessing Pharmac and, as an Associate Finance Minister, he has delegated authority for 19 of the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) as a shareholding minister alongside Goldsmith.
Seymour has disestablished the Productivity Commission and used its budget to establish the new regulatory agency.
Seymour is pleased that Moss is in the role; particularly, with her experience in setting up a new agency, Oranga Tamariki, from scratch.
Moss was earlier driven out of that role after media controversy over the children’s agency, but Seymour contends she is a person with high energy and much earlier criticism was unfair.
It won’t trouble Seymour that the radical transformation agenda he is now driving risks being negatively disintermediated, because journalists are affronted by his denigration of their professionalism.
Not to mention the personal swipe at a TVNZ colleague, even as New Zealand news media arguably finds itself in the midst of what the New Yorker magazine has famously labelled an “extinction-level event”.
Considerable media coverage of the Government’s agenda has in fact been negative.
Like other ministerial colleagues, he is angered by Government-funded players like Professor Joanna Kidman, who lashed out on X, formerly Twitter, at the Government’s young offenders’ boot camp proposal and plans to cut back the free school lunches programme, questioning: ”Is this a Government or a death cult?”
But there is an exquisite irony that Seymour softened his public image and first endeared himself to the public by twerking away on Dancing with the Stars - part of the jeopardised Three network’s arsenal.
