Act Party leader David Seymour in his Bowen House office, Parliament, Wellington, ahead of the party's annual conference in Auckland on Sunday. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
Act Party leader David Seymour in his Bowen House office, Parliament, Wellington, ahead of the party's annual conference in Auckland on Sunday. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
Act leader David Seymour doesn't think the brand "Act" is so toxic that it needs to change.
Instead, the grand plan and relaunch of the Act Party - to be unveiled on Sunday at the party's annual conference - is about new faces, a new podcast and media strategy, andclearer messages about education, low taxes and regulatory reforms.
The great and, according to Seymour, realistic hope is to boost Act back into the 6 to 8 per cent territory it occupied in its heydey from 1996 (6.1 per cent) to 2002 (7.1 per cent).
This may seem like wishful thinking, but what else is there for a party that won 0.5 per cent of the vote in 2017?
This was actually lower than the 0.69 per cent Act won in 2014, and the 1 per cent in 2011.
Seymour is only an MP because he won the seat of Epsom, and he may not have without the help of the National Party, which didn't campaign for the seat.
Regardless of whether he will have the same luxury next year, Seymour still plans to push forward with a new plan to make Act a "major political force" in New Zealand.
If that sounds laughable, Seymour is happy to talk about the plan in a half-joking manner.
"My goal is to create that party so I can get out of here and still have someone to vote for."
How long will he stick around for?
"As long as it takes. Life expectancy is increasing. I was elected at 31. By the time I'm 91, that will still be quite a normal time for people to be working with all the increases in healthcare and so on.
"I'm quite confident I can do a 60-year political career, but if I can get the Act Party to be that ongoing success in the 6 to 8 per cent zone before then, then I'll retire and let others do it."
Seymour is reluctant to reveal his new policies before Sunday, but says they are in the education, taxation and regulation spaces.
Euthanasia is not mentioned, but he says it is still party policy and part of the wider brand about choice.
"It's my life. It's my choice. Extend that choice to education, to lower and flatter taxes."
He stops himself and then won't say if Act's new tax policy will be a low flat tax.
In education, all he will say is that parents should be in charge of all their childrens' education funding in a way that cannot be reversed - a nod to how charter schools have been scrapped by the current Government.
Act has previously pushed an education voucher scheme, where Government funding for education is instead given to parents to let them choose how to spend it.
For regulation, the only hint Seymour gives is the Government's ban on new oil and gas exploration, which he says will "decimate the Taranaki economy and increase emissions if we are forced to turn to coal".
"We actually need to start making the Government follow its own rules when it makes rules, given it wants all of us to follow the rules that it makes."
Seymour used to be an Under-secretary for Regulatory Reform, and former party leader Rodney Hide has previously tried to pass a law enabling citizens to challenge new laws in court if they felt that proper processes weren't followed, or the original problem wasn't addressed.
Hide's Regulatory Responsibility bill was described as significant constitutional reform and ended up languishing on the Order Paper.
Another relaunch strategy for Act will be to produce long-form media, including a new podcast called Politics in Full Sentences.
"People are a bit tired of sound-byte politics. There's a demand for politics where politicians actually explain how we would do things differently," Seymour says.
"Look at the National Party and the Budget, spending the entire week attacking [the Treasury] website instead of offering an alternative vision."
New candidates will also be at the conference, including Auckland businesswoman Belinda Hope, director at TenForward Tech Lounge for Kids.
Seymour says feedback to the party tends to be that people like him but are unsure about what Act stands for.
His personal brand received a lot more coverage when he took part in Dancing With The Stars last year, and again two weeks ago in the current series.
David Seymour on Dancing with the Stars. Photo / Supplied
Seymour said he has been given overwhelmingly positive feedback from people who don't necessarily read the politics section of the newspaper, and is not shy about the fact that he's a terrible dancer.
"There's no question I can't dance. But I've never campaigned that people should vote for me because I could dance."
He is an avid fan of the current series and will vote for his former dance partner Amelia McGregor and her current dance partner William Waiirua, who Seymour describes as an infinitely more talented dancer.
Whether the show's boost in his brand will translate into more votes remains to be seen, but Seymour is patient and knows that a transformation is unlikely to happen overnight.
"There's no such thing as a big bang. There's just hard work."
