“He died doing what he loved, the written word.”
That’s the joke Act leader David Seymour makes as I scribble into my notepad while we sit on the tarmac at Rotorua Airport.
We’re aboard a plane gifted to him by a private wealthy backer to assist his travel during the election campaign.
Minutes earlier, pilot Richard Beetham - a man with years of aviation experience - tells us Air New Zealand probably wouldn’t land in our destination of New Plymouth today due to the high winds.
We can, he claims, because the Cessna Caravan we’re flying in can easily navigate a grass landing. Fantastic.
It’s Tuesday, September 26, and it’s the first time Seymour is utilising the plane he affectionately calls “Flying Pinky”, the latest addition to Act’s campaign fleet that includes a bright pink bus (Big Pinky), and a van (Little Pinky).
Just weeks out from election day, Act is ramping up its public meetings all over the country as it looks to secure enough votes to help National form a government.
After two days following the party’s leader, it’s clear supporters are relishing in Act’s continued rise but some are still unsure if Seymour can achieve his lofty policy goals.
The trip across towns in the North Island’s west gets off to an inauspicious start. Plans to fly to Taumarunui and Ohakune are scotched because their airstrips don’t come with instruments needed for planes to navigate landings through dense cloud.
Even with his own plane, Seymour’s flight is delayed.
The decision is made to fly direct to New Plymouth ahead of a 6.30pm public meeting.
No need for departure gates and ticket scanning, the six of us head out the entrance and through a back gate before strolling out onto the tarmac like we own the joint.
Mist and clouds hang over the nearby Lake Rotorua, clinging to the ranges around us. Hardly ideal flying conditions.
Seymour enters the roughly 12-seater aircraft wearing a loud yellow tie and sharp black jacket, making it plausible for any onlookers that this is a man who could own his own plane.
He’s quickly exposed through his struggles with a malfunctioning seatbelt buckle. He opts to switch seats.
“The co-pilot’s not good so I have to do everything myself,” Beetham declares, gesturing to the empty seat beside him.
What lollies get served on this flight? “Just sweet jubes of freedom,” Seymour replies.
The jokes don’t last long. Seymour takes a call, presumably about what response Act will have to National’s welfare policy. He cautions against claiming it will take people’s money off them, instead advising the press release focus on Act’s plan for welfare.
He takes another, this time about something composed by candidate Todd Stephenson about drug-buying agency Pharmac. Too much jargon, Seymour says.
At the front of the plane, the propeller starts to turn and gain pace. Moisture streams along the aircraft’s exterior towards the tail.
As Seymour pulls out his laptop and extracts his earphones from their case, I say I’ve made arrangements should we crash in some remote bush.
Seymour’s photographer pipes up, claiming to know a family that’s happened to.
Seymour’s campaign staffer joins in. “Who of us do you think would be the first to turn to cannibalism?”
No one is game enough to volunteer an answer. Beetham changes the subject before Seymour can be asked for Act’s stance on eating your fellow man.
In minutes, we’re positioned at the top of the runway. Beetham puts the hammer down, sending us hurtling off the tarmac and disappearing into the grey fog.
We’re blind for a few seconds before we punch through the clouds into brilliant blue.
Soaring at 10,000 feet above a blanket of white as far as the eye can see, it’s the epitome of the freedom that underpins Act’s libertarian foundations.
Seymour’s oblivious, staring intently at his laptop screen, brow furrowed.
His focus is broken when he suddenly looks up and opens his mouth wide. Without a headset on, one might assume he’s screaming. Common sense says he’s trying to relieve his eardrums from the changing pressure.
I borrow a headset to hear what Seymour and Beetham are discussing. “Adam Pearse, welcome to the commentary box,” Seymour announces.
A self-described aviation tragic and former engineer, Seymour plies Beetham with questions about speed, wind, and how it all works.
Beetham is no mug. Now 12 years out of the Air Force, his record includes flying former PM Sir John Key around Afghanistan.
How does it compare with flying the Act leader to New Plymouth? “Well, it’s a first,” he says.
Our descent into New Plymouth brings bumps and shakes but nothing a regular Wellington flier hasn’t felt before. It’s a different story when we’re flying on angle to compensate for the strong winds threatening to buffet us off course.
Beetham banks left out over the ocean before heading east towards a grass runway with a magnificent Mt Taranaki watching on.
Just as we approach the ground, the plane drops sharply. It prompts an exclamation from Seymour who, having been craning his neck to look out the windscreen, quickly turns around and ensures his seatbelt is firm across his chest.
Despite the last-minute lurch, we land smoothly. “Legend,” Seymour says to Beetham.
With hours until his meeting, the party leader hits the streets to speak with consumers and taxpayers.
He meets 18-year-old barista Jessica Yates. She’s impressed Seymour’s made the time and while unsure what party she’ll give her first vote to, the future law student promises to consider Act.
“I haven’t met the leader of the National Party, have I?”
Later, Seymour runs into Suzy Allen, the service manager of suicide prevention charity, Taranaki Retreat.
Seymour says he’s a big fan of the charity’s efforts to help the most vulnerable. His comments are slightly at odds with how he barely gave a homeless man lying on cardboard boxes on the street a second glance earlier.
Allen says she enjoyed her chat with Seymour but notes Act’s welfare policy to pull benefits from drug addicts who refuse treatment or don’t find work goes against the charity’s kaupapa of “understanding and empathy”.
One of his last visits is to Des O’Neill, the Mad Irish Keyman.
“If you’re going to cut taxation, then I’m going to tell you to f*** off,” O’Neill greets Seymour, living up to his reputation.
The Act leader doesn’t flinch and a few minutes spent explaining why new roads should be tolled softens the store owner, who seems to enjoy toying with politicians.
O’Neill later reveals that while Labour’s Glen Bennett will get his candidate vote, he’ll likely support Act with his party vote.
“[Act’s] more realistic, user pays.”
Seymour’s speech at his public meeting at the Plymouth International Hotel hits all the usual notes. He continues the strategy he employed at his campaign launch this month when he asked the crowd to imagine a newborn baby and what future New Zealand should be able to offer her.
A sticker board with a list of 12 issues indicates New Plymouth is most concerned about “co-government”, a reference to co-governance arrangements implemented by Labour. Crime is a close second. Cost of living doesn’t even make the top five.
In the question and answer section, Seymour is challenged by 32-year-old Toni Smith on what standards voters can hold him accountable to.
Seymour is upfront about the realities of coalition compromises but also explains his incentive for delivering on policy commitments.
“Can I guarantee exactly how a coalition goes? No, nobody can because you’re ultimately beholden to other people,” he admits.
“But I suspect that if we can come back in three years and say, ‘We’ve been in government for three years and things have come closer to [the party’s] ideals than they would have been without you voting Act, I suspect you trust us with your vote again.
“If we come back and you say, ‘To be honest, it sounded good but what we got was pretty much the same as what we expected anyway’, then you probably won’t come back and you probably won’t vote for us.”
Smith makes him pinky promise. “That’s a new one,” Seymour says to an amused audience.
Smith, a psychology student, tells the Herald she’s never been more engaged in politics and cites “colour-coded voting” among those she knows as the main reason for taking more of an interest.
She says TVNZ’s Vote Compass tool puts her somewhere between Act, New Zealand First and the Opportunities Party. If she had to vote tomorrow, it would probably be Act.
“But I’m also torn on that as well because I think, yes I might have some libertarian values which I think Act probably most closely embodies ... but I don’t necessarily know how those values, on a governmental scale, actually play out in a modern New Zealand political landscape.”
The next day comes and again, bad weather rains on Seymour’s private plane parade.
His plan to fly into Te Kūiti has to change to a flight to Hamilton before catching a lift south down State Highways 39 and 3 with Act’s Hamilton East candidate, bottle store owner Ash Parmar.
A busy morning has left little time for lunch. Seymour nips into a dairy in Ōtorohanga and comes back with a Red Bull and a chocolate fish.
We pass through the Te Kūiti township on our way to the Waitete Rugby Football Club, home of the iconic All Black Colin “Pinetree” Meads and the meeting venue.
Before the question can even be asked, Seymour jumps in to claim Meads, who died in 2017, would’ve voted Act - adding to a diverse list of alleged party supporters which already features Nelson Mandela, Kate Sheppard and dogs.
The change to his flight schedule means the Act leader is 15 minutes late. Candidates Zane Cozens and Andrew Hoggard speak until he arrives, talking about crime and agriculture respectively in front of about 30 locals.
Hoggard, a former Federated Farmers president, hands it over to Seymour by saying the only topic left to cover is co-governance. Seymour is quick to caution him that a room populated with farmers might have some more pressing issues.
The Epsom MP appears quite keen to show off his rural roots by explaining his mum was born in Te Kōpuru in Northland while his father hailed from Palmerston North. His sense of humour which played well with the New Plymouth crowd the night before doesn’t seem to land in Meads’ country.
Seymour’s initial prediction is proven right when it comes to the Q+A. Sandy Maclachlan, a 37-year-old farmer, wants to know how Act will achieve its policies like scrapping the Zero Carbon Act and ditching pricing of agriculture emissions when National doesn’t agree.
Seymour tells Maclachlan he thinks National “just a little bit more [encouragement]” for its MPs to agree with Act’s agriculture policies but his main answer echoes what he told Toni Smith in New Plymouth.
“You can believe me because I know that if I come back here in three years and you say, ‘Yep, Mark [Cameron] or Andrew had a fantastic time being the MPI minister with some great conferences in Paris but didn’t quite get around to fixing those wee matters that you talked about making farming viable’, well, you either won’t come to the next meeting or you will show up and abuse us.
“It wouldn’t make sense to take the baubles and not get those things over the line.”
Maclachlan is only partially satisfied with Seymour’s response.
“I guess it’s a wait-and-see thing at the end of the day,” he says to the party leader.
Historically a National voter who switched to Act in 2020, Maclachlan says he wants clarity from Seymour on his bottom lines - something the Act leader has been reluctant to give.
“What I was trying to get at was, what are the non-negotiables?”
It’s a serious matter for the electrician by trade, who says he’ll move to Australia if Seymour can’t pull through.
The rural community is also well-represented at a public meeting in Te Awamutu.
A dairy farmer whose electorate vote is safe with National’s Taranaki-King Country candidate Barbara Kuriger, says he’s undecided on his party vote and attended the meeting to assess Act’s candidate depth. He’s also considering voting New Zealand First.
His questions on Act’s candidates likely went unanswered given Hoggard only had a few minutes to speak while Cozens and Parmar watched from the bleachers of the gym inside the local events centre.
After his speech, Seymour faces an array of questions including one on hate speech reform. The Act leader says he opposes “criminalising opinion”. Just prior to that, a Māori guy sees Seymour through the glass doors and flips him off as he exits the centre.
Local greenkeeper Trevor Toon tells the Herald he’s never voted for a party that wasn’t National but is 90 per cent certain he’ll vote Act this election because he thinks a National win is basically a done deal - behaviour leader Christopher Luxon continues to urge against.
“I think Act could be a good addition, a good influence,” Toon says.
He accepts his vote would return to National if it became close between the two major parties.
“I am a little bit nervous.”
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