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Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics is a weekly, mostly satirical column on politics that appears on listener.co.nz on Friday mornings.
What is wrong with David Seymour? Whatever it is, we need to find a cure.
This week, he pretty much put on a jackass master class by attempting first, and against the Speaker’s wishes, to drive an old Land Rover up the steps of Parliament. By way of an encore, he then publicly claimed, twice, that his boss and Prime Minister, the unpopular multimillionaire Christopher Luxon, didn’t know what he was talking about.
Monday’s stunt on Parliament’s step was such a pathetic, look-at-me-look-at-me publicity stunt one can’t help but wonder what he’ll do next week for a bit of attention. Give the Prime Minister a wedgie? Steal Winston’s pocket square? Put a whoopee cushion on the speaker’s chair?
Anything is possible really because, lest we forget, in 2018 Seymour demonstrated he has no shame whatsoever when he twerked his way into the nation’s nightmares on Dancing With The Stars dressed in a canary yellow singlet and headband matched with hot pink shorts. In entirely unrelated news, Seymour, aged 41, has finally become engaged.
You might think that such a display of wilful bad taste as twerking on national TV would end a serious political career. But Seymour has continued to be elected as the member for Epsom (the Auckland electorate where many of the country’s wealthiest live) and from the end of May he will be this country’s Deputy Prime Minister.
Of course, we live in an age where Donald Trump, a convicted felon who encouraged a failed insurrection, can be re-elected as US President, so us having a twerking deputy prime minister is nothing; it’s like the difference between jock itch and genital herpes.
Monday’s Land Rover stunt was classic Seymour, though: a combination of pointless shit-stirring while gurning like a ventriloquist dummy, followed by “Who, me?” protestations.
And let’s be clear: it was quite obvious from TVNZ’s news footage that Seymour knew beforehand he was not supposed to drive up those steps. The owner of the Land Rover told Seymour twice that parliamentary security had told him it was not permitted. Why would Seymour not believe the guy he’s allegedly doing a favour for? And, if you had doubt, wouldn’t a normal person then approach the security guards to enquire whether the ban was a fact, and thus be told that the Speaker had not given his permission?
Not Seymour. He instead climbed into the crappy 4WD and attempted to drive up anyway, causing a security guard to put himself in what looked like harm’s way to stop the madness, all apparently in aid of some charity that I will make sure never to donate to.
In short, Seymour’s claim to media afterwards that he didn’t know the Speaker had banned the stunt was nonsense at best and beyond insincere at worst. One could only conclude that Seymour didn’t give a solitary toss about anything other than leading the TV news that night.
Having defied the Speaker, Seymour’s next stunt was to give a metaphorical finger to his boss. After Luxon said it was “ill-advised” for Seymour to write to police in 2022 in support of Philip Polkinghorne, who was then a “person of interest” in the death of his wife, Pauline Hanna (he was found not guilty last year of her murder), Seymour flung those same words back at Luxon, saying it was “ill-advised” for the PM to comment when he didn’t know all the facts.
What are we to make of all this nonsense? Especially when, according to a Salvation Army report out this week, our country is struggling with the severest economic and social maladies it has experienced since the 1990s?
It is this: the Act leader has unambiguously demonstrated this week he thinks himself above both the Speaker of the House and the Prime Minister, begging the question: is Seymour not a politician at all, but an elected troll -- one who loves nothing better than goading his own government?
Whether he is or he isn’t, all this bickering is a very useful distraction, first, from the parlous state of the country and the coalition’s inability to do anything about it, and second, from what Seymour and his party are busy doing elsewhere, including attacking workers’ rights, degrading environmental protections and pushing through the contentious Regulatory Standards Bill.
If this sorry, depressing week in politics has demonstrated anything, it is the obvious weakness of the Prime Minister in dealing with his Act Party troll, and that Luxon’s ongoing public declarations of the solidness of the coalition might be as reliable as Seymour’s claim he didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to drive a Land Rover up Parliament’s steps.
As for Seymour, this guy will soon be our Prime Minister. Sorry, Deputy Prime Minister.
Party of the Year At Luxo’s Place (but on your dime)
Have you had a “save the date” invitation from the government for March 13 & 14? No, me neither.
But then, only the filthy rich will be on the list for the invitation-only investment summit the Prime Minister, the unpopular multimillionaire Christopher Luxon, is organising to save the country.
How much will this event cost and how will we know whether it has worked? No idea. But something as lame as an investment summit is exactly the sort of idea you’d expect from someone who, like Luxon, was once the “global deodorants and grooming category director” for Unilever. As a rich person, Luxon thinks rich people are the solution to everything.
If the summit doesn’t work, it will be back to the drawing board. Perhaps a bake sale might help, or auctioning the South Island on eBay. Or perhaps instead of inviting rich capitalists to come to New Zealand and having a party on the taxpayers’ dime we should kidnap and ransom them.
Political quiz of the week
What is Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey doing in this photo?
A/ Boasting.
B/ Zoom tai chi.
C/ Pretending he’s a “funky robot” on TikTok again.
D/ Explaining to media why the Prime Minister recently dumped him from all his ministerial portfolios except mental health.
