Act kicked off the election campaign with a new deputy leader and an American-style rally. Also, David Seymour botched his Latin.
The Act Party is riding high. Leader David Seymour has gone from a solo artist in 2017 to deputy prime minister with a team of 11 MPs, the largest the party has ever been. After a term in government, the party has some key policy wins to report back to the membership. With the party coffers full after attracting new major donors, the party’s official campaign launch event was the perfect opportunity to make a splash – and separate itself from its two coalition partners.
The venue was Shed 10, a former industrial warehouse on the Auckland waterfront. A premium location on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. A well-dressed, upper-echelon crowd. Former NZ First MP Tanya Unkovich was there, sporting her trademark white pantsuit. She told The Spinoff she had left NZ First and was now a member of the Act Party and the National Party.
A small but dedicated crowd of protestors outside the venue waved Palestinian flags. Act has been the most fervently pro-Israel party in parliament. Someone in a pink frog costume stood off to the side, not doing much. The colour made them look like an Act supporter, but the tino rangatiratanga flag on the back of their neck suggested otherwise.
Inside was dark and cavernous, a mostly empty room filled with steel girders, corrugated iron walls and scaffold seating. The UV lights bathed everything in Act Party pink. It gave it the aesthetic of a 1980s red light district.
The materials released ahead of the event painted it as a new kind of political spectacle never-before-seen in New Zealand. This turned out to be, in practice, a different seating arrangement. The lectern was in the middle of the room rather than the back. This is a popular setup in American politics because supporters in the background create a more dynamic shot for the camera. Seymour told The Spinoff that the organisers had previously worked for Pierre Pollievre, the Canadian Conservative Party leader.
The speakers played Lynyrd Skynyrd, Guns’n’Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pat Benatar. The closest they got to New Zealand music was Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield (she briefly lived in Auckland as a child). Two staffers taught the crowd how to hold up signs and cheer.
The music cut out and MP Laura McClure stood up to take the role of MC. This revealed the fatal flaw of Shed 10 as a venue: the corrugated iron walls have terrible sound insulation. The screams of “free, free Palestine” outside penetrated the room. They were often just as loud as the speakers, especially for those in the back rows.
Things kicked off with an aura edit video about the party’s parliamentary record, then another for departing MP Mark Cameron, then one for Brooke van Velden, also on her way out. McClure returned to the stage: “Lets give both of these guys a big… a big…” she seemed to mind blank on the phrase “round of applause” but the crowd got the message anyway.
Then the big moment: the party revealed its deputy leader. But rather than announcing the winner, McClure asked the audience to watch yet another video. It was an aura edit of Nicole McKee, which made the winner obvious even though it still hadn’t been confirmed. Afterward, McKee got up to speak but took a couple of paragraphs before she officially confirmed that she was speaking to them as the new deputy leader of the party.
After about 40 minutes of Youtube videos and plaudits for outgoing MPs, the star of the show arrived: leader David Seymour. The crowd chanted “lock Labour out” as he approached centre stage.
Seymour matched his opening with the chant, focussing on the largest opposition party, then took aim at his coalition partners: NZ First (which, he made pains to exercise, had worked with Labour in the past) and National, which he labelled “Labour-lite”.
Drawing, perhaps, on a particular foreign president, Seymour was eager to reveal some snarky new nicknames for rival politicians: “Wily Winnie”, “Haka Party Hana”, “Business Class Chlöe” and “Cynical Chris Hipkins”. Luxon got the kinder-sounding “Clever Chris” but it, too, was intended as a critique to suggest that National would pivot to the centre without Act as a handbrake.
Reflecting on how Act had grown gone from a single MP to a team of 11, he cited the traditional Latin motto of the United States “E pluribus unum”, which he translated as “from one, many”.
“That’s Latin, anyone who has been to school in recent years might not know it,” he joked. E pluribus unum is more commonly translated as “out of many, one”, which has the opposite meaning of what Seymour intended.
Seymour announced some new policies: Act wants further tests for health-related benefits, a reduction in the number of ministers in cabinet, and for public sector chief executives to be directly appointed by ministers. “This may sound like a Wellington beltway issue..” he said twice before pivoting back into technocracy. Sirens started blaring from the protests outside.
Seymour got more of a reaction when he turned his attention to culture issues. “How many people here are sick of arguing about who got here first? Who is sick of starting meetings with ceremonies that mean nothing to most people?” he asked. The complaint about karakia got one of the biggest reactions of the whole event.
In his final lines, Seymour emphasised that Act was “not labour, never worked with Labour, and not Labour-lite”. The shouting continued outside. The room leaped to its feet in applause. Seymour slowly headed for the side, stopping to shake every hand that was presented to him. The applause didn’t quite last long enough for him to leave the stage, but after someone conspicuously re-started it, he was able to make his exit.
When the attendees filed out into the afternoon sunlight, they found a line of police facing off against protestors chanting, “David Seymour you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide.” A young woman from the protest asked two older women exiting: “How was the baby-killing party?”
“What a rude bitch,” one muttered.