I have zero time for ACT’s fanatical neoliberal policy platform and think ACTs pandering to gun nuts is crass.
I think their tax policy is a joke and David Seymour’s dancing on ‘Dancing with the Stars‘ made both claims in that title, ‘dancing’ and ‘stars’ meaningless.
However.
David Seymour’s deeply principled manner in which he set out to gain cross party support for his Euthanasia legislation alongside his staunch defence and support of Free Speech is positioning ACT for a level of support not seen since the days of Rodney Hide.
His pandering to gun nuts has born fruit by the Governments jaw dropping over reach in Police Powers as part of their second tranche of legislative changes. The previous demands to ban certain semi-automatic weapons was a legitimate response to the Christchurch atrocity and looming gang war, but the next range of changes allows Police so many unchecked powers ACT can play up legitimate grievances from gun owners.
This is worth 1% on top of ACTs existing 1%.
What I believe will really give ACT a chance for a 3rd MP however is the Free Speech issue.
With the explosion of social media, we all have someone in our feed who is constantly calling out racists, sexists, xenophobes and transphobics which has led to a self censoring by many out of a reflex fear they will be lynched on social media by a woke mob. Unfortunately for the Left these online social justice warriors are usually very identifiably virtue signalling Green activists and Spinoff readers and a protest vote against this new censorship is worth at least another 1% for ACT.
This nonsense censorship at Massey with the banning of a Feminism Conference which Seymour invited to Parliament was an enormous political win for ACT and the Woke seem incapable of appreciating how they are counterproductively handing ammunition to the Right via their alienating middle class wokeness.
ACT was always dangerous because it had the potential to spawn a far larger win for the Right than we ever anticipated, the circumstances and culture war over reach by the Identity Politics Left could have inadvertently triggered a Right wing fault line which will rupture in ACTs favour.
All we can hope for now is National fucking it up and running Goldsmith hard in Epsom.
2020 will be the year of the protest vote and ACT + National could be the next Government.
Whilst I totally agree that Seymour has every potential of being another 1 or 2 MPs in with him.
The question is where will they come from? They won’t come from the Greens, that is obvious and I hardly think they will come from Labour. So that leaves NZ First (the traditional protest vote), National (which will mean we’re basically in the same place anyway) or new voters?
I’m picking National, so nothing will really change. But I maybe wrong
I don’t agree with you that ACT has as much influence in the region as as NZFirst and vis versa. Do you have an argument for why they should switch polarities?
I’m not sure the “Free Speech” issue will gain him much traction. Most people will barely be aware, or care, about these issues. Not outside the so-called “Beltway”, academic, or political circles of discussion.
The euthanasia referendum though, on the other hand, is a different pot of fish. That will be in everyone’s face leading up to the election. David Seymour will be on TV, radio, etc, promoting his referendum. And adjacent to his name will be: “ACT Leader”.
It’s free publicity he could never get otherwise.
You might be right about the public’s indifference to the right to free speech in general. Lots of folk are very happy to see people they disagree with silenced; but facilitating this feminist conference will score well for him. And rightly so.IMHO
D J S
I think underneath the spandex and loud music Seymore has proven himself to be a good man and all those people and all those people who adanodned Brash and Rodney Hide, I mean we are talking about a difference of about, 10,000, 20,000 maybe 50,000 more party votes and with Seymores charisma the potential is there. But I don’t think he’ll get 3 because they’re still splitting the the vote on the right. But sure, 2 so Seymore and one other.
They wont do that Martyn , they have never done it before .
and even if they did those ones in Epsom would vote act any way .
Seymore knows his electorate and works it well .
I think you’re right Martyn – two MPs for ACT is my guess.
Where will they come from?
That’s easy to answer – from the rapidly unraveling NZF!
Disagree he, SEE MORE will get this electoral vote and that is it people aren’t that dumb
I’ve been impressed recently by DS. If he can shed the buffoon reputation then he might capture some good voting numbers, his principled stand on several issues means that he may well be remembered at the time of the election. I used to vote labour but after hoping forever they might actually go left and they’ve convinced me that they seem happy to allow the police to spontanously write laws, and fudge around figures of the nationwide problems of infrastructure vs population vs environment. National, well they always relapse back to profit making, and selling assests to the highest bidder (whom ever that will be at the time). Prosperity is not all about money, it’s about having opportunity AND confidence. I don’t know a great deal about most of ACT policies but DS seems to have some backbone and so I will strongly consider him when I tick the box. And if it isn’t rabid I always support the underdog .
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