National leader Judith Collins has shot down David Seymour’s Opposition-led select committee proposal, and described ACT’s alternative Budget two years from an election as “silly”.
TDB has been predicting for sometime that ACTs rise is no fluke or protest vote, but instead a seismic shift on the Right which seals National into a political death spiral.
Part of National’s historic loss was the changing demographics, Nationals zeal for self-mutilation and a large chunk of unprecedented solidarity that brought vast female 45+ Vote home to Labour, but a slither of it was ACT becoming a right wing values party.
Freedom of speech, gun rights, cancel culture – these became rallying calls for disaffected right wing vote who were sick of National’s social conservatism and yearned for a modern values based right wing politics.
ACT have stepped into that culture war gap and as debate polarizes, they will cannibalize Nationals vote.
Take the recent attempt by Judith to race bait He Puapua by using segregation and separatism. The truth is NZs next generation is less frightened about co-governance than the older generation and those dog whistles don’t work.
ACTs clever criticism of teaching white privilege in school however is perfect culture war baiting. NZers on the whole will wearily wave co-governance through because decades of poor social stats have worn smooth any pretense that universal social services have worked for Māori. The majority attitude is ‘well you do it then’ rather than a gleeful skipping hand in hand towards a Treaty of Waitangi future designed in woke Twitter world.
So a Maori Health Authority isn’t seen as segregation by anyone other than older men who refer to the Prime Minister as ‘Cindy’.
Making white children feel guilty about being white however is political dynamite in culture war button pushing.
ACT are better at culture war value positions than National whose openly racist dog whistles are ham fisted and banjo twanging.
Don Brash unified the Right as National Leader but ACT intends to hollow National support out and become the de facto Opposition.
While Seymour is Leader, this reactionary right will stay within the spectrum of decency however if one of those vile social climbers beneath him took over as ACT eclipsed National, we are in for trouble.
The magnitude of how far right ACT are isn’t acknowledged while they’ve been fringe but this will come to a head in 2026 when ACT vs Labour-Green are the parameters for a vastly more polarized political debate.
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The only reason Seymour hasn’t been smacked down by MSM is that he dutifully supplies them with so many clickbait headlines. Newshub, especially, seems to run ACT stories daily. As he gets closer to the levers of power, that will change and he and his party will have to answer some pretty difficult questions. Can’t wait for the first Kim Hill interview where David explains his stances: here’s a primer, should the public have access to more or less military style weapons? Will Pensioners be better or worse off? Will charter schools be funded by taxpayers money if they are profit based? Why were charter schools funded at a higher rate per pupil than state schools? What did Brooke mean when she said the elderly will have to sacrificed for the good of the rest of NZ? Has the flat tax been abandoned or not? Is Taiwan still the model for covid response? Why does ACT have such a large proportion of covid deniers and conspiracy theorists? Feel free to add anything else to the list. My cousin, a forthright ACT supporter going back to the early days, can’t even answer the 1st question let alone any of the other ones. I expect Seymour will have the same trouble.
Does ACT have an answer for poverty, the housing crisis, high levels of deprivation in Maori health. Is ACT a party of ten or still really only one based on the appalling state of the National party and its voters jumping ship?
Does Seymour think it’s smart to shake his head at the Maori party leader, when Rawiti is asking questions during question time or does he think being white he is more intellectual than Rawiti?
Can I suggest a celebrity boxing match between Rawiti and Seymour?
While these two scrap it out the current government can get on with the business.
ACT as a Parliamentary presence would be long gone if not for Key’s “cup of tea” and NZ National’s long standing MMP accomodation in Epsom.
ACT would still be with us of course via the steaming undemocratic pile of Auckland Supercity and the CCOs.
But if ACT and National duke it out for the existing pool of right voters does it matter too much? I guess Martyn is looking at whether they can grow the Incel style insecure male vote? ACT still need to keep up their Party vote to Green level or more. If they look to be doing too well the Epsom deal will be gone, gone gone…
In the latest poll on TV1 both ACT and National gained ground at the expense of tthe left so were not cannabilising votes off each other. If they both keep this momentum up then both Labour and the Greens will be in trouble. To be honest, the government isn’t exactly covering itself in glory and its lack of talent in its Cabinet is going to be harder to hide from the voting public. Contrary to what many on the left believe, your average Kiwi voter is not stupid; in fact they are far from stupid and I remember after the 2014 election reading comments from left leaning people saying how could people be so stupid after we showed them everything etc. Well in 2014 the Kiwi voter saw through you and saw that you had nothing to offer.
You only got the Treasury Benches in 2017 because of Winston Peters and his perpetual hatred for National. Then he shafted you all. If it had been anyone else running NZ First they would have gone with National. Winston is well known for holding a grudge and he never forgives or forgets a slight. He’s always been like that when he’s been in politics.
Stand back Sir, we have a David vs Juliath situation here!
An irony of Act is many supporters are conspiracy theorists that think (or not) that their world is being ruined by Bill Gates and the 1 percenters. They know nothing of the Neo Liberal politics that are seeing their dreams destroyed and they are voting for the party with the most neo liberal agenda of the lot. Idiots voting for idiots.
Being against authoritarian hate speech laws and the devolution of our liberal democracy into an apartheid state doesn’t make one “Right Wing”.
Instead it means one is a freedom loving, classical liberal.
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