David Seymour’s refusing to apologise for a comment about blowing up the Ministry for Pacific Peoples – saying he makes jokes like that all the time.
But Newshub can reveal one person found it so offensive, they referred him to Police.
David Seymour is not a sorry man.
“People shouldn’t have to apologise for having a laugh,” he said.
The ACT leader loves having a laugh at himself and about blowing up ministries.
“It’s a joke I’ve made many times about many government departments,” he said.
His latest joke’s about the Ministry for Pacific Peoples. On Thursday Seymour told Newstalk ZB he would abolish it, partly because it spent $40,000 on a farewell party.
“In my fantasy, we’d send a guy called Guy Fawkes in there and it’d be all over, but we’ll probably have to have a more formal approach than that,” he said.
“He should be apologising for a lot of things – this is just one of many things he should apologise for,” said Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni.
“I don’t find it funny. This sort of joke is unacceptable. He should apologise to the Ministry for Pacific Peoples and he should apologise to Pacific communities,” added Green Party MP Teanau Tuiono.
But Seymour said: “You’re politicising comments I’ve made about many different departments many times and no one’s ever noticed before.”
Newshub can reveal someone was so concerned about his comment they reported Seymour to the police.
Police told us they assessed the comments, but did not identify any offence, and are not taking the matter further.
“No harm was intended, no harm was done. We don’t want to live in a country where you have to walk on eggshells because people politicise a joke,” Seymour said.
Seymour himself though has called for an apology over a joke made by Te Pati Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi and his necklace poison berries.
“When David Seymour’s not looking I’m going to go like this into his water. I’ll tell you what, reindigenise yourself with some native seeds,” Waititi said.
Seymour told Stuff: “I’m genuinely concerned the next step is that some slightly more radical person doesn’t think it’s a joke.”
“My offence was at the racial overtones where he said indigenise yourself. The comments I made were about a government department wasting money hand over fist,” Seymour told Newshub.
ACT has been driving the prosecution against the Ministry for Pacific Peoples’ spending, like its $40,000 leaving bash for its former chief executive.
On Thursday morning – before Seymour joked about blowing it up – two men went into the ministry and tried to film staff while asking them about how much the ministry was spending. Police were called.
“He is the leader of a political party and there are people on the far right who look to him for leadership so it is important that he sends the right signals to his followers and in particular those far right followers, that his comments were unacceptable,” Tuiono said.
“Usually they provoke laughter but in the current world they’re provoking a media beat-up but I think people will see that for what it is,” Seymour said.
But clearly not everyone sees the funny side.
Ok, there’s two things here we should focus on:
First, let’s start with what a snivelling little easily triggered snowflake David is! He can joke about blowing up the Ministry for Pacific Peoples’ but Rawiri can’t joke about poisoning him???
If you dish it out, you have an obligation to take it.
But the second issue, which is far more important, is that Outrage Olympics at David Seymour’s Guy Fawkes comment eclipses the real damage of State amputation he’s attempting!
The identity politics virtue signalling Left are taking David literally when they should be taking him seriously.
By attempting to conflate and equate David’s comments as a literal terror threat to blowing up the Ministry for Pacific Peoples’, the identity politics virtue signalling Left are only succeeding in giving him ammunition!
The Outrage Olympic virtue signalling doesn’t work because of course David Seymour wasn’t literally talking about blowing up anything and focusing on that only gives him unimagined publicity when the truth is that what he actually intends to do is far, far, far worse!
He isn’t just looking at dumping the Ministry for Pacific Peoples’ (who didn’t help themselves with their ill judged $40 000 piss up), he is intending to dump the Ministry for Youth Affairs, Ministry of Womens Affairs, the Ministry for Māori Affairs, the Ministry for Ethnic Affairs and the Human Rights Commission, while stripping out all the environmental legislation passed over the last 6 years, including any worker rights and renter rights on top of a referendum where he will redefine the Treaty and then just force it upon Māori!
THAT is what he is planning to do, yet the identity politics virtue signalling Left are getting their non binary knickers in a twist by pretending he is going to blow up a building.
ACT intend to amputate the State and implement a referendum that will start race conflict we haven’t seen since colonial times, THAT should be what we are concerned about, not twisting his stupid joke into a literal terrorist threat.
Because the identity politics virtue signalling Left live in echo chambers determined by cancel culture and strangling free speech, they’ve lost the art of debate and persuasion and it keeps showing every time they try to take on ACT.
Take ACT seriously, not literally. That’s how you beat their far right madness. All the identity politics virtue signalling Left are doing right now is give ACT another 2 points.
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Working class people are finding the going tough everywhere in NZ. If their mortgage hasn’t gone up then their rent has along with everything else.
The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is so out of touch they do need a bomb under them (figurative expression) Sitting on their flash salaries 150k,200k, 250k they have forgotten what life is like for many of the people they serve.
This is a storm in a teacup. Benito Seymour never actually told anyone to blow up, or maim, or harm, anyone at the ministry of pacific peoples, he just used inflammatory words, and wink wink nudge nudge alt right rhetoric, to insight it, thats all.
Just as Trump never instructed anyone to do anything untoward, or unseemly, or unlawful, at the capitol building, he just insighted it by telling hyped up supporters, to go there and fight like hell, thats all.
Surely no mentally deranged supporter of Benito Seymour will take him at his word, and act out what he said, because Act supporters are such stable moderate considered types, who happen to support the gun lobby. But then again, the probability for such a misunderstanding to occur is not actually zero, C’est la Vy.
“This is a storm in a teacup”. That’s about it. A media opportunity. Seymour didn’t even say the words, but can’t keep a good story down. Sure, guilty by association. And, really, how dumb is him to even bring it up.
Seymour’s comments will endear him to most of his potential voters – including the NZ First-curious.
His comments will win more votes than it loses.
Evidence?
The election which is nigh.
That’s what I thought Bob, no evidence. Seymour is the equivalent of a mutt. His feral dog comments will attract said right wing voters.
Bob is a barrel of we gun powder
Seymour is like a mange ridden dog which tends to attract fleas.
Thanks chaps my fan base continues to grow.
The fan club may only be NSC using different names..
Thanks feral Ada.
With an ego as big as yours Blobby, there’s no room for a fan club in there.
Well didn’t Guy Fawkes attempt to blow up the House of Lords? Don’t think you would find too many civil servants in that chamber. Oh that’s right, ACT aren’t big on teaching history. Well at least not all of it. Don’t want to trigger the little ones. They are so f’ing Republican.
The Republicans are conservatives. ACT are classical liberals/right-libertarians. Get it right, Mr. Wheel.
They way Brooke V was all pearl clutching about teaching NZ history was very reminiscent of Republican messages regardless of what ACT are supposed to be.
Pointing out biases and inaccuracies in the current history curriculum isn’t “pearl clutching”.
seymour = yuk
Storm in a tea cup approach by media as usual.
Snowflakes to the left of me, snow flakes to the right, the fuckers are everywhere.
It’s a non story on every account except for those sad and pathetics trying to score political points.
Wouldn’t be surprised if he is charged, others like him threatening to kill WINZ workers or blow up a school or assassinate the PM have been prosecuted. A bit of time inside might be good for Seymour, prison will give him a new perspective on the country he hates.
Prefaced as a fantasy, qualified as not going to happen. World of difference to a threat.
This ( and many ) so called jokes tell us who David Seymour really is and one thing is he is not fit to lead a political party or be in government. Jacinda Ardern comment proved how right she was he is a smart arse little nasty prick nothing more nothing less. If people vote for this person who decries other peoples violence all the time, who wants to free up gun laws, then as a country we are in serious trouble. He needs to resign because he is nothing but a little racist fantasy man.
The country is already in serious trouble thanks to Labour & their failed policies. ACT offers solutions, you’ll live our new Government come October.
ACTs “solutions” have all been tried here and overseas, and none of them have ever worked.
You’ll love them 😉
Rat is it called “the final solution “ ??
😉
Queeny why did Jacinda Ardern jump ship?
Did she suddenly realise she wasn’t fit to run the country?
Maybe you should ask John Key?
No, not at all, Bob I.
She was threatened with her, and her family’s, lives.
Didn’t you see the gallows at the Parliament riot with her name on it ?
Didn’t you see the signs calling for her death?
Didn’t you hear the mob baying for her blood?
Are you blind and deaf or just a misogynist?
After a majority of NZers voted her and Labour in with an unprecedented wave of popularity, it didn’t take long for the mob to turn nasty and vitriolic and forget that her policies probably saved hundreds, if not thousands of NZers lives during the pandemic. What a fickle, selfish, greedy lot some NZers are. Pathetic people!
My guess is that all will be revealed in the fulness of time – but not in the near future. If you regain your sight to read a book, Bob I, you will have your answer and I doubt very much it’s what you think.
Dame Jacinda to you.
Oh Bob its about time you also “woke up from your wet dream fantasies. John Key walked, Bill English walked , he couldn’t stand the thought of being in opposition. This led to the biggest walk out of most of National’s shadow cabinet. So Bob see at heart of dear New Zeelund is a mob of feral misogynists who live in their past glories. They hate women, they hate brown people and there was enough of them to hate Jacinda Ardern, but no they didn’t stop there they also hated on her family . So Bob you and your ilk be proud of yourselves not for hating on Jacinda Ardern but for hating on her little girl.
Nice Queeny. Some on this site are here only to be divisive and spread hate. You replied to one of them.
Sorry Queeny but I don’t hate anyone never have and sincerely hope never will.
Your description doesn’t apply to me but it does to many who comment here regularly with a good dose of hate.
Difficult I know for some to be objective and I have empathy for them.
Anyway have a lovely day.
I was so grateful newshub informed us some drooling green voter got offended and complained to police. No humans were mentioned or harmed in Seymour’s joke.
Headline news.
Whack jobs complain to police about everything.
Good airtime for ACT though as the sane majority of the population sees the nepotism and waste of the bloated bureaucracy and wants it sorted.
It’s all fun and games until the civil conflict kicks off. Come on, Seymour!!!
It’s official! Except for Martyn Bradbury, the left have no humour whatsoever. None! They are so up their offended arses, it’s actually funny.
His joke was lame. God help him if he called them crybabys though. A whole other rabbit hole that one!
It did highlight yet another pointless Wellington bureaucracy however. This one obviously gives abysmal return to the taxpayer and or the people they are supposed to serve. The $40000 piss up shared with us an unbelievable sense of entitlement much less the next party we paid for, for his new gig. These bureaucracies appear to be a 1st class upgrade, a Koru lounge experience from the MSD, in the form of a gold plated work creation scheme. ACT are right to want rid of it!
David Seymour’s immaturity as a leader on full display. ‘Jokes’ like that may have once been accepted at the pub between mates, but those days have gone; they have never been acceptable on public broadcast. Seymour’s inability to see how wrong this was gives a clue to how he will behave should he ever be in a position of power.
If National facilitate ACT in Epsom this election they are effectively condoning, inspite of Luxon’s words, Seymour’s behaviour.
Agree with you Martyn.
You are spot on in your analysis.
Well Martyn if you think its “woke” to think these comments are disgusting , well then I must be woke.
Woo the woke!!!
The whole point of the Guy Fawkes story is that he DIDN’T SUCCEED.
He did NOT blow up Parliament. He was caught red handed, tried, and hanged, drawn and quartered for his treason.
As a possible fate for David Seymour I have to say it has a certain attraction…
Probably too good for him.
Excellent stuff @ Martyn Bradbury. That’s why I almost always think you’re adorable and that Tumeke, and now The Daily Blog are the greatest media outlets in Australasia.
Seymour’s a dangerous little shit and you’re so right in what you write here: “ACT intend to amputate the State and implement a referendum that will start race conflict we haven’t seen since colonial times, THAT should be what we are concerned about, not twisting his stupid joke into a literal terrorist threat.”
The AO/NZ we have today is directly related to the [seymour’s] of the last 150 years. The seymour’s-past had unrestricted access to the media the seymour’s of today own and manipulate, thus extreme vigilance with more than a dash on incredulity is required.
As a farmer, seeing andrew hoggart is tantamount to seeing an abusive bully getting clean away with it.
RNZ. AKA Reactionary Neo-liberal Zeitgeist rag
“Andrew Hoggard, the former president of Federated Farmers, is now a candidate for the Act Party.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/in-depth-special-projects/story/2018903090/crown-vs-cow-part-three-why-farming-reneged-on-its-deal-to-cut-emissions
Farmers? Please. No. Hoggart and Seymour fit the profiles of narcissistic sociopaths. If they pair up with the national party you’ll get to experience a new level of suffering.
And if you’re raging about the labour party, then so you should be, you’re right in doing so.
Roger douglas was labour’s two term finance minister from the mid 1970s. Once Labour had been elected roger left in a flurry of treachery after having betrayed his friend and colleague David Lange. Because Labour’s gaslighted caucus allowed roger to return, Lange, true to his word, resigned as Labour’s P.M.
Roger then left Labour to start ACT with derek quigly and thus seymour was hatched from the same coven the governor of the reserve bankster, don brash, and others lurked in the shadows.
Now 39 years later, we have 200k kids living in poverty, 480 families living in cars, a tanking rural economy and 14 multi-billionaires, 3118 multi-millionaires with personal wealth exceeding $50 million each and now four foreign owned banks stealing $180.00 a second 24/7/365 and a cue of foreign rats desperate to swim for it to here from the burning Earth they set fire to.
Solution: Lets crown-fund a team of forensic accountants to go up AO/NZ’s finances. Lets follow the tracks and trails from where our money’s made to where it goes. Lets see what spiders there are hanging from the webs of lies and deceit’s which are the scaffolding of our politics and our economy. Aye Boys?
Lock’em up!
I love it when the woke left give ACT another 2% with their woke ailenating nonsense.
We are in the middle of an anti democtatic revolution. It’s time for a counterevolution and this election may be the start of it
So Tribal Scott in your opinion Guy Fawkes was wronged , in that his attempt to blow up parliament was foiled. So in your opinion Guy Fawkes was the epitome of democracy. Tell me in your opinion what actions are required for quote “ counterrevolution”. Is it that we hear all about Seymour’s “wet dream fantasies”.
A certain person in USA had fantasies about his lost election and encouraged an attack on that center of democracy . That place was full of innocent workers going about their daily business. Is that what you call a counterrevolution. We have already had the parliament protest , can you please explain how that helped democracy, maybe it was the burning of the children’s slide, or burning other peoples tents, maybe it was using parliament as their very own toilet, was that democratic. Yet again stopping the people of Wellington going about their daily business and stopping the parliamentary workers going to work, is that democratic. Seymour is not fit to represent NZ on the world stage “end of story”. He is nothing but a child promoting his narcissistic thought on a somewhat gullible voting younger public who have never been at the mercy of Roger Douglas and co. ACT are not in it for you they are in it for their rich donors ,nothing more nothing less. So is the counterrevolution actually rich donors buying their own version of democracy where only the strong survive and bugger the rest of us.
You’re not setting up straw men but hay paddocks!!
An undeclared attack on 1 person 1 equal vote democracy has been going on for the last 3 years. McNulty said so publicly on TV “that’s not how we do things in NZ” when asked if all citizens votes should be equal. Even Anne Salmond agrees there is a revolution occurring, she says it’s to late to stop it
So far things are peaceful and I would hope the counterevolution is too. But Bomber may be right and the left may try to stop it with the thugs veto. Then all bets are off
Its also anti-enlightenment
lol – the ruling classes who ACT represent having a counter-revolution? against themselves? that I would love to see.
It’s getting harder not to vote for ACT.
If they drop the neoliberal policies then I’d vote for them in a heartbeat. I’m voting Te Pati Maori at this stage soley because their tax policies are the best. But yeah the ministries for woke affairs need to go.
Gone country for a few days and have seen the cynical ACT Party hoardings, mostly on large farm holdings: e.g. ‘ End Division By Race Vote Party ACT’, accompanied by the cheesy, grinning face of Seymour himself. His intention is, of course, to obliterate the ToW of any meaningful obligation to pakeha whatsoever. Such action will inevitably increase division, probably with violence.
Seymour and his gun-toting party seem the sort to literally wipe Maori off the face of this earth (strangely, including members of his own Parliamentary party; call it ‘colateral damage’), as white Australian settlers (mostly convicts) tried to do with the Aborigines, and failed.
Seymour is, on many counts, a very dangerous, brinkmanship-practicing politician.
Vote for ACT at your peril! It will come to government with policies that will almost certainly have dire and dreadful consequences that you probably have never thought would happen in NZ.
Going on, your going to love our new Government, it’s what you all deserve. Failures swept away, a brighter future for all.
You just labelled the 9 years of the National/Act government Rat, thanks for the reminder.
Labour over the last 6 years has pushed this country into an economical mess and made the racial division the worst in years.To vote them back in would lead them to cut deeper into the fabric of society and push more to leave for greener pastures following those already there. ACT is not my cup of tea but if working with them is the price to oust Labour then so be it.
Like voting for Hitler as he got the trains running on time.
Reliable public transport is important to reduce emissions, what’s not to like 😉
Like 100%
That was Musollini
Another Twerk from Seymour. But that’s what people like about him, a sense of humor and political wit.
Oh my pearls! Must clutch them…
Foxy boy, methain dispenser
Can i say,, shoot straight you fuckers.
Engel, what a care knowing.
Bomber, wit war these fences, eh!.
Egit, your ignorance, of fences, how, be nice,to your egit.
What wall absorb their bullets, hide.
Eh! Aoatearoa, what a thing.
Ana.
Henuki them all, them dare question dare try.
Puppet glove,our care.
Bugger, they who, caught.
Fred, eh Engel, whit call this thing.
The pair of them fought, call the thing.
Socialist.
Bomber, best left alone, the trade union leader, friday night manners mall. wellington, jim knox waving a huge t bone steak, join the union,get one ever friday night. what a knowing.
Eh! lies, never.
T BONE,THE TRUTH, KNOWING;
Care knowing.
Socialism, what a care.
Jeckyll and Hyde, David Seymour represents the authoritarian tyrant of plutocracy.
Are we going to be allowed to light fireworks on the 5th ?
As well as the $40,000 piss up the PP ministry spent $100,000 on prezzie cards the previous year. It does need a bomb under it.
So all you David Seymour lovers . Its now actually ok to fantasize about violence. So when David Seymour announces his draconian policies for his rich donors ( mates ), he’s really only joking. When he wants to repeal every government department that actually tries to help people he’s only joking. When he wants to bring in USA style gun laws ( well they are a joke in themselves) and scrap the gun register he’s only joking. We know he’s only joking at question time in parliament because of his inane smart arse questions. Unfortunately the tax payer is paying for all his jokes . I wonder did a certain german ruler hypothesize that his ethnic cleansing scenario was really only his sick fantasy or did he tell his followers this was the greatest joke in history.
He better not be joking about scrapping the Registry, we’re looking forward to seeing that gone.
Doesn’t look as if you can trust a word he says, even at election time.
It might just be one of his little jokes.
We won’t know till it’s too late.
We do know for certain that law-abiding firearms owners are completely screwed if Labour gets back in. So ACT it is.
I’d say law abiding gun owners, and good on them for being so, probably have a lot more to worry about than just the gun register.
It must account for 1% of the stuff we need to consider when voting.
Aren’t you at all worried about anything else?
I’m a single issue voter, I only decide based on policies related to this issue. The question is how many of the 240000 licenced firearms owners feel the same? Many already feel the noose tightening, as their hunting, sport or recreation becomes harder, the legislation becomes more burdensome, the hoops they have to jump through become higher & smaller, hell, they even have flaming hoops now! The choice is either give up & take up knitting, or try to push back, and here ACT offers a way.
Oh dear, Ratty. If you feel the cage closing you sure do need to push back but on more than one front surely. Otherwise knitting might be the best option while we watch everyone lose their minds and what’s rightfully theirs being sold off to fund the lifestyles of the lucky few.
It’s funny how the Irish tried a bit of racist deflection by claiming GF was Spanish. A guy named Guaido Fox who plotted against the British in protest against the Brit’s attacks on the Spanish.
Wokery in 1500’s.
I’m not a fan of Act, nor David Seymour, but there is something to be said against attributing words to people that weren’t said. “Blowing up” aren’t Seymour’s words, as far as I can see. It’s a media construction through association. Ok, its the intention you might say. And thought and language is the same thing, yes. Maybe. But it’s all swampy ground.
In my fantasy, we’d send a guy called Guy Fawkes in there and it’d be all over, but we’ll probably have to have a more formal approach than that,” he said.
As long as it’s the Beehive and you’re there at the time, David.
I’m all for a gutting of central government and a society based on local co-operation and direct democracy – unfortunately, the ruling classes, who ACT represent, will never go for it – all just a bunch of empty rhetoric and tinkering of an elitist system designed to keep the community at arms length.
for such a “progressive” blog, this place is sooo conservative. You should be lambasting Seymour for not including the whole of the parliamentary precinct in his comment.
…with him in it.
Guy Fawkes’ cunning plan was thwarted with those remaining alive tried for high treason, found guilty and sentenced to death. Hung by the neck until dead or drawn and quartered I believe. Seymour gets off lightly.
Seemore a so called proud Maori missed the Koroneihana and why is that folks?
State amputation? Why would that be necessary? Assuming the Govt is the whole body, then all those ministries are ill-functioning limbs yes? So then…google…
“Trauma or disease can cause tissue death requiring an amputation.”
Yep, good to go David. Scalpel?
Martyn says “amputation”. I say “cancer surgery”.
Sure the twerking little whimp, who is unlikely to have had a root in his life that was not paid for, did not plan to literally bomb the office. But, but, but…he symbolically fed fillet steak to his audience, and he well knows it going by his media channel statements and their adoring responses.
Greens and TPM are doing a good job informing people of what NActFirst would take off working class people in this country–for the few not the many–is their policy. It is time for NZ Labour to join them if they want any chance of defeating the likes Seymour.