Telling it Like it is

ACT's State of the Nation 2026

So forget your foolish pride, life is too short for sorrow
You may be here today and gone tomorrow
You might as well get what you want
So go on and please

Tell it like it is

Songwriters: George Davis / Lee Diamond.

---

This morning, David Seymour delivered his State of the Nation address, an opportunity for the ACT faithful to look back on the damage they have wrought in the name of greed, throw their heads back in villainous laughter, and consider what else they can do to benefit themselves a bit more, even if someone else has to pay.

Thomas Coughland wrote about it yesterday, not an assessment of where we are as a nation, but rather of where the ACT party is, having fallen behind their dreaded rivals, NZ First, in the polls.

Image: NZ Herald.

Since the last election, NZ First has increased its polling from 6% to over 10% in the most recent Curia/TPU poll, while ACT has fallen from over 8% to hover above 6%.

The sort of territory that, if it were the Greens, would prompt the media to write eulogies and warn that a vote for them, as they slide towards the 5% threshold, would be as wasted as a vote for TOP.

The difference is that ACT has a stronghold in Epsom and a foothold in Tamaki, so they will be there, barring the people of Remuera starting to care for their fellow Kiwis as much as they do about grammar zones and stopping housing intensification in their backyard.

Coughland writes, “All political parties are ambitious, particularly the minor ones, for whom every election dallies with extinction, but few have quite the missionary zeal of the Act Party. You can’t help but feel the party wants a bit more than just survival.”

Therein lies Seymour’s problem: as his vote falls, his chance of gaining as many concessions as he did in the negotiation of 2023 diminishes, with the Prime Minister no doubt eager to have the libertarian weight off his back and be his own man, if he can work out who that is.

As Coughland says, the ACT Party's primary objective is to reduce taxes, which might be a hard sell given the deficits Nicola Willis is predicting.

It would be madness to keep borrowing more while giving tax cuts to a segment of the population that needs them least. They’ve already tried that, and it’s worked as badly as everyone else thought it would, except Nicola Willis.

It made me wonder what they might come up with to regain votes by positioning ACT even further to the right of their coalition partners. The things Seymour and Brooke would be prepared to say that Luxon and Willis can only dream of uttering out loud.

I posted, “What do you think they’ll come up with? Scrap the Public Health System, eliminate the minimum wage and end Social Welfare, or perhaps ban Te Reo with a “Bring Back the Ruler” campaign?”

David replied, “All of that and more. Strip away every possible rights for workers, punch down hard on beneficiaries, punch down on Māori, screw people left, right and centre while making sure that the rich get richer and the rest get poorer.” It was as if he had an advance copy of their manifesto for later this year.

Thor said, “Can we have a referendum to remove the Act Party from parliament?” ACT want to get rid of the Māori electorates, so why not terminate Epsom and Tamaki because of the risk they pose of skewing the nation's wishes?

The allotted time arrived, and the Brooke Bot handled the introductions, telling the crowd to get along and support the party, and who knows, one day they might end up Deputy Party leader like her, possibly underestimating the crowd's age.

She lamented, “Why do they yell ‘you’re a Brooke van Velden’ at me in the street? It’s just grammatically incorrect.”

I confess I made that last part up, but, hey, if you’re in the Tamaki area, why not start a trend?

The man himself took to the stage and said he wanted staying here to be the choice of every generation. Which isn’t a particularly high bar to aim for - people not wanting to leave.

Mind you, with Seymour in power, we have seen record departures, so perhaps it’s more of a stretch goal than it appears.

He was at least honest that it wasn’t going well and called our outbound migration a “flashing light on the dashboard of NZ”, which I imagine is sparkling like Franklin Rd at Christmas. Seymour said there is a solution.

He said he would tell us his plan to stop the dashboard from flashing. But first, he launched into a massive moan about Tall Poppy Syndrome as if the thing holding this country back was how hard it is for our most successful.

He bagged Chlöe Swarbrick, questioning her intelligence when she clearly has at least 50 IQ points on Seymour, and then he called Chris Hipkins “Jacinda Light”. The crowd laughed as if they’d not heard comedy before, and Seymour looked smug.

Seymour said of Hipkins, “He reminds me of what I think an anaesthetist would sound like just before he gives you the injection to knock you out and forget about the pain.”

It wasn’t a great analogy, especially as there is clearly a need for more anaesthesia, with many Kiwis experiencing pain. Mind you, Seymour himself was filling that role as he droned on and on for forty minutes, telling the audience about ACT’s successes this term.

He said we need to tell it like it is and take on the hard issues, and there were five warning lights to address.

1. The cost-of-living crisis, which he clearly didn’t take seriously. David said we need economic growth so that wages also rise. Which, while sensible, sounded like a step towards undoing the gains on inflation and rather forgot about those on fixed incomes.

2. The government is not balancing the books with a $14b gap predicted this year between what we earn and what we’re spending. Seymour said, “If there are no nasty surprises for the next five years, we’re on track as a government to post a small surplus by 2030.” After that, he says it’s more red ink with an ageing population. He claimed we’re on a collision course with the IMF toward bankruptcy, which is palpably untrue, as we have low debt levels compared to similar countries.

   

3. People are, according to David, falling out of love with democracy around the world. Here, they are losing confidence in their institutions, he said, but it was really just a call for smaller government, not the last stand of democracy.

4. He had a right old rant about division between Pākehā and Māori as if he wasn’t the person primarily responsible, and made stuff up like saying those who support the Treaty believe only Māori can be true New Zealanders, which is absolute garbage and shows incredible ignorance.

5. Life in NZ is too hard for young people, he said, we are failing our citizens. He’s not wrong, but it seemed like a weird thing to say from someone who, minutes earlier, had claimed responsibility for most of what this government has done.

The speech went on and on, and I’ll spare you the many anecdotes which Seymour seemed to find amusing, but left me thinking how good a dentist drill would sound.

Aotearoa needs a serious discussion about where we’re at and what we need to do, but I can’t see ACT playing a productive role in that; they will vote against anything good. They voted against gun controls in the wake of the mosque shootings, and they wouldn’t even vote against modern slavery recently.

Whether it was Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill, his Regulatory Standards Bill, his revolting school lunches, or his Charter School rort. Parmjeet Parmer’s visceral hatred for Māori. Andrew Hoggard’s disregard for animal welfare. Or Simon Court’s support for Israel but opposition to Climate Action.

Todd Stephenson, being a lobbyist for private healthcare, or Nicole McKee, one for both guns and alcohol, and then there is Brooke van Velden, sacrificing fair pay for women, and diluting work safety rules. This party has nothing to offer.

Have a good Sunday, folks. I’ll be back next week, although probably not tomorrow unless something dramatic happens.

Ngā mihi,
Nick.

To end today and talk about being a hard ACT to follow, it’s Acantha Lang covering "Tell It Like It Is" by Nina Simone.