'Seeing ugly things': Seymour says world watching NZ's 'dumpster fire policy debate'

New Zealand has descended into a “dumpster fire of a policy debate”, Act leader David Seymour says. 

In a speech today, Seymour also highlighted a “loss of efficiency” in the Crown’s expenditure since 2017, something he doesn’t believe the Government has got on top of. 

“The next Government will need to assess where efficiency has gone wrong in the past decade and work out how to be at least as efficient as we were 10 years ago,” he said. 

“You might ask why I’m saying this now after being part of the Government for three years. Our party signed up for a 2017 baseline exercise three years ago, but most of the Government refused to implement it. 

“Today, reality is calling and wants its money back.” 

He is likely to set out how Act expects to address that with the release of the party’s fiscal plan this weekend. 

Seymour spoke of how a weakening New Zealand dollar presented an “immediate problem for the cost of living” as well as reflecting “a message from the world to New Zealand”. 

“There’s been no earthquake, commodity prices are high. We are as far as you can get from the various conflicts around the world. If anything, the New Zealand dollar should be strong right now, but it’s falling against everything. Why?” 

He theorised that “the currency markets are watching our election and they’re seeing two ugly things”. 

One of those, Seymour said, was polling trends suggesting a decline in the likelihood of the coalition Government being re-elected, while the second was “the dumpster fire of a policy debate New Zealand has descended into over the past weeks”. 

David Seymour says Act helped find billions in savings in Government. Photo / Alyse Wright 

Among the policies he picked out was the Green Party’s idea to nationalise a number of New Zealand supermarkets, New Zealand First’s proposal to buy back the BNZ and Labour’s desire to split the wholesale and retail arms of the main supermarket duopoly. 

“There’s another party in Parliament that is all over the show. Their policies aren’t serious but when they get upset, they do war dances on the floor of Parliament,” Seymour said. 

“Perhaps most damagingly, the largest party has adopted a version of the others’ supermarket policy. The party that wants to nationalise them is literally saluting the traditional party of big business and calling them ‘comrade!’ Perhaps they really are communists?” 

Addressing the country’s fiscal position, Seymour said the Government’s expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) “after three Nicola Willis Budgets” is “closer to peak Covid spending than pre-Covid spending”. 

He said interest costs on built-up debt contribute to this, as well as increased spending on healthcare and superannuation, “but those don’t explain the whole gap”. 

Taking into account the likes of inflation and population growth since 2017, and putting aside “politically sensitive” areas like health and education, Seymour said spending was “higher than it should be”. 

According to the pre-election economic and fiscal update (Prefu) released last week, core Crown expenditure was about 32.1% of GDP in the past year, compared with 27.7% in the year to June 2017. 

Seymour previewed his party’s fiscal plan, expected on Sunday, saying it will include the impacts of reducing the number of ministers and departments, taking steps to address the superannuation bill and increasing the medicine budget. 

On superannuation, Seymour said raising the age of entitlement is “inevitable” but it should be done “carefully and slowly”. Act has previously advocated for raising the age to 67 over eight years. 

He said there were three conditions that should come with this move: ensuring KiwiSaver remained available at 65, having an early compassionate access scheme for those who have worked more than 20 years in a physical job and removing the tax off KiwiSaver investment returns. 

Seymour said adjusting the superannuation eligibility age upwards by three months would save about $400 million. Adjusting it by two years would save over $3 billion a year, which was equivalent to nearly 0.75% of GDP. 

David Seymour wants a larger portion of health spending to go to medicines. Photo / Getty Images 

He put a focus on primary healthcare, adding that emergency departments are “filled with people who should have seen their doctor four weeks ago”. 

“GP funding should be protected as a proportion of the health budget. Pharmacies should be paid a fee for service if they take minor ailments off GPs. People once said pharmacies couldn’t do immunisation. Today, I say they could do bloods, check skin lesions, among many other ailments. 

“The medicines share of health spending should be progressively raised to match Australia’s. Currently, they spend 12.2% of health funding on medicines to our 4.9. Medicines can go a long way to saving money down the track. 

“Currently, only 10% of the health budget is spent on GPs and pharmaceuticals. That doesn’t sound like a productive system focused on prevention.” 

Seymour said he was proud Act “has kept its head when others around us have lost theirs” but he regretted that the coalition hasn’t saved more than $14b. 

”The fact Labour find it so easy to cosy up to our Government’s fiscal track is a telling sign. Labour and National fight like two bald men fighting over a comb, but they’re not so different. 

“I regret that the political environment has become so panicked that threatening businesses who’ve done nothing wrong has become a legitimate political strategy. 

“I do, however, have great hope. I hope more voters find courage and wisdom to come out in support of sound principles.” 

Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald’s chief political reporter, based in the press gallery at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist in 2025 for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.