The Act leader and his day as the acting Prime Minister

It is not often that Invercargill is the centre of the political universe.

But every dog has its day and the southern city’s day was Thursday, when David Seymour, your acting Prime Minister of New Zealand, came to town.

This was not the first time the Act New Zealand leader has taken the helm of the ship of state, and thankfully it was not as eventful as a previous time Mr Seymour was at the tiller.

That was the Friday evening (NZ time) when much of the computer network in this country, and the world, melted down.

This time, other than the company of a couple of discrete diplomatic protection squad officers and the need for regular updates on what a trio of Chinese warships might be up to in the Tasman Sea, this was pretty much business as normal for Mr Seymour.

Normal? Well, business as what used to be normal perhaps. Politicians attract protesters like, well, you know the phrase, and thanks to the Treaty Principles Bill Mr Seymour attracts more than the usual number most days.

But Invercargill is somewhat sleepier than most cities, and Mr Seymour was in the unusual position for him these days of being able to stroll unmolested along the street between engagements.

His day began at the somewhat unlikely location of Vet South’s Invercargill clinic where, as various ailing pets entered and exited the premises, the Minister of Regulations joined Environment Minister (and Invercargill National MP) Penny Simmonds to announce the results of the Agricultural and Horticultural Products Regulatory Review — some of the affected products are veterinary medicines, hence the somewhat engineered choice of venue for a stand-up.

While summoning all the enthusiasm he could — which is considerable — for the seldom thrilling task of cutting red tape, Mr Seymour may, surely briefly, have wished he was elsewhere. Up in Auckland, even as he spoke, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith was announcing a proposed referendum on a four-year Parliamentary term — a longtime Act policy.

But the acting prime minister cannot be in all places at once, and New Zealand is a geographically large, small country. Not so large, though, that an issue Mr Seymour might have liked to leave behind him, the troubled roll-out of the revamped school lunches programme, couldn’t follow him there.

While Mr Seymour was in the air winging his way south, Leanne Otene (the Principals Federation national president and, coincidentally principal at what was once Mr Seymour’s intermediate school), had issued an open letter to him which called for one of his flagship policies, the revamped school lunches scheme, to be scrapped and the old system reinstated.

Blindsided by a question on the letter from this reporter (sorry about that), Mr Seymour made his usual defence of the programme, that the teething problems would be sorted out and that the tax payer money being saved more than justified the exercise — an answer which will no doubt do nothing to mollify the pupils at East Otago High School, who have been choking down mac and cheese for five straight days.

This was a matter which was to dog Mr Seymour, however, as he was asked cogent and forensic questions about it as part of a Q+A session, ironically held after a business lunch hosted by the Southland Business Chamber.

These kinds of functions are staple fare for politicians of all stripes, although obviously the leader of Act New Zealand gets a slightly easier reception from this kind of audience than, say, a co-leader of the Green Party.

They also give Mr Seymour the chance to play to his strengths. He has an impressive capacity to retain detail and the oratical skills to convey it in an entertaining and lucid way.

The chamber had expected Mr Seymour to give a speech on several nominated topics; he himself had planned on a mini version of the town hall meeting type gathering which has been central to Act’s campaign regimen for several years, a forum in which a seemingly unflappable Mr Seymour usually excels.

Invercargill’s business leaders got the best of both worlds, as Mr Seymour improvised 20 minutes on the chamber’s bullet points — a cogent mix of his current talking points and some addressing of its specific concerns — before moving on to take half a dozen or so questions from the floor, including those curly inquiries about school lunches, questions which Mr Seymour, to his credit, attemped to answer fully.

The gathering closed in the way Mr Seymour’s day had begun, with questions on defence issues, and a fairly hefty hint from Mr Seymour that another long-standing Act policy, increasing defence spending to 2% of GDP, could be a bit closer to fruition following a week of the kind of developments that only an acting Prime Minister knows the full details of.

mike.houlahan@odt.co.nz