Sunday’s campaign rally was meant to be the launchpad for a final election push. Instead, protesters stole much of the media attention and left Act leader, David Seymour, frustrated and looking for a new way to gain momentum.
The high-flying Act balloon has been starting to leak a little air lately. After rising to record highs, the party has fallen back in recent polls. Some of Act’s softer support appears to be drifting off to National and possibly NZ First.
In light of this, David Seymour’s decision to hold his campaign launch much later than the other major parties looked like it could have real strategic value.
The delay provided him with some clear air – an opportunity to refine and ram home the key messages likely to resonate with voters in the final weeks of the campaign.
Seymour’s emailed invitation to Act supporters to attend the launch at Auckland’s Civic Theatre strongly hinted at the increased importance of the event.
“Sunday may be the most crucial day of the election campaign – I am asking you to be part of it,” he implored his troops.
Seymour said Act’s campaign for change was firing on all cylinders “but in a competitive election, all this could mean nothing if we don’t take the campaign up a level as we approach the opening of the polls. The media's – and therefore the public's – eyes will be on us, so Act needs Kiwis like you to show up and raise the roof.”
Seymour will be disappointed. This was not the high energy event he was looking for.
Walking on to the stage in a cloud of pink smoke Seymour began his speech by asking the audience to picture a tiny baby. One of around 165 born in New Zealand every day.
“They might be born rich or poor, boy or girl…. they might be Māori, Pasifika, South Asian, East Asian, Middle Eastern or European. “
No matter what the baby’s background, said Seymour, there were some universal truths.
“We know she [the mythical baby is now a girl] will live in a joined up global economy where the primary currency is knowledge.”
The Act leader used the baby scenario to introduce the policies that differentiate Act from its competition. The baby would need an education, money, her own home, and she will need to be safe from thugs and bullies.
It was at this point, three minutes into the speech, that the first protester struck. The imposing figure of Karl Mokaraka, a candidate for Vision NZ, leapt to his feet and drowned out Seymour. The Act leader stared into the dimly lit theatre and shouted: “Is this a protest?” It was, and it lasted for nearly eight minutes.
Seymour ploughed on with his speech, but nobody could hear or was listening at this point.
Mokaraka, is the same man who disrupted Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins during candidate meetings and walkabouts earlier in the election campaign.
Red Badge security had 15 staff present but Mokaraka had outwitted them. The leader of the security team said the protestor “cleverly had his people in seats either side of him and then stood on his seat and braced himself making it difficult for us to get at him.”
Seeing the failure of security to move Mokaraka, the 800-strong crowd began to drown him out by chanting “party vote Act.” Seymour continued but was barely audible over the ruckus.
TV news crews and reporters trying to take pictures of Mokaraka were blocked by upset Act supporters waving large cardboard cards that had been printed for the rally.
When Mokaraka was finally removed, half the media present followed him outside and began interviewing him. Separate protests by union organisations and Freedoms New Zealand (a party affiliated with Vision NZ) were already being held outside the Civic. A contingent of eight police watched on.
With order restored inside, Seymour spoke about how “red tape” was destroying the country. “We have an image of ourselves as can-do Kiwis with a number 8 wire mentality…it is a wonderful story, but it is just not true anymore. The truth is we spend more and more time complying and less and less time producing.
“We will bring the people responsible for policing red tape and regulation under one roof with a minister dedicated to ensuring that the rules that are made are solving an actual problem and the benefits are exceeding their costs. It is amazing that nobody in Government has that job and all of us bear the costs of striving under red tape and regulation that is politically expedient but economically expensive.”
Seymour returned to his baby scenario when he outlined Act’s stance on the Treaty of Waitangi. Act would “make sure that the two babies born side by side at the same hospital had the same chances in life no matter their background.”
“No society in history has ever succeeded based on treating people differently on race, it just does not work.”
A few minutes later Seymour was interrupted by another protester, this time a woman.
Red Badge security later told police that seven or eight protestors in “four batches” had got into the event. “They were well dressed and appeared to be working to a timetable (to disrupt Seymour) and were dotted around the theatre and even though they were making noise they were hard to spot.”
A police spokesperson told Newsroom that because the event was on private property, dealing with the disruption was a matter for the security guards and there was no role for the police.
At a media standup after the launch, Seymour defended Act supporters who tried to block the media from filming the protesters.
“Due to the lighting, I couldn’t see a lot of what was happening.
“Frankly, I think if a person can come and interrupt our meeting by protesting like that then I think equally other people (Act supporters) have a right to peacefully prevent them from succeeding in their goal of getting coverage.”
Wellington based journalist, Richard Harman, tried to steer the media conference back onto Act policy by asking Seymour for more details on the “15,000 people you are going to sack [from the Public Service] and which departments are they going to come from?”
Seymour replied: “The target was based on the number of people we had in 2017 but for example MBIE - they have gone up from about 3500 to about 5800 in just the last five years, if you look at the Ministry of Education – gone from 2500 to over 4,000 in the last six years so that gives you an idea of where some of those reductions might be.”
TVNZ reporter Katie Bradford asked, “so what happens to those people who you are sending out on the street at a time of rising unemployment and at a time when you are proposing a dramatic overhaul of the welfare system?”
Seymour said any unemployment issues would be smaller than they might seem.
“Every day in New Zealand over 3,000 people leave a job and go to a new one so 15,000 people leaving the public service – that’s about five days hiring…. on the other hand, we cannot continue to pay higher taxes, borrowing money and indebting future generations when we don’t actually have the means to pay for it. Right now, businesses and households are being forced to do more with less every year while the Government does less with more. We must put that back into balance.”
Sunday’s launch was, as Seymour predicted, the biggest rally in Act’s history but it will not go down as its most successful. Party officials will be wondering just how, despite the high level of security and registration checks, a small group of protesters managed to ruin their big day.
