David Seymour promises to improve ACT culture as more concerns raised

Monday, 10 June 2024

David Seymour has said he is committed to improving ACT’s culture and adopting most of the recommendations from the party’s election campaign review after Stuff revealed concerns from volunteers and candidates.

Further sources close to ACT have come forward to raise concerns about what they saw as “catty and egotistical” behaviour on the campaign and a culture of exclusion.

Seymour has dismissed the new claims but has said he finds it upsetting that some volunteers and candidates had such a difficult time on his campaign.

ACT Leader David Seymour has promised the party is committed to improving its culture after Stuff revealed concerns that some volunteers and candidates had about the last election campaign.

Seymour said he finds it upsetting that supporters had such a difficult time.

“Yeah, of course it is [upsetting]. And that's why we've actually gone in depth. We've spent pretty substantial money on getting a really good assessment of the campaign.”

Seymour held a press conference after ACT’s annual rally at the Viaduct Centre in Auckland.

The ticket-only event had speakers from ACT including Brooke van Velden, Karen Chhour and guest speaker Paul Henry.

Seymour said it’s likely the party would adopt all 36 recommendations made in a just-completed independent review of the party’s election campaign.

But he also questioned whether the allegations raised by several sources close to the party were true, “I suspect that those reports are possibly not accurate.”

Further sources have since come forward echoing some of the concerns raised including what they saw as egotistical and catty behaviour on parts of the campaign and a culture of exclusion if you weren’t in Seymour’s inner circle.

Seymour was dismissive of the new concerns. “I just think a lot of speculation has been given far too much air time frankly,” Seymour told Stuff after the ACT Party’s annual rally for supporters.

Stuff has been reporting that some volunteers and candidates on the last election campaign felt used. They say they were regularly left in tears and felt a culture of fear took over the campaign when problems started arising with candidates.

Stuff was also leaked a recording from an ACT Party committee meeting held in Auckland in March in which two respected volunteers quit and expressed no confidence in the board and raised concerns about the party’s treatment of women.

Asked to respond to the resignations, Seymour replied that those former volunteers were giving some of the loudest cheers in the front row of the rally and that he was happy to deal with anyone having issues in the party.

“I'm always open to talking to people and working through problems. We're committed to improving our culture. I'm very proud of the party that I've led. I actually think that it has been, on balance, a good place for women.”

Asked if it was concerning that some women felt they were treated unfairly on the campaign, Seymour handed over to the party’s three senior women MPs to comment.

ACT Deputy Leader Brooke Van Velden said no way. “It's impossible to say that ACT has a problem with women when it elected a 27 year old young liberal woman deputy leader.”

Rally

In a room at Auckland’s Viaduct Event Centre, lit up in ACT’s signature pink, broadcaster Paul Henry bemoaned the state of our “broken” nation, “it’s possible it is beyond repair”.

“I believe ACT could be the last cab on the rank heading in the right direction so let’s sort this shit out,” he said to enamoured ACT supporters.

The big bang moment in Seymour’s speech was setting a new goal for ACT at the next election for the party to get 15% of the vote. It received 8.6% last election.

“It would complete ACT’s transformation from an insurgent small party to the small large party you are helping us build,” Seymour said.

“ACT will be a permanent and significant force for good in New Zealand politics with you, you the change makers.”

ACT supporters were referred to throughout the rally as “change makers” and the party will need a lot of those “change makers” to achieve their 2026 election goals.

Further concerns raised

But several “change makers” and supporters from the last election campaign have been speaking to Stuff about their concerns with the party and since our reporting, others have come forward.

One former volunteer, who worked on Brooke Van Velden’s Tamaki campaign said the difference between the two was night and day.

In Tamaki they said, “it felt like I was contributing to something that was meaningful… on the other side it got a bit catty and egotistical.”

They said that they put their all into the campaign but didn’t feel greatly supported, that logistics were poorly communicated and a lot was expected of volunteers while others were rewarded for their work.

“It does feel a bit like being used… I feel like I did a lot for them and they’ve just completely ghosted me now.”

More than eight staff and volunteers have left their roles with the party since the election.

Another source who left after the campaign told Stuff about what they saw as a culture of exclusion.

They felt it was a hyper centralised campaign with David Seymour calling the shots and if you weren’t in his inner circle of parliamentary staffers managing the campaign, known as “Mission Control”, you were out in the cold.

“If you weren’t in that Mission Control you felt totally isolated, that you were just a bit of a cog in a machine.”

But for Seymour, that’s just politics. “I mean, every time you have an election, people come and they find that maybe politics is not for them. They get disappointed.”

He said he’ll be putting more stock into the party’s 90 page campaign review.

“If people have other grievances that they would rather air through the media rather than constructively with the party, then I think at some point, people are going to draw a conclusion about the motivations of those people and possibly become a bit sceptical about why they're getting so much airtime.”