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hey Runners only with dime Harley Runners only with dom Harvey and act party leader David Seymour g'day g'day
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mate how you going very well thank you very much for joining me on the podcast really appreciate it oh no great thanks
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and um the first thing we need to discuss and uh take off is um your relationship with running the podcast is
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called Runners only uh there is a running thread to it um do what is your relationship with
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running you like running you hate running you run it all I run every three years which party do you run for
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if we're talking about that um you know a lot of people my my late nanner in
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particular she was very secretive about who she voted for never shared it with anyone
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um I don't give a [ __ ] I've voted National my entire life um but I did vote for Eric last time around
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just because some people are improving I voted for Eric last time around just because I'm a national Wilson uh Judith
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Collins was the leader and nationalism disarray but I do have a lot of they just promoted her again Judith Collins
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yeah have they you have to vote for ACT again all right maybe maybe a lot can happen in a year so we we are recording
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this I'm not sure when this podcast is going to be released but we're recording
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it in mid-January the day after it was announced uh that Jacinda ardern resigned as prime minister what are your
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thoughts um look first of all I just wish you well um every time there's a high profile
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resignation there's all this rumor mill and you know I remember when John Key
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resigned some of the rumors were just so everyone was saying he was having a fear
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with Melissa Lee was it oh um wow that I hadn't heard that one yeah that's that's one of the better ones
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I've heard but um what did you heard or you don't want to go there possibly but
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the truth is um John loves life and he loves looking at numbers and he looked at his numbers
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and he realized he wasn't going to love life for much longer the way people were
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turning on them they didn't want to stick around for his own political funeral and being a Trader and a numbers
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man he got out before it got too hot in the kitchen and um I think something similar has happened here you look at
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what she can achieve outside politics versus what she can achieve inside politics well outside politics and as
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she said herself she she wants to see her daughter go to school on her first day and who could possibly hold that
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against it she wants to marry her partner good order on the other hand inside politics you know all the numbers
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are against her the approval rating the preferred prime minister the labor party
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polling the people saying the country's going the wrong direction the business
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confidence I mean you pick a number it's gone really bad recently um and even if she got a third term
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she'd probably be in a coalition with really difficult people not a single party government anymore and I can see
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her just saying why why I know there has to be a prime minister but why do I have
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to ruin my life so good honor and um you know obviously there's many things I
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disagree with just under a den that's why I lead a totally different political
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party but good honor for you know giving it a best having the best of intentions
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and um you know I hope that she she does well with her family and whatever and I'm sure she will have an interesting
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job next as well yeah no doubt and um probably earn a considerable amount more money I'd imagine in the private sector
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if that's what she chose to do yeah who knows the boards Happy Days yeah who
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knows what's your how would you describe your relay is there a relationship between you and her at all do you guys
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hate each other like if you if you if you hop into a left and she's there are
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you like sighing under your breath like oh God no no I've never felt that way
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I'm probably a bit unusual on the right that one is I've always thought she
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would do well um we were both unsuccessful candidates in the Auckland Central electorate in
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the 2011 election and so spending time with the other candidates backstage before the debates and stuff I mean some
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people are just dicks I'll give you example Winston uh yep he'd be one but
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but Colin he doesn't usually bother showing up for the debates but um Colin Craig I refuse to physically
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touch him I just knew he was a dick in the way that he's pursued that poor Express secretary through the courts
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year after year it turns out my Basic Instinct was was right that's right yeah
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Rachel McGregor yeah he took her to the cleanest she should get a honorary damehood or something for what she's
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gone through with that idiot but anyway um Jacinda on the other hand you know her her Charisma her warmth all of that
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stuff is real so I always thought she had an X Factor and a real talent and I've always personally liked her even as
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she's been putting in place policy is that I I believe will take years if not
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decades to fully reverse their impacts well do you think should say the same things about you or I reckon she hates
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you she may well do she may do I don't know um I think I think the difference is
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that she can sell and emote and and do things better than I ever will be able to on the on the marketing side my
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background is I'm an engineer I like putting together policy you know charter
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schools actually works uh canceled for ideological reasons assisted dying end of life choice you know that's that's a
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successful policy and so my criticism of her was always not not her intentions I
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mean who doesn't want to end child poverty and you know make New Zealand a kind a gentler place my criticisms of
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her always related to you know what she's saying she's doing is not going to
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work and often has the opposite effect I mean you know she banned exploring for natural gas but now people are using
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more coal because there's no gas I mean you know it's just and that's I I think
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that's the upside to everything well it's it's funny but somehow she got the
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intentions right and the results sort of totally wrong and and I think she probably does have some resentment that
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I've always criticized her and pointed that out yeah and um that sort of frustration on her part reached um fever
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pitch towards the end of the um political year last year 2022 when she was caught on Mike calling you what was
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it a smarmy prick is it arrogant arrogant yeah so that sort of went that sort of went viral and you sort of
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managed to turn lemons into lemonade and you had that had a transcript signed and
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it sold for a lot of money how much did it sell for on trade me like just over 100 100 100
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that's crazy a guy who was um and it's the most the most amazing job he's
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actually an equine dentist uh from the West Coast um so if you need your horse's teeth
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looked into uh here's the guy and he's just had a big bill so he needs your
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business um and uh Julian Julian killer from uh from West Coast is a tremendous guy a
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great New Zealander who put up a hundred thousand dollars for the Prostate Cancer
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Foundation yeah yeah um something that I never I mean I saw that I saw that when it happened it was
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on the news that night it was everywhere and I thought it was kind of funny and the way you reacted to it it was I mean
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it was kind of funny but then I um something which I never really thought of and I read some comments online and I
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thought oh that's an interesting perspective had the shoe been on the other foot and you called her a like a
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smarmy [ __ ] or whatever an arrogant [ __ ] you'd be canceled oh can you imagine you would you wouldn't
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you wouldn't have me on on your show I wouldn't be here I've had a convicted
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murderer on the show I think you'd probably yeah maybe yeah okay yeah yeah but if that's your comparison I think
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you made that happen but you recognized that like I had the shooting on the other foot it's a real double standard
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isn't it um yeah I I think that there there are you know the world used to be a very
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uneven place I mean it's it's only 40 years ago you know it's in my aunt's
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lifetime that that women couldn't have bank accounts and credit cards in New
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Zealand uh and there are still the enormous progress in remaining big differences and they work both ways I
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mean I think it's true that that female politicians tend to get more abuse and
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more violent abuse and more sexualized abuse I mean that's just from looking at
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some of the women we have a next caucus I'm pretty sure that's true um and yet at the same time I think
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sometimes men get get held to a higher standard I mean you look at the green co-leader Barbara Davidson going around
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talking about the the c word and saying that you know seas are powerful and she's reclaiming the word I mean how
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like I mean now that's mostly just weird but you know like somehow that's okay
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whereas I just I just get the feeling that um you know other people might get in
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Greater difficulty then again I did say the French love the [ __ ] and got away with it so oh yeah maybe maybe that's
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not a good example it's one of your viral moments I do want to get to that later
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um but I since since we've talked about your relationship with Jacinda before we
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move on um I'd like to talk about another couple of relationships so uh Willie Jackson he's a politician what
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did he call you he called you like a useless Mary or something I know and I just want to say I'm a very useful now
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right is that what is that what it was useless Mary yeah yeah so you um you are Maori you're that's right yeah yeah yeah
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very sad watching Seymour a man who claimed he was Maori you just don't know
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where he's coming from you know so so you know like how do you feel about that that's that's incredibly
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hurtful right racist uh well it is but again it sort of depends because I mean Willie mouths off in some way or another
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every day so you sort of don't take anything you take says that seriously yeah but is that kind of just saying oh
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that's Willie being Willy that's excuse me let's just say Willie's a bit of a
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willy right um look I think he's a he's a fascinating guy uh well yeah he's he's
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impossible not to like um and I remember shortly after he became a minister because here New
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Zealand have a sense of humor and sit here next to the most unlikely people sometimes
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um and he he'd been up uh in question time and there's the standard thing they
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ask you know does the minister stand by all their statements and of course you have to say yeah so of course I stand by
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all my States and then try and justify them and Willie just goes well yeah at the time
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I'm sorry I was sitting next to him on the plane and I said Willie you can't
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say that yeah dude you just meant so I mean and when when it came to um end of life choice
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because I you know I had to get every person to vote for it or enough people and one by one and we spent a lot of
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time meeting with Willie and talking about um you know what uh euthanasia meant in
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Tao Maori and um you know with a bit of help from an old Courier who remained nameless who
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we've basically sat on him and she she talked around I think but he did actually give a a really beautiful
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speech in Parliament about why he decided to vote for the bill and he has a way of simplifying things down or
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maybe you only get simple things in the first place but you know he has a way of
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communicating things simply that is is a talent and everyone has a talent of sorts but
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um so look that's that's Willy but I I think there's also a darker side to him
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in the sense that you know I think he genuinely believes that um if you don't believe the right thing
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then you're not a real Maori and and that is that is a really big problem because you know we had hundreds of
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years of of fighting for everyone to be equal and free and now we're putting up
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these walls again saying no no if you think this is the wrong type of person or whatever and and that that's not
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that's not what New Zealand's supposed to be about do you have an ability to
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just pick up a guitar and play it without doing any lessons or watching tutorials on YouTube mate I'm tone deaf
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I had lessons for years maybe he's on to something then yeah I know it could be
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obviously I'm disqualified yeah um okay one other person I want to discuss your relationship with before we
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move on to some other stuff Winston is that um is that a hate hate relationship or is it was it like on-screen banter he
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seems to you seem to have a neck of really getting under his skin yeah well I mean I remember when
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um you know I was first elected and it was the same time Chris Bishop was first elected and Bish seems to have the same
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effect and we both we both gave speeches because you get to give their first speech the maiden speech we both gave
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speeches saying look basically while New Zealand's got some problems we quite
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like the modern New Zealand um we think that New Zealand has turned out you know
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pretty good yes there's some things that have gone wrong and yes there were some
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things that were better in the old days but on balance that somewhat open and more tolerant a richer a more hopeful
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Society than it's been for a long time and people I know people say oh about
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somewhere but I mean honestly ask anyone who was actually around in 1980 what this country was like and what it's like
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today and which one would you want to live in it's an easy thing yeah for sure
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um and of course we were giving those speeches and and his whole belief is that actually it would be better to go
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back 50 years and I think to see you know young people getting elected to Parliament saying actually you know what
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you're you're the past now you've lost the battle um and we're moving on and and there's
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not really um you know your politics doesn't really have anything to offer now because
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people are happy with with the way things are generally that's called progression isn't it yeah and I I think
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that's really broken him uh because you know he wants to take us back to the
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good old days when it was great to be a white straight man in the rugby racing and beer in New Zealand's just his New
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Zealand doesn't exist anymore well there's aspects of 1980 that were probably better than than what they are
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now but yeah for the most part probably not right I mean you know I remember 1980 I was
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seven at the time and uh we didn't we moved to a new subdivision we didn't
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have like fences with our neighbors and we'd go wandering around and Mum would
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basically lock us outside and say go out and play and we'd just play and then
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she'd call out for us at dinner time so there's aspects of that are simple in
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New Zealand which is quite a beautiful thing but you can't have some of that
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and yeah I mean I think you're talking about a very specific thing well well no it's
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really interesting because like um you you know kids are objectively safer like the chance of of something
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really bad happening to a kid now like it's never been a safer time um but people's perception is that it's
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really dangerous and the funny thing is because people are so scared for their kids they protect them and they actually
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are in Greater danger because they haven't had Independence they haven't
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had to build resilience so anyway that's it I think that's a very interesting
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example yeah but it's against the trade yeah and that's probably a good point
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now that I think back Riverdale Primary School in Palmerston North like we're
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like a jungle gym there and uh it was a concrete pad underneath um it's a head injury waiting to happen
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doesn't it yeah I mean look you know it's probably most kids were okay there
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were a couple that weren't but we don't talk about them okay so let's go all the
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way back so um you're born in Palmerston North um I'm from Palmer's North as well
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I've heard you make a very charitable joke um that you were born and as soon as you
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were able to walk you left town well it means for it I was about a team I didn't
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say they were connected but I was about 18 months so yeah so then where you moved to Northland yeah yeah yeah and
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that's where you were sort of born and raised I was born in party but my um my dad's
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family is from the manawatu and my mum's family's from Northland okay so we sort
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of bounced between the two so it's you and um two brothers uh so Mark and Zander Mark and Xander and um your mum
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and dad were they to they remain together that they break up um well they well they were told they
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they practiced till death do us part um but unfortunately my mum passed away 15 years ago uh this year yeah so they
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were still together then yeah certainly together at that point yeah yeah um yeah sorry to hear that
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um yeah so you're um yeah so your relationship with your dad I saw an article online you took him to the dudes
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concert a couple of years ago and you you had a name for it you called it the good son was that just a David Seymour
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joke well I didn't realize I'd said that publicly but yeah um what is the good
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Sun project well now he'll oh shh now I hope he doesn't hear this now he'll tell
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you what I'm just doing them it's just part of a project um uh no I I tried to do uh you know do
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it appropriate stuff and one thing we have in common so he he was in a band back in the day
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um and um famous band or just like a oh I think they won Battle of the band so yeah what was the band called it was
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called freeway and um various members sort of you know joined and separated and joined and eventually part of it
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ended up being my six so so yeah so they were you know sort of sort of a couple of steps from it's sort of like being
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you know Princess Beatrice or something you're a few steps away but you know but
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almost almost royalty yeah yeah and so yeah it's good to see um I mean the dudes was just absolutely stunning to
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see um so to finally understand why that band was so brilliant but couldn't last
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to see how good Peter erlich's vocals were and how great um Dave dobbyn was as a lead guitarist
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but also watch that Dave wanted to be the singer which of course eventually became DD smash yeah and eventually got
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to sing all his own songs um but it's just a shame that it couldn't hang together yeah
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um yeah so so yeah that felt like a political art it was a lovely answer and a great chance to reminisce about my sex
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and the dudes but it felt like a distraction to the the good Sun project well which I which I'm trying not to
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publicize undermine can I when I read that can I let you know what I think it means I feel I feel
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like you're so busy and maybe you haven't spent as much time with your dad
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as what you think you should and you realize he's not getting any younger so
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you need to make a conscious effort to do some things but we're going to the
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we're going to the um uh hot rod and classic car uh day at upper up at kumeu this weekend so there
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you go it's another installment but Dad it's not it's not part of a project I
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really do want to do it but you're trying to do like one one thing a month is it once every quarter I know you're a
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busy guy closer to quarter to be honest but yeah it's pretty wild as usual and
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how's um how's he been has he found anyone another partner or anything yeah he has
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um but you know there's I try not to bring my my family too much into I'm the
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one that shows a public life rather than them so yeah is that shutting this this
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line of questioning down because I I you know I mean yeah the stuff about you want to talk about your mum or oh sure
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okay so your mum uh Victoria um incredible woman so she was one of the last last last kids in the Western
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World had Polio that's true yeah so what does that mean exactly like what does
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that look like well so um you know one of the most extraordinary things that's happened in
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New Zealand history is when the sulk vaccine arrived um by airplane and people who knew the
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horror of polio you know children with wasted limbs getting put into iron lungs and terrible terrible epidemic like like
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nothing you know what we've seen with covers is nothing compared to the the horror of that and and people who had
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experienced it that they were so desperate for the vaccine they actually went out on because there was not much
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airport security then people actually went out onto the runway to try and get it to try and get it straight off the
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plane when was this like 96 well this was not this was 1956 right in September of that year she was born in April of
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that year and I I might I have this entirely right but Pete what I've pieced
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together is that she was supposed to get the vaccine at six months um but they didn't have it in dargaville
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into copperu hospital where she was born and so as a result she missed out on getting the vaccine and so after that I
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mean the Salk vaccine just wiped polio out from New Zealand so she was one of the last to get it and I made a few
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things I mean it meant that you know she was told that she wouldn't run um that she wouldn't be on this podcast
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um you know who couldn't walk that she wouldn't have children she wouldn't
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drive she wouldn't uh you know go to university she wouldn't work because
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you've got to remember the attitudes to people with a disability was different
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completely different you know like yeah they sort of hidden from mainstream Society yeah like like now if someone is
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living with a disability you really try and help if you can um but then it was almost like you're
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sort of because you're not able you're letting the side down totally different
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treatment um and so that's that's a really um you know a good thing in a way that
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it's changed but that's what you face then so her story is incredible determination and as it turned out I
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mean she had kids we mentioned my brothers are fine upstanding citizens who said a politician but you know
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um you can't have three perfect kids can you no exactly so one one politician's
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not a bad price to pay for two good kids um and um she she um she you know became
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northland's biggest drug dealer um she was the chief pharmacist at Northland dhb I mean she was shifting 15
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million bucks of product into Northland every year would that make her the biggest drug dealer I don't know I feel
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like there's some big shipments coming into caprianga yeah actually I mean by
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that's in 2007. and you'd know more about drugs than me Don but but um you know it was a brilliant scheme
00:21:41
she was doing it right under the government's nose but getting them to fund it but um no so she you know she
00:21:46
was one of a Vanguard of women who Who Rose to the top of their professions how did a woman to do that in their
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Generation Um she really defied the odds didn't she so that's that's quite a formative story
00:21:57
because I think a lot of what comes down to in politics there's there's people
00:22:01
that believe you can make a difference in your own life and there's people that
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will tell you oh it's you know because of colonialism or it's because of this
00:22:08
or that or structural something that you know you will never succeed or you need
00:22:12
to be treated differently to 60 or whatever and I'm on the side that says actually you know the the ability to
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think and reason and make a difference make tomorrow better than today I mean that's that's what New Zealand's about
00:22:24
because the one thing I know about every kiwi is that either you or your ancestors at some point someone decided
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to move way the [ __ ] out to the middle of nowhere so it's the longest journey
00:22:35
on anyone's ever made and unimaginably horrible as well yeah for the Hope or promise of a better life
00:22:41
and we've all got it in common I mean you know the early Polynesian Navigators
00:22:46
who were ancestors of Maori I mean that was amazing um yeah why did they leave Hawaii like
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yeah so what better do you want well one this place is amazing well Hawaii key but I mean one theory is that um because
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they didn't have um any kind of telecommunications um the ones that didn't come back they
00:23:06
assumed they'd gone to a better place even if they all drowned so they just kept going until someone got somewhere
00:23:11
yeah I don't know so so um so so you mum we're growing up like would you say you're more of a mummy's
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boy or a daddy's boy or yeah a equal relationship with both of them oh but to
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be honest I'm a pretty independent-minded sort of person yeah are you where are you in the birth order
00:23:25
I'm a a pre there's a word for it primogenitor um the firstborn oh yeah yeah it's the
00:23:32
first okay so you're 39 yeah how old are your brothers 37 and 35 35 34 well it
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depends what time of year it is up but yeah 37 and 34 at the moment yeah so you so your mum mum she starts feeling
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unwell um she got a she took a pregnancy test or something right when she started
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feeling unwell even though she was oh she doesn't know I didn't know that she
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was um she was she was 50 so that's a bit hopeful you know I I think this seems back to her um like her drug
00:24:00
background so she she took a pregnancy test and it gave her like a false positive how do I know this and you
00:24:05
don't this is not what I have heard this story I'm trying to work out where you
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heard it but I think I read it somewhere yeah I did a lot of research so you suggested positive so she knew she
00:24:13
wasn't yeah no I think that story is true because she knew there was some other marker that it would um would
00:24:19
trigger um so yeah there was some sort of logically but not the way most people would use pregnancy tests but
00:24:26
um in any event yeah she she had cancer and it gradually spread and and then ended up spreading much more rapidly
00:24:34
than anyone expected um lifestyle related or just bad luck bad genes oh um look there's there's some speculation
00:24:43
that it was related to the fact that her job as a as a pharmacist at Northern hospital was actually preparing Cancer
00:24:51
drugs for or chemotherapy treatments which which are radioactive um so but look I that that's a theory
00:24:59
that some people have have shared I don't want to blame anyone at the Northland dhb for for that being the
00:25:05
case but that's that's the closest to a theory other than just total Randomness
00:25:09
yeah so um so how are you at the time you like 20 early 20s so you you yeah so you just finished
00:25:15
your University degrees Yeah so I just graduated uni I would have been 23 so can you remember that moment where you
00:25:21
got the news I can actually because I was um I had a mate who decided to go and work down in Queenstown and it
00:25:29
hadn't really been all that was cracked up to be so I flew down there and we
00:25:32
drove back up so I was actually on a phone booth in hokitika uh just because remember this was it's aging out yeah
00:25:39
2006 yeah well you could still you know kids you could go to a tardis well you actually you could go to a box look
00:25:47
forget it they were fine there were phones that didn't move a long time ago uh so now I do remember that so you
00:25:56
expect so you find her from the yeah she can't find you in a phone box so you
00:25:59
phone home why did you phone home just for a chicken oh E.T um no idea um yeah no not sure about the reason but
00:26:09
anyway that was the conversation wow and was it terminal at that stage or were they quite hopeful of like finding
00:26:17
a way out of it I mean well she seems like a result she she fought polio and she likes you to fight all the odds yeah
00:26:22
well as you say I mean she you know she read her own um she read her own test results because
00:26:29
she was heavily involved in oncology at the hospital so she as she said she she read her results and she knew it was a
00:26:36
death sentence um it's pretty bad it's pretty bad when you go in and the oncologist's crying so
00:26:45
um yeah so no she was pretty uh realistic about it so did you as I being the oldest of the three boys did you
00:26:51
have to sort of um I don't know like put on a like a brave face for you for your
00:26:56
brothers how old were they like like well they would have been you know three and two uh or three and five years
00:27:02
younger than me so I guess 18 17 and and 19 or 18 or 20. um yeah look obviously you know one
00:27:11
thing about death and and funerals and so on is that they they do actually unite families
00:27:17
um even though it's probably not really worth it but that's that's one minus
00:27:21
Silver Lining yeah depends who it is I guess so yeah so I read that you um so you'd
00:27:27
graduated and you were just about to go to Canada to take up a job over there yeah and um you were like oh do I go do
00:27:33
I not go and your mum was like go you can't put your life on hold because of
00:27:37
me just make sure you [ __ ] come back for my funeral yeah yeah well of course the other thing
00:27:41
is with with terminal illnesses and I'll get in trouble at the end of life choice
00:27:46
people for saying this but there is some uncertainty about the prognosis and until you get quite close it's hard to
00:27:51
really say so so yeah there was it was a little bit of that going on for sure yeah so you um
00:27:57
but so you have to go to Canada and then um I read her she declined really quickly
00:28:03
and then uh that's right like in a matter of like weeks or something yeah yeah no that's uh well months but yeah
00:28:09
right faster than expected um so uh so it's a terrible thing right it's very unfair
00:28:17
um but life's like that sometimes yeah yeah I'm real sorry you had to go
00:28:21
through that it's a lot yeah me too um yeah and um and I can't there's one more thing I
00:28:33
wanted to ask about with this sure um so she did she um I read something she recorded a DVD for each of you three
00:28:40
boys oh yeah yeah yeah um which is it like it's like the phone box that sort of Ages this conversation
00:28:47
um so she a DVD what's on the DVD like a repair apparently it's a message to my
00:28:52
future partner so I've I've heard that DVDs don't keep that well so I better
00:28:56
find someone relatively soon I think I think that the DVDs came well but finding a player will be the difficult
00:29:02
thing so uh so you're like just a part that you're seeing or the person you're
00:29:07
going to marry oh I think it's got to be a bit more serious right right so you're
00:29:11
not just whipping it out on the first date no no no no no the whole thing can be worn out but right
00:29:17
I've never watched it so so but you um I have your brothers seen theirs I assume
00:29:24
so but yeah it's not it's not a conversation you've had no I don't want
00:29:28
to I don't want to spoiler alert have you not watched it because like it's too
00:29:33
hard to watch or uh I mean I'm thinking I'm trying to put myself I'm probably projecting here but
00:29:39
if it was me I'd want to watch it straight away I think it was it was designed for a specific purpose and I
00:29:46
think it would be wrong to not use it for that purpose so your brothers haven't told you what what their message
00:29:52
is well no because then I have a spoiler right right yeah but it's obviously like
00:29:56
a personalized message where she obviously I don't know anything about it yeah see
00:30:01
that's the thing and if I find out anything I ruin it so it's only only used for the actual purpose right but
00:30:06
I'm imagining it's like an instruction manual and it's all very personalized so
00:30:10
it's not it's not three copies of the one you know the one DVD we don't know
00:30:15
that's the most that's the most yeah if the DVD is not rooted we'll find out
00:30:21
that's the most um oh that's the most beautiful thing and so you you don't like at what stage did
00:30:27
she do this like how close well pretty close um so it would have been in her final
00:30:33
months yeah I reckon you just get you can't watch it because it's too hard
00:30:38
um maybe maybe it's too hard to watch alone so you know so she never got to see you as a
00:30:50
politician or well no and she she thought I was wasting my time with action she's probably she's probably
00:30:56
right at the time you wanted me to be an engineer right you know a good respectable scientific
00:31:01
based career um and then in a way she's probably right but um no she she I mean she
00:31:08
didn't think actor was rescueable who was it Rodney hiking or no is it way way
00:31:13
well she yeah Rodney would have been the leader when she died Rocking Around in the Yellow Jacket yeah yeah so she I
00:31:19
don't think I think I think if she was alive now she would be pleased that it's
00:31:25
I managed I've managed to resurrect it beyond what seemed possible then but at
00:31:30
that time she was pretty dark on the whole process it was fair to say um what was her sort of um political
00:31:37
leanings I think she'd be on the right um possibly an act voter um I think her values aligned with act
00:31:47
whether she would have probably indicates whether actor had reached its full potential at that point
00:31:54
um I would say that um you know now someone like her whose fundamental story is about making a
00:32:01
difference despite the odds uh you know not making excuses but taking initiative
00:32:06
I think I think she would be an ex voter now I can understand you know and that and that period She might not have been
00:32:13
because I have been 99 of the country weren't yeah so and and before um before she passed she she a sister
00:32:22
and another friend and uh she sort of recruited them and basically said you know make sure you you look after my
00:32:28
three boys even though you're all essentially men at that point well yeah well yes and no I mean you think about a
00:32:34
19 year old um he still had a lot of growing up yeah one point they're quite happy to send
00:32:40
them off to a fight in foreign countries but now they require a bit more cotton wool that is the state of 19 year old
00:32:48
um but so yeah that looks the elements of Truth on that and and both um Nicola and and Penny have who have been have
00:32:56
really uh followed that through so we're really lucky to have them in our lives
00:32:59
all three of us so one of them says sister who's the The Other Woman and the
00:33:02
other one's her best friend at High School man that's so nice and and uh but yeah
00:33:06
they've kept their promise with all three of you guys uh yeah yeah I think that's I think they have and that's
00:33:11
that's quite a sweet thing and it certainly um you know a lot of people really appreciated that um including
00:33:17
they they came and they told me later they they came to the first um episode of Dancing With the Stars they were in
00:33:25
the audience live and they said they were they were they came because they wanted to be there when they got voted
00:33:30
off what does that relationship look like they just they text once in a while and
00:33:53
just I mean I suppose you don't really need them now but it's well they're good
00:33:57
I mean I'm very bad at cooking I mean my my kpi for cooking is not killing anyone
00:34:03
and um so they they sometimes give me food which is good um and and and and have me over for
00:34:10
dinner which is really nice of them too so I sometimes invite them over but they
00:34:15
always say oh no no just come to me I said okay well it's fine possibly from
00:34:19
last time yeah so when um like Wendy when do you miss your mum the most these days is it things like um election night
00:34:26
and uh I I when the when the right to die bill came through which was like your sort of child is it is it occasions
00:34:34
like that what is that um well it's a shame that that she didn't get to see that um you know what
00:34:41
I was choosing to do that she didn't support worked out better than she thought so that's a real shame and some
00:34:46
of those events you know probably good good examples um but I I think it's more just that you
00:34:54
don't have someone to talk to and I think everyone that loses someone thinks
00:34:58
this you know be nice to have a person to talk to about whatever um at different times and they're not
00:35:05
particularly you know special times they're just any kinds of time that things are happening you wish you could
00:35:10
talk to someone so or a particular person yeah yeah oh thanks for being so open about that well one thing um one
00:35:17
thing I overlooked um in your past life you're a like a telephone counselor for
00:35:21
a kids line or youth line or something yeah when was this like a university job or no no no no so kids line was was an
00:35:28
amazing service that they started it back in 88. and the concept was that they would take callers
00:35:35
who were sort of 7 to 13. um and then they would train up people they call Buddies so technically not
00:35:43
counselors but buddies who were sixth and seventh forms which translates to year 12 or 13. so they'd take about 80
00:35:51
buddies out of high schools near by and then they'd take us away on camps and do training and you know words that
00:36:01
connect and how to ask open question versus close questions and and basically you'd go and do a shift for two hours
00:36:07
after school and there'd be maybe half a dozen and you know half a dozen phones
00:36:12
and um Hey Joe hey job or volunteer a volunteer yeah and kids would kids would ring up and say you know I'm being
00:36:18
bullied and you'd say okay well and then you'd sort of have a strategy of letting
00:36:22
them talk about it and then suggesting like who's your favorite what's your
00:36:26
favorite subject because their favorite subject is usually your favorite teacher
00:36:29
who you're most likely to talk to and try and get them to rehearse a conversation and go through and you know
00:36:34
find support or you know rationalize their problem or whatever so it was a was a really neat thing because the
00:36:41
people that did it as volunteers were fantastic and quite a few of them remain really close friends I stormed one this
00:36:48
morning actually um and um the other part of it was that um it um gave a lot of skills and the
00:36:57
funny thing about up to you personally yeah and the funny thing is um politicians are known for talking
00:37:04
but if you actually think about the job of being a representative so an Epsom I represent about 70 000 people and
00:37:11
there's one of me so really you should be doing 70 000 times more listening than talking now obviously that's not
00:37:18
possible but um you know the the um you need what 20 years for every one day of talking but putting that aside
00:37:28
you know about putting but putting that aside how long have you been in politics
00:37:32
you would have yet to have your first talking about I wouldn't be able to say
00:37:34
anything people would be like well we keep telling them stuff but we have no idea
00:37:40
yeah exactly yeah um but um but in any case um you you know we we um so those were
00:37:50
those were actually really useful skills um so so it was a very cool charity and
00:37:54
you know the real tragedy of it when I um when I did Dancing with the Stars I I actually gave all the fees and money
00:38:01
raised by the ticks and all that that gave all that to to kids line and then a year later it wound up and part of the
00:38:09
problem and the funny thing is it's probably never been needed more than now
00:38:12
yeah and and you know it goes back to the thing we were saying a bit earlier part of the reason was that under health
00:38:19
and safety rules they found it was unfair to expose young people to other young people's problems because they
00:38:25
might not be able to handle it and and so that's that's part of the I mean
00:38:30
that's not there were various issues a big issue was that a big issue was texting so kids didn't want to talk on
00:38:35
the phone kind of screwed the whole thing but but part of the issue was that they couldn't actually get the the six
00:38:41
and seventh formers to to be the councilors um because they had a duty of care to
00:38:46
keep them safe so it's okay that kids who are 10 are so screwed up they don't
00:38:51
know what to say or who to call or who to talk to but um our laws and our regulations are so
00:38:57
crazy now that that you couldn't it's actually illegal for kids to help other
00:39:00
kids insane that is dumb how is it different to um like the school system we have a seventh former that gets
00:39:06
paired up with like a third form or whatever you know some sort of school buddy system well and in that instance
00:39:11
that I mean each yeah anyway yeah each boss has got to make their own decision in that case the principal would have to
00:39:17
decide if they were you know being a good person conducting a business undertaking but anyway
00:39:21
um so so you you did that do you feel ironic now that you're in one of the one
00:39:25
of the one of the work environments that's most right life with bullying around
00:39:29
politics that's a nasty business eh it doesn't it doesn't have to be yeah but
00:39:35
it just is yeah I I don't really understand it um I've had an odd introduction to
00:39:42
politics that I started off it was just me for six years so I got the opportunity to start a a
00:39:48
clean slate and when um we got 10 MPS and a chief executive of big bank said to me oh it's going to
00:39:56
be bloody difficult I said mate tell me you wouldn't take the chance to wipe a clean slate and start the culture
00:40:02
of your bank all over again and they said actually yeah okay fair enough that's a good point so we've done a
00:40:09
whole lot of stuff like for example Parliament has a rabbit Warren and it has all these offices and peers a big
00:40:17
office in a little office one MP one staff member and that staff member has to do everything for you but they don't
00:40:23
have the range of skills that you need their social media Logistics communication you know they don't have
00:40:28
all those skills so as a result you've depended on this one person you know it's scary and
00:40:33
unfamiliar environment and they take it out on the one person and the rabbit wire in their chamber of the Rabbit wine
00:40:39
um I said that's nuts so it has an open plan so you can't be bullying someone because
00:40:44
you'd be 20 people would see you doing it um now why every in the Parliamentary
00:40:50
service or the Parliamentary bureaucracy are now trying to copy our model and Shop it to our competitors because
00:40:56
that's just what bureaucrats do but um you know these Innovations you can make that that change that and then we
00:41:03
said well rather than one MP employing one person we said well 10 MPS are going to employ 20 people
00:41:09
um so that you've got five different teams with different skills that you can
00:41:13
go to so you've got multiple relationships so we've just done things that you can innovate you can change
00:41:18
this right right yeah um now let's talk about some of the viral stuff uh first of all do you do
00:41:24
right you you you're or them in the ACT account in your account is um full of
00:41:29
good you do good memes is that you or is it a social media person and um some of them are my ideas some of
00:41:36
them aren't but the way that it works is that um we get uh you know a good group
00:41:43
of people we create a good environment where good people want to work and then we make them happy working there and
00:41:49
some of the best stuff just happened you know like stuff just emerges out of unexpected circumstances and so there's
00:41:56
no magic we don't pay a person with amazing skills to specifically do that um you know we don't sort of say these
00:42:02
are your kpis um if you try and make it a good place to be good people come people have good
00:42:08
ideas and then it just sort of happens organically so and that's why I say I
00:42:12
you know you say it's a place of terrible bullying it doesn't have to be
00:42:15
yeah no I I suppose I was meaning rather than behind the scenes more politician to politician I think Winston Peters
00:42:21
like he's um he's a he said some terribly nasty things about you and others over the years even right down to
00:42:27
like um one one that stands Springs to mind is um you know him uh criticizing Simon bridges in the way he said China
00:42:35
like uh which is basically a speech impediment right yeah but then I just I just look at the numbers and you know
00:42:42
there's there's no politician in New Zealand that has a more negative image
00:42:46
and that the polling is you know I mean should have hired those numbers I'd get
00:42:51
another job you mentioned the [ __ ] thing before um so this was um this was when John Key
00:42:57
was looking at changing the flag and the call was that the the fern on there and
00:43:02
you can you remember what you said well yeah because they I was an armor was Anne Romaine a red peaker I mean we
00:43:09
should have had red Peak as our flag it's much better I thought the kiwi with
00:43:13
the laser eyes well okay you're like yes ideally that one but if we couldn't have
00:43:17
that one then it would have to be okay um red Peak and um you know but I also was doing the thing
00:43:25
which I think is a bit Neff but a lot of politicians used to do it where they have the silver Fern on their lapel so
00:43:31
then some Juno asked me well you know you how can you support red Peak you clearly like the silver Fern because
00:43:37
you're wearing one and I said yeah well look the French love the [ __ ] but yeah it doesn't mean
00:43:42
they've got a rooster on their flag but you don't actually have to have every
00:43:47
National logo on your flag the French for instance love the [ __ ] um all right let's just start that again
00:43:58
and um and then I I'd actually I actually had a series of them because I thought
00:44:04
this argument might happen I said look you know the IR the British don't have a
00:44:08
English don't ever Rose the Irish don't have a harp you know you don't actually
00:44:11
have to have every single logo on your flag um that's all I was trying to say but of
00:44:16
course come on you knew what you were doing right that was intentional totally innocent really totally understand it
00:44:23
didn't it wouldn't I wouldn't dare say such a profane thing actually we'll do
00:44:27
half a dozen journalists waiting with microphones I mean yeah the the soundbite that was used in the media
00:44:31
which is like 10 seconds or whatever um that doesn't paint the full picture but on YouTube you can watch the whole
00:44:37
thing afterwards and you you do struggle to compose yourself after that which made me think
00:44:42
um okay benefit of the doubt it was accidental but then too good to be true yeah but I mean are you being completely
00:44:49
honest of course of a politician but of course look it it happened right so if it it must be possible and if it
00:45:00
did happen however unlikely it seems it did happen so okay so there was another one
00:45:05
um you were interviewed one summer years and years ago by a staff reporter and she asked what you did over summer and
00:45:13
you said Netflix and chill um knowing knowing full well that it was a reference to Casual
00:45:21
sexual right what were we trolling people well it was but she well she was out it was pretty boring interview and
00:45:28
she was asking what are you you know good old Joe Moyer she's a good Journal
00:45:33
actually but um she's boring the state yeah yeah yeah so well in that interview
00:45:37
she was but um what do you do for your summer and I'm like you know to be honest everyone wants to know all these
00:45:44
questions about Paul what do you do if you're somewhere I would say well I don't know like you know if you go and
00:45:48
get a mechanic you just wanted to fix their car you're not like oh do you like
00:45:50
Boogie boarding or something who cares you know but if you're a politician you
00:45:53
have to tell it tell them that too and lastly what's your summer must read must
00:45:58
listen or must watch just say Netflix and chill yeah because most people have no idea
00:46:14
um well I didn't realize she she was recording it and she she put the audio on um so um what can you say
00:46:25
um but you you know what you're doing like if I reckon you know what you're
00:46:28
doing it's calculated yeah there's a degree of calculation to it surely um I think there's a there's a degree of
00:46:35
sometimes you just got to have a bit of fun yeah is that what you what happened with the my there's a Miley Cyrus thing
00:46:40
as well that you were asked in an interview someone you really admire and I suppose people were expecting you to
00:46:44
say I don't know like Obama or Churchill or someone but you said Miley Cyrus and
00:46:49
then went into a like a big explanation about the the what she's been through
00:46:54
and how she is as a performer and that was trolling right well there's a few
00:46:58
I've done where the explanation was was made out of song titles I don't know if
00:47:03
it was one of those but I did actually walk into a Miley Cyrus party while I was door knocking but what's a Miley
00:47:09
Cyrus party well I don't really know to be honest but they were all dressed as
00:47:13
her um what what what phrase what what phase Miley were they dressed as I was about 2015. not the wrecking ball
00:47:23
face right when she was naked I think she wasn't to the wrecking no they weren't naked well not much so
00:47:31
um here not not really sure to be honest I think that Miley Cyrus uh is someone I
00:47:36
can admire because she's good at her job I mean her job is to get out uh get
00:47:41
publicity and most importantly sell records uh and she's smashed so many um records or broken so many records at
00:47:49
selling records uh at such a young age I think you've got to admire someone on
00:47:55
top of their game like that and then there was um this may have been pre or these things an awkward series of like
00:48:01
Facebook videos where um you started each of them by saying hi and someone turned that into a into a
00:48:07
montage um because you're high was exactly the same in all of them same infection same
00:48:14
delivery same no no no that was all that was all and that this was we didn't know
00:48:19
what we were doing so what happened was this has been I first started standing it was all one video
00:48:24
and when I first started standing in 2014 well wait it was all one video I wasn't like a oh yeah a montage but in
00:48:31
2017 election our campaign team took it off off YouTube so it's hard to get a
00:48:35
copy now but um oh I found a thing on YouTube yesterday someone's turned it into like
00:48:40
a 12-minute montage oh wow so it's you saying hi over and over again for 12 minutes yeah so what was the story
00:48:45
behind that so I had a maximum Canada who was running for the conservative party up
00:48:51
there and I saw head Mater video of you know this is who I am and what I do so I thought
00:48:58
I should make a video like that so I got this guy who actually had trained as part of a Soviet film unit
00:49:06
and someone else is a fairly well-known comedian who may or may not have been taking the fish out of me but between
00:49:12
them they they wanted me to do this hi hi hi hi hi I'm David Seymour and if you
00:49:19
live in Epsom Mount Eden parnella remuera I'd like to be your MP hi hi hi hi hi
00:49:27
hi I'm David Seymour and if you live in ipsum Mount Eden hannel or remuera I'd
00:49:34
like to be your MP so I think it's only fair I should introduce myself anyway so
00:49:39
we we made this video and the the the the the editing was just out there man like it was like sort of Soviet
00:49:46
avant-garde type you know crazy like you know communist art um and then the comedians sort of take
00:49:53
on it was it was pretty amazing and the thing got like 50 000 views um in fact I
00:50:00
thought the first thing I realized it was going viral someone sent me a stick saying
00:50:06
um it doesn't matter what we still love you and support you um so what the [ __ ] have you been drinking
00:50:15
so anyway then I found out this thing was going absolutely nuts and you know 50 000 views on YouTube in 2014 because
00:50:23
there's inflation is everywhere including on the internet so those are huge understood being in New Zealand uh
00:50:28
so it was pretty but it was actually a fantastic thing because it wasn't intended to be funny it just was
00:50:34
um and of course it got me huge exposure because the the tweeting classes the you
00:50:40
know journalists and politics all saw this and it was all hilarious the latest act thing
00:50:45
um so they all came and spent time with me campaigning in Epsom so it just it couldn't have dreamed better but none of
00:50:53
it was intentional so you sort of from the school that um like any publicity is good publicity like it's better that
00:50:58
people are talking about you than not in terms of these things of a few politicians that have just proven that
00:51:03
yeah um look I think I think the thing is like remember I suppose what I mean is I
00:51:09
mean yeah like you can think of like David Benson Pope back in the day Pokemon tennis balls on people's mouths
00:51:15
something like this where people are laughing at you rather than with you yeah um well
00:51:21
look the way I look at some of the best advice I ever got was from a comms guy in Canada when I worked up there and um
00:51:28
he said he said look you know because of the internet you can't pretend anymore
00:51:33
because the information the cycle is so short the information travels so fast that
00:51:40
um you know you will be found out so just be authentic I have a terrible memory so I don't pretend to do anything
00:51:46
I don't tell any lies because I if you tell lies you've got to remember what
00:51:49
you said um so it is and the world's I think everything's bloody hard and complicated
00:51:55
enough so I just come back to a few basic principles that basically I'm here
00:52:00
to try and shift you know activity out of the government column and into you know business and Civil Society you know
00:52:09
families and clubs and Charities and people trying to help each other voluntarily that's good people in
00:52:14
business trying to make a product people wanted a price they can afford that's
00:52:18
good government there's some stuff government can do not as much as it's
00:52:22
trying right now it's a pretty simple mission right yeah that way you don't
00:52:26
have to remember a lot and that suits me um that's probably a good time to move on
00:52:32
to Dancing with the Stars oh always a good time do you um you regret that or no no regrets is that another thing like
00:52:37
these viral clips that was good an example of any publicity to a degree is good publicity
00:52:43
I just say one thing that um that I think is probably um like if I could just tell you one
00:52:51
thing I've learned from nearly nine years in Parliament that you wouldn't
00:52:55
have thought is that none of it is as orchestrated or complicated or clever as people think like people think they must
00:53:04
be amazing people like pulling the strings and it's all part of some grand plan and you get these people say oh you
00:53:10
know the world economic Forum like controlling everybody I'm like look mate I got good news and bad news the good
00:53:16
news is the government's not capable of participating in a global conspiracy the
00:53:21
bad news is they're not very good at health education or building roads either
00:53:25
um so you know most of it is is just people winging it and you go it's true and and this is what life is like I mean
00:53:33
you know when you're a kid you think your parents are amazing and then you start to get a few doubts and then you
00:53:37
think at least your teachers know you're talking about and if you've ever gone
00:53:40
back and met one of your teachers some of them are very impressive but some of them are like Jesus yeah you were in
00:53:45
charge of my learning for a whole year it's amazing I got here um and then you think oh well people
00:53:49
politicians in Parliament well they must know what they're doing I mean look how
00:53:52
much they get paid and they're in charge and they vote and they go on TV I mean
00:53:55
they must know what they're doing and then you get there and you're like far
00:53:59
out I'm just glad we still have running water but then you think oh well the ministers
00:54:04
the most senior ones they must know but no and then um I used to think that the Prime
00:54:10
Minister but then Jacinda became the Prime Minister I thought you just need to be good at Instagram so you know and
00:54:16
this is and it's the same with the with the media I mean you think oh these must
00:54:19
be really intelligent people committed to the truth really great at processing information and and actually most of
00:54:26
them are just kids that like to gossip at high school and now they do it for for a living
00:54:31
um so you know that's your reality um and um you know the reason I I give you
00:54:38
that Prelude I just I do actually it's it's interesting that we put far too
00:54:43
much trust in governance we we think that it's more clever than it could possibly be and I understand why people
00:54:48
think that but you know if you've ever had a doubt that your parents or your
00:54:51
teachers or anyone else knew everything maybe apply that to politicians too the second thing is actually answer your
00:54:57
question about Dancing with the Stars well it was as simple as it was November 2018 I just become the lowest polling
00:55:06
act leader in history which is pretty [ __ ] good effort like I mean you know it was good at low polling at that point
00:55:12
is it devastating for you at that point you're thinking [ __ ] I'm done with
00:55:16
politics yeah you say you're pretty rude at whatever happens and then you just
00:55:20
think well okay so how often in your life just for for most people what are the chances that you'd actually
00:55:27
get invited to be in a live televised dancing contest like that doesn't happen
00:55:34
most of the time in most people's lives but it did happen to me so you'd have to
00:55:39
be hell of an arrogant to to turn that down I thought it was a great it'd be
00:55:44
wildly exciting you knew you'd be eliminated on the first round right but right but as it turned out well yeah it
00:55:51
went through nine rounds but I feel I feel like there was a like a vote for the worst or vote for the entertainment
00:55:56
value sort of thing you must you must know you weren't you weren't great I was
00:56:00
the worst dancer probably not just not just in that season and not just in New Zealand but probably if there was an
00:56:06
All-Star Dancing with the Stars yeah like Global you know like I mean it's been going since 1994. it's probably the
00:56:13
worst ever but um you know nevertheless the other thing I learned pretty quickly is that it
00:56:20
wasn't about dancing um of course not you know because the entertainment show because they say they
00:56:26
say uh you know it's a combination of uh of your of your ticks and the judge's
00:56:31
scores but they never tell you quite how they add them together and being a electrical engineer I actually asked I
00:56:37
said so just get out of Interest I'd be really Keen to see the the mathematical
00:56:41
formula yeah I feel like there's a lot of producers discretion yeah they just
00:56:45
kept me on the shoulder and said you'll be fine I was like oh okay so um so then I
00:56:53
realized that really it was about the numbers but it was about the ratings and we we needed to make sure that we were
00:56:59
compelling enough for people to keep watching and and people did keep watching and people did keep texting in
00:57:04
for us and we did you know you can see the amount of money we raised we've got
00:57:07
a lot of ticks um but the reason for all that was simply that um you know we were taking on challenges
00:57:16
that everyone faced and and doing it pretty well you I mean you but I still learned to all my steps and
00:57:24
I actually did do all my steps right they're just not really with the kind of
00:57:28
style just flow or rhythmia right yeah but I did actually learn and do each step
00:57:33
um and we got bagged a lot and we basically said to people well actually we're doing our best we've got a right
00:57:40
to be here what's your problem and I think for people that are being born begged a lot by like um everyone
00:57:46
reviewers social media the judges I mean Steve bronius wrote about me every week
00:57:52
for about two months the Creature from the actual Lagoon and he he was campaigning to get me voted off the show
00:57:58
and once he realized he'd lost that one he started campaigning for me to win to
00:58:03
destroy the show forever I think that's a bit demeaning to be honest um so we faced all that but as we said
00:58:18
to people look this is you know the people are being bullied in a variety of contexts you
00:58:24
know their work and their and their school what when their friendships a relationship whatever no we said to all
00:58:31
these people um actually you know what we get that too and we just carry dust ourselves off
00:58:37
and carry on because everyone's got a right to to be them and to do their best
00:58:41
and I think that's what it was really about it was about character and adversity so once we figured that out it
00:58:48
was actually quite good the dancing was still hard but the rest of it was pretty
00:58:51
easy and I was just lucky I had an amazing partner yeah yeah that's right yeah I'm going to it
00:58:57
next month you're still in touch she actually invited me to a wedding scene she must have been like when the dancers
00:59:03
find out who they're paired with and you do the first thing she told me that yeah well it sort of
00:59:10
helped because it helped you get time off work because her boss didn't think
00:59:13
she'd be gone well she's a teacher yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no no she um
00:59:18
apparently all the dancers were like look I hope get that guy but they get paid week by week so they
00:59:25
obviously want to be paired with a dancer that's going to go unless they got me then they just didn't care about
00:59:29
the pay anyway they wanted to get voted off but no but as it turned out it became a very uh powerful
00:59:35
um Alliance and she was the only person I think I mean there's a lot of good pro
00:59:39
dancers there but she was the only one with the strength and conviction to make that work so it was lucky I we were both
00:59:46
Lucky on that sense and it worked out really well was she frustrated with you early on you've also got a real close
00:59:51
friendship now and it ended up pretty well finishing fifth but early on yeah I mean I'm guessing you wouldn't have been
00:59:57
as available as some of the other people it's like my ex-wife JJ did it and Mike's co-host um Clint Randall he he
01:00:03
did and they were they were dancing like seven or eight hours a day yeah I mean crazy time when I when I in in my season
01:00:10
um the the only only me Chris Harry Chris Harris who's a legend really um but Harry
01:00:18
um he actually had a job um and and I obviously had a job um but most people no disrespect to
01:00:25
radio hosts you know they they had you know three hours on here and some prep but they they wouldn't have maybe five
01:00:33
days a week but they weren't doing you know a job that's often 24 7 and fitting
01:00:38
on their practice so so that's you know okay there's a bit of a bit of a
01:00:41
stability yeah but I mean you know but so so look there was um it was it was well worth
01:00:48
doing in the end and the other thing it did for me is it made me really positive
01:00:52
about New Zealand because um you know people say This Tall Poppy and I think there is a dark underbelly
01:00:59
to this country but we also showed that if you just broke through the barrier if
01:01:04
you be yourself and back yourself then actually people do want that and they will back you and that was pretty cool
01:01:10
that it really changed my view of New Zealand for the better yeah do you think tall poppy is still a big issue here
01:01:16
totally yeah 100 it's it's the biggest problem we Face terrible is it just is
01:01:22
it just a kiwi thing or an australasian thing or is it a universal thing oh Aussies are totally different you know I
01:01:27
mean the the Aussie I mean there's a lot of things I dislike about them and obviously and I just just before I say
01:01:33
this say look there's a wide there's some complete [ __ ] kiwis and there's
01:01:36
some wonderful Aussies and vice versa but if you just take the sort of average stereotype there's there's some things
01:01:42
that to really dislike about the Australian version of that I mean the attitude to race for instance is just 20
01:01:49
years behind us at any given time however there's also some wonderful things about the Australians that are
01:01:56
positive they're competitive they they believe and and that you can make a difference in your own life
01:02:01
um and that's I think part of the reason that they're dramatically wealthier
01:02:05
um there's other reasons too but but I think that attitude does actually help
01:02:08
so and you see it when New Zealand just try and do business over there you know it's bloody difficult I mean Michael
01:02:14
Hill's done it good on him Legend most people that have tried to succeed in business in Australia have fired yeah
01:02:20
the warehouse failed quite drastically yeah yeah yeah um they said the twerking thing who's on
01:02:27
dance with the stars who said he was that Emilia's idea was that your idea you twerked you wore like a fluoro
01:02:32
outfit and you twerked it got turned into a gif I went viral it's probably on
01:02:36
YouTube now yeah um a memorable TV moment well I think I think the show tried to set us up that week
01:02:43
um because the song that we had uh was actually um you know I think it was pretty gross
01:02:49
Outlet outfits and the the Spandex and all that and the song was I just want to make you wet
01:02:57
um CNC music yeah they re they re-did it as sweat but um Amelia was really pissed
01:03:04
off so we thought we're just going to go hundies here she was pissed off why
01:03:07
because of the song Choices so it's not well it's pretty I mean a lot of women
01:03:10
would be offended by by being major you know publicly danced to that song um and um
01:03:17
then um you know that was so that was a that was a problem and our solution was to go Handy's and overcome it and
01:03:24
there's also don't be susceptible to flattery um because for the first and
01:03:28
last time of my life uh some of the women on the show said you've got a great butt never happened before since
01:03:34
was entirely designed to flare me into doing it and so that I took the bait and it was
01:03:41
probably the one time because remember I had to I had to do enough to make it um kind of appealing
01:03:49
um but but and keep us in the ratings and keep us in the order in the show but also not do so much that I've ruined my
01:03:55
chance having a future political career the Member of Parliament for Epsom or is
01:04:01
it Miley Cyrus [Music] to confirm this is X leader David Seymour last night Deep In His Latest
01:04:10
dancing with the star's routine one heavy on twerking a racy dance move made
01:04:16
famous by singer Miley Cyrus the rules of the competition say they give you an outfit and a song and a and a style of
01:04:23
dance that off you go uh and I think we did a pretty good job keeping it classy under the circumstances well it's like
01:04:29
we were talking about before to a point where no publicity is bad publicity probably yeah did you a lot of good
01:04:34
really that was probably the one time that maybe just went further than I really needed to and
01:04:40
um you regret it uh yeah look I mean I wouldn't say I regret it I'd say that's
01:04:44
a bit strong I'd say in a perfect world would probably were to pull back from
01:04:48
that um but you know we got it right most weeks um you know you get to get a few
01:04:53
mistakes on the big jobs so um but yeah I mean they you know the TV news would run that every time there was
01:05:00
a story about me for like for like two years um and it probably took a while to overcome it um it was probably um yeah
01:05:08
funnily enough Rodney Hyde who was also an act party leader didn't he drop his
01:05:12
dance palette yeah there was the clip they used yeah the crystal yeah yeah yes I I didn't do any lifts with Amelia and
01:05:18
I think she's probably appreciated that yeah so were you guys um were you guys
01:05:22
seeing each other for a time or am I making this up you weren't seeing each other a lot a lot of people have rumored
01:05:26
that but right and you can understand the holiday I thought you went to Fiji or something afterwards uh well yeah we
01:05:31
we did go away but separate Bureau yeah exactly and and people easily I think if
01:05:38
you haven't danced then people say but actually it's just you have to be close
01:05:45
not just physically but emotionally because it's it's you two against the
01:05:49
world um so for like three months you sort of fight the world together um and most of the time the distance
01:05:57
between you is about 5 five millimeters so you can understand if you've never
01:06:01
done it you'd be like oh wow but of course um you know if you have danced you know that it's just part of the game
01:06:08
if you're in a relationship you have to have a very trusting partner wouldn't
01:06:10
you at home because it could be I mean that that'd be hard like imagine you're
01:06:14
married and your your wife your hypothetical wife's got a friend saying oh God what about David and yeah it'd
01:06:20
have to be very very tough I think for um your married couples yeah yeah potentially I don't know
01:06:26
was there sexual chemistry with you guys like early on and then that sort of evaporates when you get to know each
01:06:32
other and um like I said it's very intimate like that yeah you make you meet someone in
01:06:38
your training and you're in each other's faces no what's your reverse she'd been
01:06:42
doing her whole I mean she started that I mean all those guys that are good like
01:06:45
Amelia and and the other thing I loved about it was watching people like her because they used to do dances for
01:06:51
display that were just the professionals and when you watch how they dance like it's it's amazing so so they learn a
01:06:58
routine so quickly as well oh yeah because it's all just for them it's just
01:07:01
a bunch of modules that they've got down here right so so they've all been doing
01:07:05
it since that's six so to them it's just business as usual um for me I was like wow
01:07:13
um but I I got used to that very quickly so yeah it's just it it honestly is this
01:07:17
that the weirdness of dance yeah um okay so you turned 40 this year yeah well no I'm I refuse to acknowledge it
01:07:25
no I do middle of this year and you've been um you've been the ACT leader for
01:07:29
five years now um how's the next 10 years no no no no longer than that so I've since I was 31. also like nine
01:07:36
years yeah I didn't have nine years so what are your what are your what are your absolute goals in politics for like
01:07:42
what are your aspirations you want to be ideally have a Winston situation and end
01:07:45
up like Deputy Prime Minister of the selection what's definitely not because
01:07:51
um you know the first thing you say is what what position or what title do you want I I'm not interested in a position
01:07:56
or title I mean anyone that thinks being like a big wig in the government of New
01:08:00
Zealand is just delusional and I think part of the reason I think that is you know I lived in North America I lived in
01:08:07
Canada for five years there's like 60 States and provinces that are around the
01:08:12
same size sometimes much bigger than New Zealand and they all have a government and like if you meet someone and you're
01:08:18
like yeah I'm like from the government of Colorado I'm really cool you just be
01:08:22
like you're a dick well you know New Zealand I mean Colorado's got five million people in New Zealand's Got five
01:08:26
million people you're still a [ __ ] right so it's not about that um but the doors that it could open
01:08:32
afterwards from holding one of those High positions maybe but I just I mean I don't know I haven't had a political
01:08:38
career and tried to find a job but um oh yeah but um you know I I guess um you know if someone's hiring you for
01:08:49
your name or your title what are you going to do the best advice I'm I've talked to people about you know
01:08:55
what what if you do if you leave politics because eventually I will I'm not a lifer and I said look the best
01:08:59
advice I got from a chief executive a big firm he said look you've got to make
01:09:03
sure you're in the scrum uh you know actually doing some work don't don't want some things you've got
01:09:07
a title on you I mean so I don't believe in that I believe in being in the scrum
01:09:11
the second thing is so so that's not the answer your question let me tell you
01:09:15
what is um a couple of things I want one is I want to turn act into a going concern
01:09:22
and by I mean a party bigger than me that will Outlast me so I can retire and go home cast my
01:09:29
vote and vote for a party that believes in personal freedom uh that believes in free markets and free Minds I'm a
01:09:37
capitalist but I'm also tolerant I'm not interested in having the government you
01:09:41
know Chase around pregnant women trying to stop them having abortions I'm not
01:09:45
interested in a government that tries to regulate what you can say I'm not interested in a government that tries to
01:09:51
impose one person's values on another that's all crap in my mind but I'm also
01:09:55
not interested in a government tries to regulate and take all your money because
01:09:58
I've seen how politicians use your money and I think they should have a lot less
01:10:02
now you know it's very rare that there's a party like that but I want to I want
01:10:06
to turn well act as that party and I want to make it outlive me so I have someone to vote for the rest of my life
01:10:11
so that's number one number two uh before my own time comes and it will I mean you know unless you're Saddam
01:10:20
Hussein well actually you can stick again but yeah but yeah I mean your time will come by your own choosing or look
01:10:28
you don't get to choosing politics right you hope so and some people do but um
01:10:32
you just don't know what will happen um so you know the other thing is I there's a few policy things I think
01:10:40
education probably first and foremost I don't think that we are transferring
01:10:45
enough Knowledge from one generation to the next to maintain first world status I mean kids coming out of school now and
01:10:52
this is you know measured objectively know and can do far less in reading and writing and maths and science than kids
01:11:00
coming out of school in the year 2000. I mean how everything is we're used to
01:11:03
everything getting better and this is really not good and I talk to people who you know just had kids think about I'm
01:11:08
going to go to school because people have got kids at school grandparents basically anyone
01:11:13
is who's vaguely related to a kid at school is really worried and so are a lot of teachers so we've got to get our
01:11:20
respect back from the teaching profession and I think with that game of policy debate I mean basically
01:11:26
government needs to start saying these are the non-negotiables that kids need to achieve and then stop all the
01:11:33
bureaucracy and the middling and say look we're actually going to have respect for teachers and principals and
01:11:37
give them the flexibility to go and achieve it that's in a nutshell what needs to happen and and that's hard
01:11:43
because you're up against a big bureaucracy who will try and outwit and outsmart you but that's that's roughly
01:11:48
what we did with Charter Schools yeah and I see more of that theme and I think it's it's the most important thing we
01:11:53
can do for what 30 years time so New Zealand in 2053 what's the thing this year that we'll
01:12:00
wish we did and that is make sure that we have the most educated population because then every other problem we face
01:12:05
and who knows what the problems will be in 2053 people are well educated we can deal with it so that's education form
01:12:11
that's a big thing I think also um I think we have to have a another mini revolution around the way that we make
01:12:20
laws and regulate you know too many people spend too much time waiting for permission to be able to do stuff I met
01:12:28
a young person recently she's a dentist she's starting her own Clinic she's
01:12:34
learning about business she's hiring people she's working out you know who to
01:12:37
hire who to trust how it all works but the problems that she's had even just
01:12:44
um getting permission to remove a chimney from the you know because because this brick chimney is like New
01:12:49
Zealand's history like if this goes we won't know who we are anymore and it's
01:12:54
just [ __ ] right I mean it's just it's unbelievable yeah um and it's like
01:12:58
when you go to Europe and you see churches over there and you're like oh the cathedral in Christchurch isn't even
01:13:03
that old I mean they must come down here and think you preserve that [ __ ] like
01:13:06
really like I mean that's not even lately you know but I mean you know it's
01:13:13
not just a historic places that's an issue but um it's people like you're trying to get
01:13:19
financial advice you know the poorest people can't get financial advice because to be a financial advisor you've
01:13:24
got to jump through so many Hoops so what's worse poor people getting occasionally dodgy Financial advice or
01:13:29
poor people having no rung on that letter to a better financial future and I'll give you examples of them in
01:13:35
building houses you know getting Financial advice from running Schools running into daycares I mean everyone is
01:13:41
tied up in rules and regulations and it's not making us wealthier it's it's
01:13:45
keeping a lot of people in jobs enforcing all this crap but it's holding us back and I I so I'm quite Keen to to
01:13:53
do some some serious change right down at the ground level of of of how government makes rules and regulations
01:14:01
because right now every politician just says when in doubt make a rule you're
01:14:05
off scot-free politicians need to be held accountable for making bad rules and that's that's another policy topic
01:14:10
we'll go further into but geez I just looked at the clock we've been going for
01:14:13
an hour and a quarter I told your press person that would be an hour are you okay for time yeah yeah yeah no no it's
01:14:20
Friday afternoon um and we can't lose another prime minister this week so it's all good
01:14:26
um all right what's your relationship like with alcohol at the moment um there's
01:14:30
another clip that we've been a little bit viral if you're on Election night
01:14:32
last time uh champagne on Election night you um it was the biggest night ever for
01:14:37
it so you you did have calls to celebrate but you seemed a little uh Tipsy and slurry
01:14:41
um and it came out afterwards that you'd been alcohol-free for a couple of years
01:14:44
or something and uh you had two Champagnes and they went ahead I wanna thank the people of New Zealand around 200
01:14:53
000 new zealanders who have put their trust and act and would like this genuinely independent team of fabulous
01:15:02
act MPS to work for you yeah I was a bit more than that um no a couple of Magnums what happened was
01:15:11
um because I was thought about how we're going to do this night we'll make an
01:15:14
entrance so I called a very good mate of mine probably enough someone from kids line he's got a boat and I run about and
01:15:21
I said what do you reckon is it possible that we could actually drive to the HQ Leo malloy's bar
01:15:28
um in your boat and this is like two weeks out from actually he's like don't worry about it
01:15:34
I'll make it happen see you there um so it's good to have friends like that and uh so he sorted it out I met
01:15:41
them there and then a couple of other mates um and then we started driving but actually you've got to go around such a
01:15:50
long way to get to the viaduct or whatever yeah and and flitch is a great guy but you know a few years back he did
01:15:57
a Skipper's license and he's just anal about this I was like no no five knots
01:16:01
over 200 meters yeah and like people are calling they're like oh TV's really like are you coming
01:16:11
I'm like yeah yeah meanwhile Meanwhile my good mate Tom he's on the he's on the back of the boat opening
01:16:20
another bottle of moon and I'm just like oh [ __ ] so it took about 20 minutes we
01:16:25
absolutely saddled by the time he got there so um so um in any case uh that that but I'm not avoiding it your wider
01:16:34
question but basically um there's something Muldoon said you'll drink more and more
01:16:39
um when you get to this place and you think about it um you go and have lunch and you probably shouldn't have beer
01:16:46
everyone and then you know you get to six o'clock and the bells ring and you
01:16:51
go out and there's some Lobby group or something putting on a function and it's
01:16:55
an open bar and then the bells ring again you've got to be back in your office you're not allowed to leave till
01:17:00
10 um and you know you've got to fridge and you think well what you have one more I
01:17:06
mean it's only Tuesday at 10 o'clock and you've already had five or six beers
01:17:12
um and you you haven't had Friday or Saturday so you can easily end up you know having 40 or 50 drinks a week
01:17:20
without even thinking about it so I got to that point and the biggest measure of
01:17:24
it was um at my Peak I was 86 kgs when I quit drink dancing took off about seven
01:17:30
and then and then then I quit drinking I got down to about 72 I think so I calculated that my at my Peak my body
01:17:39
mass was actually 18 Heineken wow so um you know I I and it was the best thing I ever did it gave me enormous
01:17:48
energy lost huge amounts of weight saved a huge amount of money because also not
01:17:53
it's not all free um and just I suppose the extra hours you have and you know the extra product
01:17:57
of hours absolutely you know you don't spend much time actually doing the drinking and then you wake up an hour
01:18:02
earlier feeling fresher so um gives you back two hours a day on average so so all of that was was just
01:18:07
fantastic um but then um you know I get a lot of abuse from my staff people are worried about bullying
01:18:14
buying MPS I'm worried about bullying of MPS by this stuff and they all started
01:18:19
saying I was a robot so um oh really because you weren't drinking well yeah yeah yeah and I just
01:18:26
thought well you know you make the occasional exception so so now I maybe drink once or maybe twice a week but
01:18:34
probably more ones right right because you did an interview and you see you had a like a rule a while ago that um you
01:18:39
only drank if it was a champagne function which to me to me reading between the lines I read is like being
01:18:43
polite so if there's trash champagne's for a toaster yeah yeah yeah yeah so so
01:18:47
but if you've got this ability to um regulate your drinking you're like clearly you don't have a drinking
01:18:52
problem no you can stop no and I don't I don't think I did I I think I I think I
01:18:57
had a lifestyle where that was sort of normal almost um but also it's a it's an interesting
01:19:05
question isn't it because I I I was I was comfortably performing my job but I wasn't reaching my potential
01:19:11
and so I quit on the 1st of January 2019 and you know by the end of the year x-polling was polling for two or three
01:19:20
MPS for the first time in a decade and then the following year in 2020 we got the best result the party had ever had
01:19:27
so it's definitely performing better then I mean I wasn't necessarily performing badly before us when we
01:19:32
reelected and doing my job and showing up and all that um so yeah it's interesting question of
01:19:36
you know is it just affecting your ability to do your job or affecting your ability to reach your potential and but
01:19:43
then you know sub USA as a robot so now I'm in a sort of slightly more a a smoother equilibrium yeah it's strange
01:19:51
the the pressure to drink though it's got to be the only drug in the world like if I started wrapping up lines of
01:19:56
coke now I wouldn't be like why aren't you having one come on have one have one
01:20:00
some people would um you know well yeah although I gotta say I I think it's interesting that the
01:20:07
drinking culture is just improved this is another one of these things if you look at the amount of bench drinking and
01:20:13
the amount of alcohol that people consume in New Zealand it has been falling off a cliff for 40 years even as
01:20:19
there's been more advertising even as there's been more product Choice people
01:20:22
are getting more sophisticated and and more thoughtful and and the and the breweries and vinters or whatever having
01:20:29
to sell more interesting products instead of just competing on price and volume so it's a great example of how in
01:20:37
a free Society we get to a better place than we're used to and all these idiots
01:20:42
you know alcohol healthwatch I mean they're a bunch of Muppets um they don't know anything you know but
01:20:47
but they're and you know Chloe swarbrick's got this bill to ban alcohol advertising but not from the America's
01:20:52
Cup because she's from Auckland Central which is outrageous um you know it's it's actually a really
01:20:58
good example of what happens in a free society and when I first quit at the start of 2019 I go up to people and you
01:21:04
know ask if I can have any non-alcoholic beer and they looked at me like I'd just
01:21:09
gone up and said you know I'd like to try and learn how to put my own dick in
01:21:12
my ear um and you know I do that oh well well um you know not on cold days anyway but
01:21:19
um and uh but but but you know now basically everywhere you go has a zero alcohol selection yeah yeah and I was at
01:21:31
a supermarket the other day they've got a whole aisle of um zero or a whole sort
01:21:36
of shelf of alcohol free um drinks so I just looked the way the culture's evolving is fantastic yeah and there's
01:21:43
zero beers they actually taste quite good now they're really sort of like perfected the the recipe oh yeah I mean
01:21:49
Heineken zero is very good um some of the others are a bit syrupy or a bit watery but yeah Heineken zero
01:21:55
is great and how's your how's your mental health been over the years have
01:21:58
you been mostly good for you um you know it's an interesting question again because
01:22:06
I didn't really have a reference frame and and some people will be able to relate to this that they're in such an
01:22:11
unusual position because like you know how how should you feel being the you know first person to
01:22:17
enter Parliament by themselves in several decades there's no template for that
01:22:24
um so you know certainly there were some really really tough times especially after the 2017 election tough times in
01:22:32
terms of what like loneliness or um well you know it's it's it's difficult when you have a bad result
01:22:39
because you sort of lose every argument because he would just say oh we're not
01:22:42
vote for you and the thing is they're right come back it's like a public record yeah
01:22:49
and you can't say oh I wasn't trying to get votes to them what the [ __ ] were you
01:22:53
doing you know so um so so um yeah that that was a that was a pretty morose sort of a time
01:23:03
um but I definitely think and in a way it's connected to the quitting dream because I mean one thing about it is you
01:23:09
know you um algol produces enzymes I forget that that also make you anxious us so you
01:23:17
wake up tired and anxious that's not gonna help oh anxiety yeah it's a real
01:23:21
thing and you get less stuff done I forget the chemicals but yeah this is totally real and and you get less stuff
01:23:27
done so you're not achieving it don't have much full momentum so that that's a
01:23:30
real problem too um so so there's a there's a bunch of issues there that you know alcohol and
01:23:36
mental health and I think so John kerwin's really good on this uh connecting those
01:23:41
um but I also think that you you know ultimately uh while the uh real serious mental health issues and people should
01:23:49
get help and and we need to do a lot better at people getting help sometimes you actually do just have to decide for
01:23:58
yourself that you're going to make a go of it because one of the things that
01:24:02
I've seen you know being involved in kids Zion or lifeline and around that scene and and seen a few people involved
01:24:09
in it is that you know there's always a danger that it starts to take on its own
01:24:14
momentum and that can be a real worry because all of a sudden it sort of you know mental health issues become a topic
01:24:24
in themselves yeah you need to get help though a real problem but you also need to know what you can control and how you
01:24:31
can move on that's just as empowering yeah because you you've gotten a bit of
01:24:34
trouble a few years ago for um basically saying what you said now but less eloquently you said people that
01:24:40
are depressed need to harden up or something no no something like that no I didn't say that what was it exactly you
01:24:46
got in trouble for something there was a bunch of kids that this was about seven
01:24:50
years ago there's a bunch of kids at Vic Uni and they're I'm pretty sure they're
01:24:53
at a warehouse which is the most exclusive Hall to be an advocate and um they were going on about all their
01:25:02
problems and I've got to go to ex lectures and study and sort of exams and I've got to work on I've got depression
01:25:09
and anxiety and I listened to the whole you know every whinging grievance and I said well
01:25:17
maybe you need to harden up but they interpreted it as as addressed at their depression anxiety comment whereas it
01:25:24
was really targeted the fact that they were just chronic Wingers about every aspect of their life
01:25:29
um but of course that got Lost in Translation yeah of course um yeah it was a Sensei sensationalism
01:25:34
isn't it but you never you never said when you were working for youth line you
01:25:37
never told anyone to harden up um well no but I mean listen I I I agree fully with what you're saying and I
01:25:45
think like nobody you need to look after yourself nobody's coming for you and if
01:25:51
you have a true chemical imbalance in your brain then it probably needs to be rectified with medical intervention but
01:25:55
otherwise there's like a lot of things you should try for yourself first try
01:25:59
having cold showers try a sting off the alcohol try staying of social media yeah
01:26:02
and if if you still feel like crap after doing all these little changes for your
01:26:07
own good 100 and look I mean one you know the first thing anyone's going to describe you as cognitive behavior
01:26:12
therapy which is about you know challenging negative perceptions challenging the idea that what's bad is
01:26:19
you know personal pervasive and permanent and saying well actually is that really true or is this you know a
01:26:25
one-off or something you could do something about so you know you're on Solid Ground there that actually I I
01:26:32
think we we need to acknowledge the problem but also have a bit more you know you can do something about this and
01:26:39
you do have choices and so on I know some people are coming how dare you Amara well actually no there's you know
01:26:45
you say there are people with genuishes and you do need medical help but um there's also a lot of scope for
01:26:50
making the most of making every post a winner yeah absolutely um what are you most proud of do you think
01:26:57
it's the end of the end of life though oh and career-wise I mean to realize career-wise I am proud of the end of
01:27:02
life choice X um but I'm much more proud of the X team and uh the culture that's evolved there
01:27:10
I mean we've brought in nine people new to politics and made some very high performing MPS you know Brooke Van
01:27:15
velden being the the obvious standout amongst those but um you know also Karen and Nicole and
01:27:21
Mark and others too have done a really good job so uh we put I'm I'm proud of
01:27:27
of having LED that team it could have gone a number of ways but I think we created a great culture
01:27:31
um the other thing that I'm probably more proud of is is actually charter schools you know we decided that the
01:27:38
most impoverished communities in New Zealand should who are getting nowhere in education should have the opportunity
01:27:44
to come up with their own ideas and run their own schools their way so long as they achieve those outcomes attendance
01:27:51
and achievement and they did um and you know the biggest people out there say with these poor Brown
01:27:57
communities why would you give them a chance well actually the most important thing we can do and um I'm in one of
01:28:04
them a girl and her name was literally hope she came up to me at the Vanguard military school and she said I never
01:28:10
knew I was smart until I came here I thought this is extraordinary you know because because kids basically assume
01:28:19
that what they're born into is normal like Civil War and Mogadishu you know living on the Upper East Side of New
01:28:25
York I mean they both think that their life is normal um and um as a result you know if you give them a
01:28:34
bad environment they'll internalize it yeah well we changed our environment she
01:28:37
internalized that she was actually smart amazing and so we did that hundreds if not thousands of times through charter
01:28:45
schools and unfortunately you know Jacinda ardern who said she wanted to put children at the center of everything
01:28:51
closed down 12 small experimental schools in order to to do what to to satisfy the demands of the teacher
01:29:01
unions who didn't want any competition it's just it's totally outrageous but
01:29:05
I'm very proud of what we did there because it's not over we have shown the
01:29:11
proof of concept and we will do that and we will allow so many more kids to to say again I never knew how smart till I
01:29:20
came here and actually reached their potential oh that's good because it must
01:29:22
be the most frustrating things whatever your political persuasion is having like
01:29:27
parties reverse what you've done that's got to be the most eye-rolling annoying
01:29:32
irritating thing yeah yeah but that's that's politics I mean look they won the
01:29:37
election that was their agenda um the thing is I I don't think you can stop a
01:29:43
good idea in the long term and I predict you know in my lifetime every school will be a charter school in the sense
01:29:50
that it will be autonomous its principle will have the power to lead their teaching staff and do it their way they
01:29:58
will have to get certain outcomes in return for taxpayer money people with new ideas we've got to start new ones
01:30:03
ones that lose all their students will lose all their funding and be taken over and run better you know sooner or later
01:30:09
those ideas will come to pass because we just can't afford to do what we're doing
01:30:13
yeah it's it's just it's just destroying kids potential yeah well Einstein had a
01:30:19
quote the definition of Madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result so you need
01:30:23
to try something different Diane yeah he was smart so yeah um one thing I've learned from doing
01:30:27
this um this podcast a year now is that um everyone's everyone's carrying around
01:30:32
their own load everyone's carrying around like a bag of [ __ ] and it's just
01:30:34
how big the bag of [ __ ] is what what is it for you regrets guilt shame what is
01:30:40
that what's what what's the what's the what's the load that you're carrying
01:30:43
around I hadn't really thought about that um it's probably a lot of opponents but
01:30:51
um yeah maybe just in Life or work or general no I nothing to speak of no I mean I'm sure that like you say
01:30:59
people could identify uh mistakes I've made and so on but I mean maybe it's
01:31:04
just my personality that I don't see the point I mean I'm interested in what I
01:31:09
can do what I can change what I can make better um and by definition you can't change
01:31:15
the past so I don't really well on that a lot I I don't I don't see the point I
01:31:20
mean if there's the way I would frame it and think of it slightly differently is
01:31:26
you know what have I been able to to learn from the past uh well many things um you know for example
01:31:36
um you know people treat you about as well as you treat them um and if you invest in being a good
01:31:43
person to others you'd be amazed at the way they pay you back in unexpected ways
01:31:48
um so you know there's a lot to be said about for that um you know I think probably I've been
01:31:55
on a big Journey about um understanding you know that while you may have interesting policy
01:32:03
prescriptions and act has always been a policy heavy party in a democracy they have to be chosen in a political
01:32:10
Marketplace and and that's always a real risk is that people won't choose your
01:32:17
policies if you don't meet the market and chunk them down in a way that is deserving of people's attention sure and
01:32:24
that's why we didn't do very well for the first three or four years because we
01:32:28
had the engineering department was going gangbusters but the sales department wasn't so good
01:32:33
um so you know those are things I've learned and do better now but I don't
01:32:37
sort of walk around saying oh so terrible you know you know it didn't didn't put enough evidence to retail
01:32:43
politics for the next four years or so a bag of [ __ ] I'm going around it's just
01:32:46
it's just a thing it's a thing that happened and I you know we're better at
01:32:51
it now yeah you learn oh and that's that's I think failures are something
01:32:54
that needs to be embraced I used to be like just um petrified by failure I add to the to the detriment of my own life
01:33:00
because wouldn't try things because I'd fail but now I embrace it more because I
01:33:04
realize um yeah failures are good things where you the most growth takes place um well has there been like a rock
01:33:10
bottom in your life what would rock bottom to I mean if you get to 39 40 and you haven't experienced anything too bad
01:33:15
I think you're bloody lucky [Music] but it's how you think of it so yeah
01:33:21
you're more just a glass half full kind of guy um well I mean I probably mentioned civil in that 2017 election
01:33:27
was all right like so so getting down to half a percent I mean only 13 000 people
01:33:32
Nationwide you know voted in fact when that's everyone hates you pretty much
01:33:45
um so so that's that's pretty rubbish um but you know we reacted and fixed it and now
01:33:52
we're doing better um and stuff like that will happen again um but yeah I've just sort of scraped a
01:33:59
bit I mean I I stayed in my job in Canada for for too long I had a great first two years I stayed for a second
01:34:05
two years just out of inertia and probably what's inertia uh just not being movable comfort zone yep exactly
01:34:14
and probably a bit of misplaced loyalty to my then employer um so you know there's a a few things
01:34:22
like that but I mean now you know you just gotta move the dial a bit and think a bit more about number one
01:34:28
um if you don't like what you're doing get out so just do something about it
01:34:32
yeah so you know again you could um you could certainly could certainly say that
01:34:38
was a terrible too much it was time and it wasn't fair and paid enough in a horrible place and I you know didn't
01:34:43
feel I could move and I was a victim but who needs all that yeah I think you can
01:34:48
choose a lot of people I think choose to be a victim because um you know it's a I
01:34:52
suppose it's an easy dopamine getting that sympathy from people or people saying I'll poor you yeah um but why
01:34:57
would you go with that stuff so you leave the egg pad you know give me some of these say yeah
01:35:00
the boats on the beach what's the um well I promise we'll wrap this up in a
01:35:05
second what's the what's the biggest surprise people get when they meet you
01:35:08
like what do people say well um there's a there's a couple of things and I just try to work out
01:35:16
um people say you're much shorter than I thought is that so now this is good this
01:35:21
is good because you see their perception of me if I've only seen me on TV or in
01:35:27
pictures is that they think of me as a tall person taller than I am in reality I
01:35:32
think the problem is if people say I'm surprised you're so tall then in their
01:35:37
mind you're a short person so so so this is this is good um is it good to be a tall politician
01:35:44
does it matter statistically absolutely I mean I don't think there's ever been a
01:35:48
US president like less than six foot they're always tall right um maybe if you go back to like FDR but
01:35:53
um There Was 80 years ago um they're all tall you know so um Lincoln must have been really tall
01:36:01
with that top hat on well yeah and and remember everyone else was short then so he must have been a monster you know
01:36:07
Civil War is probably doing reconnaissance by just standing there um so so that helps the other people say
01:36:14
you're better looking in person which I'm not sure what to make of it but that seems like a backhanded by the
01:36:22
by the logic of the previous one um what they're saying is that in my mind in their mind I'm an ugly person so
01:36:31
right but but I better look again uglier than I am in reality which is pretty ugly so
01:36:37
um who knows but um those are two things people say yeah that's interesting what
01:36:42
is your relationship status at the moment is it something you talk about or not really just
01:36:46
married to Parliament really yeah what's the longest relationship you've had
01:36:50
two and a half years right right you've been in love you must have said I love
01:36:54
you you've been in love before oh yeah but I mean obviously it didn't work out
01:36:58
did it well I mean most relationships I guess run their natural course don't
01:37:01
they for whatever reason yeah yeah I think that's true I mean funnily enough
01:37:06
I um one of the things I do as a local MP I sign cards to people that are having a
01:37:13
golden or even diamond wedding anniversary there's an astonishing a number of people that have made it that
01:37:18
far like 50. uh diamonds 16. Golden's 55 and 60. yeah I mean is it going to be um
01:37:25
are you obviously eventually I guess want to get married and potentially have kids
01:37:32
has the bar for you been set particularly High because you aspire to have something like your parents had
01:37:36
which which presumably would have been um you know till death do us part yeah isn't that interesting hey like I I mean
01:37:43
it's not scientific but I noticed my friends whose parents separated have often actually been a lot better at
01:37:50
finding a partner and making their relationships work is that right yeah and that's that's just my anecdotal
01:37:56
evidence which may just be a fluke um so who knows maybe maybe it's actually harder if your parents had a
01:38:05
good relationship but um yeah speculating there yeah or do you just are you going to clone your way
01:38:11
through life you like being the the single guy George Clooney I think it's I think
01:38:16
being a single he was single to like 54 wasn't he and then he I think I think
01:38:19
being a single guy is probably better when you're like George Clooney um but I could be like you and um is it
01:38:26
Brad Pitt or um no DiCaprio yeah yeah he's got that Sawtooth graph every time
01:38:32
they get to 25. yeah yeah yeah um oh okay we'll wrap this up um but running though like we we joked about
01:38:40
this in the start do you do you have a relationship with running at all are you a runner I used to love running
01:38:45
um and I used to love the cross country uh at school everyone hated the school crossover I love the cross country
01:38:51
because we're up in whangarei on the outskirts of the town so we'd run through the forest I got lost ones I
01:38:57
went to one of my old teachers funerals and they'll talk someone was saying is
01:39:01
the among many other things he lost David Seymour in the bush but he found me too so
01:39:07
um he it was uh I used to love that I I don't really run now uh just because my
01:39:13
knees aren't that great and funnily enough uh munted one of them and dancing
01:39:17
with the stars and I munted another one hyper extended it in the um in the uh basketball so I actually swim now so I
01:39:26
go to the New Market Olympic in the morning um do a few hundred meters there and I'm
01:39:31
I'm terrible at it but this is great and and sometimes people say oh I could help
01:39:34
you with your Technique I say no no I'm doing it for exercise you make me more
01:39:37
efficient I have to swim further to get the same exercise is that all you do you don't go to the
01:39:45
gym or anything because you look like you're in you look like in pretty good
01:39:47
shape you just got a good diet and you obviously don't drink too much yeah I um
01:39:51
when I was in sixth and seventh form I was obsessively Jim bunny so I was go go to the gym twice a day I was taking
01:39:58
creatine before anyone knew what it would do um and um I I got up I mean I I could
01:40:04
bench over 100 kgs um even though I weighed under 70. so I actually had a pretty good run
01:40:12
um you know back then I don't know if I've got any muscle memory but that was
01:40:17
the the last time I didn't exercise anyway aside from swimming all right and
01:40:22
um so it's a election year this year um what do you think is going to happen
01:40:25
crystal ball gazing is um is uh Christopher luxon and National going to win now I mean anything can happen on a
01:40:31
political year can't it but I can guarantee you after the last couple of years no one party will will win right
01:40:39
um so so no Christopher bucks International will not alone uh win the election no party will I think the the
01:40:47
odds on uh you know right now speaking to you on what 20th of January um actor National you know have a have a
01:40:54
clear lead in the polls and clear momentum in the polls but politics just changes so quickly so you have a new
01:41:00
labor leader we don't know how they'll perform um you know Chris himself is that okay
01:41:05
so far but it isn't really gone through a campaign it's his first campaign so he
01:41:09
could do very well he could do not say well he might just sort of oh about where he is now don't really know
01:41:15
um and then you've just got events I mean you've got to remember you know this idiot Putin
01:41:21
could decide to use a nuclear weapon uh and NATO could decide to go into Ukraine
01:41:26
you could have um you know the city that she decided to try and reunify by crossing the Formosa
01:41:34
straight and invading Taiwan I mean all of that stuff could happen um and then there's just questions
01:41:40
around you know around this economic roller coaster so look at all these people refixing their mortgages
01:41:46
I like to think that inflation will disappear as fast as it came along and there's some good reasons to think that
01:41:52
if you look at container shipping prices gone through the floor maybe that's a
01:41:56
good thing China re-entering the world economy I think will be ultimately deflationary because they'll demand a
01:42:02
lot of stuff but they'll produce even more and they'll also spend a lot and
01:42:06
stimulate the economy globally so you know the economic conditions might improve but I think they're probably
01:42:11
still be bad and then the question is well who do labor pick as their leader and I suspect that it'll be very
01:42:18
divisive and they'll get a union rep forced on them by their crazy leadership
01:42:23
selection system and um that added all together it will all cancel out and will be about
01:42:31
where we are now with acts being about a quarter maybe a third of a government and uh and the Nets being the rest of it
01:42:37
and David Seymour potentially is um I know it's not your motive or your motivation but particularly prime
01:42:42
minister yeah I mean look we've said we'll take the take the position if the
01:42:47
policies are right but you know smart people when they go for a job they ask well what will I be able to do in this
01:42:52
job you know that's that's the question uh and if you know the job is basically
01:42:58
you get the title but but the National Party won't agree to the kinds of policies we think New Zealand needs why
01:43:04
become a salesperson for your opponents so um that all remains to be seen but what
01:43:10
I do know is if you like ax values it should give us your party vote because you know I know people try and over
01:43:15
complicate it but it really is as simple as that if we if vote your values with your party vote and vote for act and
01:43:20
then thanks for your support at the last election well David Seymour thank you very much for your time thoroughly
01:43:25
enjoyed it you're not so much of an arrogant pricker after all are you oh that's very kind of you to say it's been
01:43:30
a real pleasure chatting for you Don good really appreciate your time and best of luck for the rest of 2023 I hope
01:43:35
it's a massive year for you and app [Music]