David Seymour (politician)

Early life

Seymour went to the University of Auckland where he graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical & Electronic) and a Bachelor of Arts (Philosophy).

Seymour is of Ngāpuhi descent on his mother's side.

Before politics

He has worked as a Policy Analyst for five years for Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the Manning Centre.

Seymour is a long time member of ACT New Zealand, initially becoming involved in the political party as a leader of ACT on Campus. He first stood for ACT in 2005 in Mt Albert against Helen Clark, who was Prime Minister at the time. At the 2011 election, he stood for ACT in the Auckland Central electorate, which was retained by National's Nikki Kaye. After this election, Seymour worked as a ministerial adviser for ACT's successful Epsom candidate, John Banks, who was appointed an Associate Minister of Education for the John Key-led National government. Seymour assisted with the development of the government's Partnership Schools legislation.

In February 2014, Seymour contested and won the nomination to stand as the ACT Party candidate for Epsom in the 2014 general election. This electorate is seen as strategically important for both ACT and coalition partners National; an ACT victory in Epsom was essential to a National-led government after both the 2008 and 2011 elections. Seymour's selection, over former ACT New Zealand deputy leader John Boscawen, was seen by political commentators as "clean slate" choice and a "fresh face", At an Epsom public meeting during this campaign he was seen as "the most popular with the crowd" and "the star of the night, intelligent, witty and articulate". He was the first confirmed candidate for the Epsom electorate.

During the 2014 election campaign, Seymour released a campaign video online which Seymour and the Act party have described as going viral after it received around 35,000 views. Seymour said of the video: "I think it was just totally real, we didn't set out to make it funny or make it a viral video, it was just me being me, that combination with rather retro production values ... you wouldn't want to watch it standing up."

Member of Parliament

Seymour was endorsed in the Epsom electorate by Prime Minister John Key, despite Key's National colleague Paul Goldsmith also contesting the electorate. Seymour was elected to Parliament in the Epsom electorate in the 2014 general election with a majority of 4,500 votes based on preliminary results.

He replaced Jamie Whyte as the leader of the ACT Party on 3 October 2014.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary

Seymour was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Education and Minister of Regulatory Reform by Prime Minister John Key on 29 September 2014, as a result of National's confidence and supply agreement with the Act Party. Seymour will have responsibility for partnership schools, and reforms to the Resource Management Act 1991 and other regulation.

In October 2015, a Labour Party private members Bill to make Parliamentary Under-Secretaries subject to the Official Information Act passed its first reading in Parliament. Seymour accused the Bill of personally attacking him, and said it was not necessary because Under-Secretaries did not have decision-making powers.

Approximately a year after the 2014 election, the second round of applications for charter schools are being considered. There have been high-profile cases of charter schools shutting down, such as the Te Pumanawa o te Wairua charter school in Northland. Seymour is continuing to support the policy and push for more charter schools to be established.

Assisted dying

On 6 June 2015, Seymour confirmed that he was preparing a private members bill that would legalise Assisted Dying after Seales v Attorney-General found that only parliament had the ability to address assisted dying laws. On 14 October 2015, Seymour lodged the bill into the private members ballot, launched a website promoting his bill, and released an ACT-commissioned poll of 2800 people showing 66% public support in favour of legalising assisted dying. On 8 June 2017, Seymour's bill was selected from a private member's ballot. The bill will be debated in Parliament later in 2017.

Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Rugby World Cup 2015 Extended Trading Hours) legislation

In August 2015, Seymour introduced a private member's bill to allow bars and rugby clubs to extend their bar trading hours when they are televising games from the Rugby World Cup. Most games, due to the time difference between New Zealand and England, started between 4am and 6am New Zealand Time, meaning that alcohol would not usually have been allowed to be sold. Despite opposition from the Green Party and the Māori Party, Seymour's bill passed all three readings, meaning that bars and rugby clubs were allowed to open for Rugby World Cup games.

LGBTI cross-party group

In 2015, Seymour was a member of a cross-party group initiated by Jan Logie to look at and advocate for LGBTI rights. The group consisted of Catherine Delahunty (Green), Chris Bishop (National), David Seymour (Act), Denis O'Rouke (NZ First), Denise Roche (Green), James Shaw (Green), Jan Logie (Green), Kevin Hague (Green), Louisa Wall (Labour), Nanaia Mahuta (Labour), Paul Foster-Bell (National), and Trevor Mallard (Labour).