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ROBERT KITCHEN / THINGS / Things
New MP Simon Court raises his hand to answer a question, revealing his “talking points” scrawled on his hand with a ballpoint pen.
ACT leader David Seymour reached the steps of Parliament with the right contingent of MPs for the first time on Wednesday.
He promised that his party, which now has 10 deputies instead of the one it had for the past decade, would spend the period promoting both the “opposition and the proposal.”
The nine new MPs behind him were silent during the short press conference that followed a photo shoot on the steps of Parliament House.
But number five, Simon Court, was ready in case you asked him, with a few short notes written on his hand:
“RWEXP, Prop, Infra.”
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Presumably these notes refer to the key phrases of “real world experience, property, and infrastructure.”
Court was a civil and environmental engineer before coming to Parliament, and he worked extensively on construction projects.
Seymour said he was willing to pressure the government on whether it could “do no harm” to small businesses instead of offering them subsidies after making business more expensive with new holidays and the like.
Robert Kitchin / Things
The Court’s hand notes appear to refer to “real-world experience, property, and infrastructure.”
He was also willing to challenge the government over the use of the Covid-19 tracking app, saying he was likely one of the few people who had used the app on Wednesday.
“The way I see it, it’s down to hundreds of thousands of scans, that’s a total failure,” said Seymour.
Seymour also spoke about the talks currently taking place between Labor and the Green Party, and said he hoped some Green MPs would be ministers again.
Robert Kitchin / Things
New ACT Party MPs with leader David Seymour pose for a photo on the entrance steps of Parliament.
“The Greens will be too nervous to say goodbye to their staff and ministerial salaries, and the job skills shortage, compounded by the loss of safe pairs of hands like Ron Mark and Tracey Martin, will require that they need James Shaw.” Seymour said.
He said he didn’t really care whether the Greens had power or not, as the political leadership of the parties was basically the same.
“Our point of view is that our job is to hold those who end up being ministers accountable,” Seymour said.
Seymour said he wanted to bring good ideas to Parliament with his larger group, and often this would require being more skeptical about the role of the state.
“In many cases, it seemed that National was trying to compete with Labor to get the government to tax more and do more,” Seymour said.
“Someone has to ask the question: is the working tax dollar being used well?”
