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CAMPAIGN JOURNAL: It was the end of the road and the end of the mall.
ACT leader David Seymour chose Wellington’s Karori Shopping Center as a campaign stop on Thursday, after spending a day touring the capital and charging through downtown food courts.
He was looking for any open hand willing to accept his brochure. Many were happy to take the brochure, many had already voted and left a woman who was considering switching to ACT.
At Karori Mall, Seymour quickly exhausted his campaign opportunities.
Speaking to an audience of reporters, seniors, and suburbanites at the entrance to the quiet, run-down downtown, Seymour launched into it.
MONIQUE FORD / Things
ACT leader David Seymour laughs with a lady at the Karori Mall, after Seymour had fun with the mall’s size during a campaign tour of the capital on Thursday.
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“We are at the commercial end of the campaign. One party has been consistent throughout this campaign saying we need a faster recovery with lower taxes and less debt. We need to adapt more intelligently to a virus that is not going away, ”he said.
“That’s the message that reflects what we hear from people across this country where we have campaigned, literally from Island Bay, to Invercargill and even Tiwai Point.”
Seymour, whose party has risen to 8% in recent polls, set an unprecedented pace this Thursday’s election campaign, covering three food courts and Wellington’s busiest streets in about an hour.
At the Press Hall food court, he joked with a group of Xero employees, saying that the counters had gotten cool recently. He answered a question about his climate policy from a young man, who seemed surprised to receive a lengthy response.
Seymour later ran into former Police Commissioner Mike Bush at a table in Old Bank Arcade. ACT had criticized the police’s work on gun control reform in recent years; Seymour was unlikely to find a supporter in Bush.
MONIQUE FORD / Things
ACT leader David Seymour and deputy director Brooke Van Velden at a Brumbys bakery in Karori.
There was a brief exchange between the two, Seymour later said he asked about Bush’s retirement.
“I thought he was quite restrained.”
After lunch, at Karori Mall, the ACT leader remained in mid-flight. He said many people he met in Wellington confirmed they had voted for him: “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more than one in ten … It felt like what the polls suggest.
MONIQUE FORD / Things
ACT leader David Seymour was surprised at how small the Karori Mall was, during a campaign stop Thursday.
He spoke of the party’s internal polls, saying the party could have up to 12 MPs in Parliament after the weekend.
How did National look in those polls? Not well.
And back to the message: “The real problem is that we have not absorbed the technology in the Covid-19 strategy because the Ministry of Health cannot work with the private sector. ACT’s epidemic response unit is about saying that we need a multidisciplinary public and private response to better absorb technology. “
A woman next to the press group, who did not want to be named, found Seymour’s message clear and persuasive. He had been inclined to vote at the national level, maybe not anymore.
The woman lingered while Seymour departed again, only to quickly discover that Karori Mall was too small for her ambitions.
“A new policy, we are going to expand the mall,” he joked to his new fan.
“I think we could have run out of campaign territory.”
