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Iain McGregor / Stuff
No ACT New Zealand candidate ran in Invercargill or Southland in this election, which party leader David Seymour says could change in 2023. [File photo]
David Seymour regrets not having ACT New Zealand candidates in Southland or Invercargill in the last general election.
ACT was the third-highest electoral party in Invercargill’s electorate after last month’s elections, with 9.5 percent of the party’s votes. Nationwide, the party picked up nine deputies from the list and Seymour retained his electorate seat.
At Invercargill, the party obtained 3,846 votes, well ahead of the Greens in 1386 and New Zealand First with 1,218.
As a party, ACT did even better in the Southland electorate, again the third-highest-ranked party, at 12.7 percent.
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During a visit to Southland on Sunday, Seymour said: “We really regret not having candidates in the Southland and Invercargill electorates, but if you look at the growth in membership and voting, I think we are very likely to be very strong candidates. [in 2023]”.
Seymour was at Invercargill as part of a nationwide “appreciation tour”.
Speaking before the performance, Seymour said there was a total disregard for the needs of the rural community, particularly freshwater and firearms laws.
There was also a “totally wrong” general view that farmers, who lived off the land, were somehow enemies of the land, he said.
Blair Jackson / Stuff
ACT New Zealand party leader David Seymour in Invercargill on Sunday with Pamela Taylor and her children Annabelle, 9, and Alice, 5.
There were far more people in Southland who were in the coal face of running their own business than the average, Seymour said.
“You don’t see a 20-story tower with corporate offices full of people who are cut off from compliance costs, cut off from the customer, cut off from the IRD,” he said.
There was a plan for an ACT candidate in Southland.
Basil Walker was supposed to compete for the party, but resigned and remained independent at Invercargill.
“You live and you learn, I guess,” Seymour said.
Looking ahead, Seymour said the party also had a solution in place to make the Tiwai Point Aluminum Smelter viable again.
“We are not only reflecting on 2020, but we are launching it for 2023, without question,” said Seymour.
The smelter’s majority owner, Rio Tinto, announced in July that it would close the plant near Bluff in August 2021.
However, days after the general election, a spokesman for Finance Minister Grant Robertson said a priority of the new government was to reach an agreement with Rio Tinto that would result in the plant remaining open for three to five more years. .
The solution prepared by Seymour was to legislate consent for a second transmission line.
Invercargill woman Pamela Taylor was at the ACT party function on Sunday.
While he did not say who he voted for, he said he was concerned about closing the national debt.
Taylor said he would like to see an ACT New Zealand candidate at Invercargill.
National’s Penny Simmonds was confirmed as a member of the Invercargill electorate on Friday, after about 3,000 special votes were counted in the weeks following the Oct. 17 election.
Simmonds outpointed Liz Craig de Labor by 224 votes.
However, Labor won 47.7 percent of the party’s votes and the national 29.7 percent.
Craig will continue to be Labor’s Invercargill-based roster deputy.
For the Southland electorate, Labor had the majority of the party’s votes, but Joseph Mooney of National was the elected MP.
ACT took nine parliamentary seats from the list in the new parliament, and Seymour retained his Epsom seat.
