Deputy Prime Minister and ACT leader David Seymour. (File photo) Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii
ACT leader David Seymour is promising to reignite the Treaty principles debate next year, saying he'll never move on from his vision for equality in New Zealand.
Seymour - who's deputy prime minister - made the comments in a sit-down interview with RNZ, reflecting on the past year and looking ahead to the 2026 election campaign.
The Treaty Principles Bill, championed by ACT, was voted down at its second reading in April, but not before provoking massive public outcry and the largest hīkoi to ever reach Parliament's grounds.
The issue had largely shifted from public focus since then, but Seymour said he remained committed to the idea and "quite confident" in its long-term prospects.
"Our friends abandoned us and did not support us for the vote in Parliament," he said. "But... we've planted the seeds of a movement of equal rights for this country that won't go away anytime soon.
"I'll never move on from the idea that we are all equal. Our universal humanity trumps any superficial differences in relation to race or culture... nobody can make those simple facts go away."
The proposed law would have scrapped the existing understanding of the Treaty's principles and replaced them with three new principles: that the government has the right to govern, that everyone has equal rights before the law, and that the only exception to that is where it's set out in Treaty settlements.
ACT secured the legislation during coalition negotiations with National but did not receive any guarantees beyond its first reading.
National voted the bill down at second reading, calling it too simplistic, and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon ruled out entertaining another iteration as part of a future coalition.
Despite that, Seymour said he had not given up on the debate. He said ACT would campaign on the issue again but was still developing the exact shape of the policy.
"We will be campaigning on the idea that New Zealanders, whatever wave of settlers you may be part of, the first being Māori, or any later ones, you nonetheless are human beings with hopes and dreams and equal rights in this country.
"The mechanism and the vehicle for that, well... we're not going to burn all our powder in the first few months."
Indeed, ACT looks likely to hold back more of its policy offerings until later in election year, with Seymour admitting the party "peaked too early" in the 2023 campaign: "We were pooped."
The Treaty principles debate resulted in some tense exchanges between the coalition parties, a dynamic which has played out again more recently over Seymour's Regulatory Standards Act.
Despite voting for the legislation last month, NZ First leader Winston Peters swiftly vowed to repeal it next term. The National Party had also left the door open to rolling it back.
Initially, Seymour fired up, suggesting Peters was gearing up to support a Labour coalition.
But Seymour is now playing the dispute down, advising RNZ not to over-egg the parties' differences.
Asked whether his partners had acted in good faith, he said: "I'm not getting into characterising other people or their faithfulness. My view is that this government has signed up to do it, and we would expect it to continue."
Other internal differences this term included over firearms reform, with ACT twice invoking the 'agree to disgree' clause. The eventual Arms Act rewrite also fell short of what the ACT party had hoped for.
But Seymour said the outcome was still an ACT Party victory and would not have happened at all without its advocacy.
Asked whether he expected more internal feuding in election year, Seymour said ACT would remain "very collegial" with its number one focus on keeping the opposition parties out of power.
He noted the government had passed more legislation in the first two years than any other MMP-era parliament despite claims the coalition parties were "always warring and dysfunctional" .
"And to the extent that there has been disagreement, and some of it's been public, I say, so what?" Seymour said.
"New Zealand needs to get better at having disagreement but still being able to work together. The alternative is cancel culture."
Seymour acknowledged 2025 had been a "tough time for everybody" and said it was "no secret" the ACT party wanted more aggressive cuts to spending.
But he said he had been "really thrilled" with policy progress, arguing years of ACT campaigning had shaped major reforms across regulation, resource management and earthquake building standards.
Seymour said he had "every intention" of staying on as party leader up to the election and to then serve out another term.
"I still think that I'm getting better at it... I got into Cabinet, became the deputy prime minister... we've absorbed that pressure and we're ready to go again.
"So long as I'm still growing, I'm still going."
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