Tension between Act’s David Seymour and PM Christopher Luxon spills over in public – Claire Trevett

Luxon had just set out his next quarterly plan and details of an Investment Summit the Government is hosting.

As Luxon tried to stick to his “growth, growth, growth” mantra, the only growth on display was in the degree to which he feels Seymour is becoming a problem for him.

The questions he faced related to Seymour trying to drive a Land Rover up Parliament’s steps earlier in the day, apparently oblivious to the Speaker prohibiting it. The Act leader was halted by security but rather than shrug it off, decided to argue that the Speaker’s prohibition of the antic was ridiculous. Luxon dismissed that as a “political sideshow”.

The more serious exchange related to Seymour’s letter to police back in April 2022 about their treatment of Philip Polkinghorne.

Asked about that letter, Luxon said he thought it was “ill-advised” and said Seymour was aware of his view. The PM said there was a “fine line” to walk when advocating for constituents in such cases and repeated his belief it was ill-advised. However, Seymour was not a minister at the time and hence there was no breach of the Cabinet Manual.

On the fight or flight response question, there is no doubt which one Seymour defaults to: fight. Hard.

Asked on RNZ about the PM’s comments that his letter was “ill-advised”, Seymour responded with, “What is ill-advised is commenting when you don’t know all the facts and criticising a local MP for doing their work, which is standing up for their constituents.”

He went on to make it perfectly clear that, yes, he was very much directing that comment at Luxon.

He then rejected the PM’s view and defended sending the letter as part of his job as an electorate MP – “the last line of defence” for his constituents.

Luxon rarely lets his frustration show but he did on Monday, perhaps because for the week prior the PM had also had to face flak for Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill.

If this is how Luxon and Seymour are now talking about each other in public, it raises questions as to just how bad the relationship might be behind closed doors.

That in turn will lead to questions and undesirable perceptions about the stability of the coalition.

All of this landed on the same day as two polls showing the coalition Government’s support was very precarious indeed – the Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll and 1News Kantar Public poll both showed the combined support of the coalition parties was lower than for their rivals.

The only one who will benefit from this obvious discord between the coalition partners is Labour leader Chris Hipkins.

Hipkins did not hesitate to say it was time for the PM to sack Seymour, pointing out he himself had sacked ministers in 2023 for lesser things.

Hipkins would like it very much if Luxon moved to publicly reprimand or sack Seymour because the surefire way to make the government partners’ polling even worse would be the instability or potential collapse of the coalition.

That will not do either of them any good but however inimical the exchanges between Luxon and Seymour get, Seymour knows full well he is immune from punishment.

Luxon is hamstrung.

Whether either of them gets the same immunity from punishment by the voters is a different question.