1. David Breen Seymour was born on 24 June 1983 and is a New Zealand politician who has been the Leader of ACT New Zealand and the Member of Parliament for Epsom since 2014.
82 Facts About David Seymour
1. 2.
David Seymour currently serves as the first Minister for Regulation in the Sixth National Government under Christopher Luxon.
3.
David Seymour entered the House of Representatives in 2014 as ACT's sole MP, after which he replaced Jamie Whyte as party leader.
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David Seymour was re-elected in 2017, and led ACT to one of its best results in the 2020 election, winning ten seats.
5.
Under the coalition arrangement, David Seymour will assume the position of deputy prime minister from 31 May 2025, replacing Winston Peters.
6.
David Seymour was born in Palmerston North on 24 June 1983.
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David Seymour's family moved to Whangarei when he was a child.
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David Seymour is descended through his mother's father from a Maori great-great-great-grandmother, Maraea Te Inutoto, whose husband was Stephen Wrathall.
9.
David Seymour worked as a policy analyst for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the Manning Centre in Canada for five years.
10.
David Seymour is a long-time member of ACT, initially becoming involved in the political party through ACT on Campus while studying at Auckland University.
11.
David Seymour contested three elections before his eventual success in 2014.
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David Seymour first stood for ACT in 2005 in Mt Albert and was ranked 37th on the party list.
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At the 2011 general election, David Seymour stood for ACT in the Auckland Central electorate, but the electorate was retained by National's Nikki Kaye.
14.
David Seymour assisted with the development of the government's Partnership Schools legislation.
15.
In February 2014, at the same time that Jamie Whyte was made leader of the ACT Party, David Seymour won the nomination to stand as the party's candidate for Epsom.
16.
David Seymour was the first confirmed candidate for the Epsom electorate, and at an Epsom public meeting during his campaign he was described as "the most popular with the crowd" and "the star of the night, intelligent, witty and articulate".
17.
At the election, David Seymour was elected for the Epsom electorate with a majority of 4,250 votes.
18.
Jamie Whyte did not win in his bid for the Pakuranga electorate, and David Seymour replaced Whyte as the leader of ACT on 3 October 2014.
19.
David Seymour was given responsibility for partnership schools, and reforms to the Resource Management Act 1991 and other regulation.
20.
David Seymour accused the bill of personally attacking him, and said it was not necessary because under-secretaries did not have decision-making powers.
21.
Nonetheless, David Seymour was one of 109 members of Parliament who voted in favour of the legislation at its third reading in June 2016.
22.
David Seymour continued to support the policy and push for more charter schools to be established.
23.
On 6 June 2015, David Seymour confirmed that he was preparing a member's bill known as the End of Life Choice Bill that would legalise assisted dying.
24.
In 2015, David Seymour became a member of a cross-party group initiated by Jan Logie to look at and advocate for LGBTI rights.
25.
David Seymour was re-elected to Parliament for Epsom in the 2017 general election as the sole ACT Member of Parliament.
26.
On 8 June 2017, David Seymour's bill was selected from the members' ballot.
27.
David Seymour was the sole Member of Parliament to oppose the Labour-led coalition government's Arms Amendment Act 2019, which bans all semi-automatic firearms used during the Christchurch mosque shootings that occurred on 15 March 2019.
28.
David Seymour criticised the urgency of the government's gun control legislation.
29.
David Seymour supported the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 but argued that "safe zones", which would have established 150-metre protest-free areas around abortion clinics, would infringe upon freedom of expression.
30.
In November 2021, David Seymour advocated a regular testing regime for unvaccinated workers instead of the government's vaccine mandate for education, health and hospitality workers.
31.
In December 2021, David Seymour opposed the proposed joint Police and Maori iwi checkpoints that screened travellers from Auckland heading into the Northland region from 15 December, arguing they would restrict people's freedom of movement.
32.
David Seymour's criticisms were echoed by National Party leader Christopher Luxon and New Zealand First politicians Winston Peters and Shane Jones.
33.
In mid December 2022, David Seymour questioned Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during the Parliamentary Question time.
34.
David Seymour expressed confidence that ACT had secured a favourable coalition deal.
35.
David Seymour told The New Zealand Herald that the Government would announce a 100-day plan that could include repealing some legislation passed by the outgoing Labour government.
36.
Peters will serve as deputy prime minister until 31 May 2025, and then David Seymour will assume the office until the conclusion of the term.
37.
David Seymour is the first minister for regulation, a portfolio he proposed.
38.
David Seymour was appointed as an associate minister of education, finance, and health.
39.
David Seymour claimed there was no evidence that the school lunch programme had improved school achievement and attendance.
40.
David Seymour cited a 2023 Treasury report which found that 12 percent of lunches were wasted.
41.
David Seymour has suggested imposing fines on parents for truancy.
42.
On 14 March 2024, David Seymour visited Freyberg High School in Palmerston North and met with staff members including Principal Graeme Williams to discuss truancy.
43.
On 1 May 2024, David Seymour confirmed that the Government would continue to fund the previous Labour Government's free school lunches programme for a few years until the completion of a review into the programme.
44.
On 8 May, David Seymour announced the Government's modified school lunch programme, which would cost $234.8 million for the 2025 school year.
45.
On 14 May, David Seymour announced that the Government would allocate $153 million from the 2024 budget to convert 35 state schools into charter schools and establish 15 new charter schools between 2025 and 2026.
46.
In late September 2024, David Seymour confirmed that the Government would prosecute parents for persistent truancy and remove teacher-only days during school term time.
47.
In mid-October 2024, David Seymour released details of the Government's revised free school lunch programme, which would be launched in Term 1 2024.
48.
David Seymour said that the revamped programme would save $130 million a year, with meals costing an average of NZ$3.
49.
In late April 2025, David Seymour issued a letter to the 78 mayors of the local district councils, urging them to combat truancy and to boost school attendance in their local communities.
50.
On 10 March 2024, David Seymour announced that the Government would restore interest deductions on residential investment properties.
51.
David Seymour served as acting prime minister from 14 to 20 July 2024 during Prime Minister Luxon's personal leave following his trip to the US.
52.
David Seymour has embraced libertarian social policies since becoming party leader, such as supporting the legalisation of euthanasia, and introducing the End of Life Choice Act 2019.
53.
David Seymour has emerged as a vocal opponent of co-governance with Maori, and supports raising the retirement age and enacting tax cuts.
54.
David Seymour has increasingly caused controversy for his outspoken views, which include comparing co-governance with apartheid, opposing Maori vaccination prioritisation, and a joke about sending Guy Fawkes to blow up the Ministry of Pacific Peoples.
55.
David Seymour criticised the Chinese Consulate-General in Auckland for praising the actions of Chinese students who had allegedly assaulted a Hong Kong student activist erecting a Lennon Wall at the University of Auckland on 29 July 2019.
56.
David Seymour spoke at a pro-Hong Kong democracy rally at the University of Auckland on 6 August 2019.
57.
David Seymour criticised the Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta for not explicitly condemning Hamas in her statement expressing concern at the violence.
58.
Since 2021, David Seymour has been a vocal opponent of co-governance initiatives, a term referring to Maori people and the Crown sharing decision-making.
59.
David Seymour's concern is that the strengthening of hate speech laws is "divisive and dangerous" since the power of the state could be used by the majority to "silence unpopular views".
60.
David Seymour believes, if the law is strengthened, that what is considered hate speech will become "too subjective" and open to being abused.
61.
In September 2021, David Seymour caused a controversy after releasing a special COVID-19 vaccination appointment access code meant exclusively for Maori people in Auckland to his followers on Twitter.
62.
On 17 August 2023, David Seymour joked about bombing the Ministry for Pacific Peoples during an interview with Newstalk ZB following revelations about wasteful spending by the Ministry earlier in August.
63.
David Seymour's remarks were criticised by Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni and former National Party minister Alfred Ngaro as inflammatory and insensitive towards Pasifika New Zealanders.
64.
David Seymour refused to apologise for his remarks, claiming he was joking.
65.
David Seymour firmly denounced Forbes' line of questioning and described his supposed connection to the group as a "crazy conspiracy theory".
66.
However, David Seymour does in fact have links to the Atlas Network; during his work for the Canadian conservative think tanks Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the Manning Centre, he was a graduate of the Atlas Networks' 2008 "MBA for Think Tanks" program.
67.
David Seymour accepts the scientific consensus on climate change, and has denied the ACT Party is contributing to climate change denial after a 2008 ACT party policy under Rodney Hide stated there is "no warming trend since 1970".
68.
David Seymour said he disagreed with that statement saying "I believe New Zealand is warming".
69.
David Seymour shrank the budget for free school lunches, a programme introduced by the previous Sixth Labour Government that he has long opposed.
70.
On 8 May 2024, David Seymour had launched a modified NZ$234.8 million school lunch programme for the 2025 school year.
71.
David Seymour accepted the school lunch scheme needed improvements but defended cost-cutting measures as necessary to saving taxpayer money.
72.
On 27 February 2025, David Seymour rejected calls to sack school lunch provider School Lunch Collective and argued that the current school lunch programme was better than Labour's iteration.
73.
David Seymour had been contracted by the Compass Group to provide 125,000 meals to the Government's school meal programme.
74.
On 9 February 2025, David Seymour acknowledged that he had written a letter to Auckland District Commander Karyn Malthus in April 2022 complaining about former eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne's treatment by Police during the course of their investigation into the death of his wife Pauline Hanna.
75.
David Seymour said that he had written to Police in his capacity as Polkinghorne's electorate member of Parliament.
76.
David Seymour had written the letter prior to Police charging Polkinghorne with murder in August 2022.
77.
Later that night, David Seymour met with Luxon to resolve their differences regarding the Polkinghorne letter.
78.
David Seymour's actions were criticised by Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins, who called for his resignation as a cabinet minister, and Chief Victims' Advisor Ruth Money, who said that David Seymour should have raised Polkinghorne's concerns with the Independent Police Conduct Authority.
79.
On 10 February 2025, David Seymour attracted media attention after driving a 1948 Land Rover up the steps of the New Zealand House of Representatives in order to raise funds for the University of Auckland's Centre for Heart Research's heart valve development programme.
80.
David Seymour has proposed reducing the ministerial lineup to 20 cabinet ministers, with no associate positions except for the Minister of Finance.
81.
David Seymour appeared on the seventh series of Dancing with the Stars.
82.
David Seymour competed to raise funds for Kidsline, a youth telephone counselling service.