State of the Nation 2026 | Telling it like it is

State of the Nation
David Seymour February 15, 2026
Rydges Latimer, Christchurch

Introduction, thanks

Thank you for that kind introduction. Thank you to everyone who bought a ticket to our State of the Nation on Valentines Day weekend. Alex, you being here today must be a sign of true love.

Like most of us, I also love this country. I want staying here to be the obvious choice for every generation, not something young people have to weigh up against better wages and opportunity overseas.

Right now they’re not just weighing it up, the scales have tipped hard against staying, and the outward migration numbers are flashing lights on the dashboard.

The very good news is we can choose to fix it. Our country is small enough, we still care enough and we are resourceful enough to choose a different path.

By choosing, I mean really tackling what needs to be done. Making the tough but unpopular decisions needed if New Zealand is to remain a first world.

To me, that starts with listening. Hearing what New Zealanders really want. Today I’m going to talk about what I’ve heard, and the hard choices needed to turn down those lights on the dashboard.

I also listen to other politicians, and I see them amplifying the dark side of our culture. That’s the tall poppy chopping approach. So much of what they say can be summed up as ‘your problems are caused by other people’s success, we’ll pull them down a peg or two’.

I listen to Chris Hipkins, and I hear Jacinda Ardern “light” … a lilting voice that says all the right things, promises nirvana, but never says how we will pay for it or tackles the key issues. He reminds me of an anaesthetist before he gives you the injection that knocks you out and makes you forget the pain.

I listen to the Greens, and while they used to speak for the environment…. increasingly they channel the economic frustration of a young generation, by blaming others’ success.

I listen to Te Pati Māori and their words frighten me. If they just wanted to live as Māori, that would be, well, ka pai. But they want everyone to live in a Māori society, with themselves as tangata whenua on top. It’s not just bad for New Zealand, it’s bad for their followers. Anyone, any time, who has grown up believing they are born special… is destined to failure. You might call it former Prince Andrew syndrome.

I listen to them as a potential next Government and it frightens me… like it should a lot of New Zealanders. We cannot make the same mistake again. It starts by not taking their platitudes and half-truths at face value.

Listen. Listen to what they are saying. Nonsense. Self-interest. Inciting division. Envy. Enough of that! Do not let them near power EVER again.

If I had a dollar for every person who told me “if Labour get back in, I’m getting out of the country”, ACT’s fundraising would be done for the year.

Our first mission is to keep Labour, the Greens, and Te Pati Māori out of power. But today is about more than that. It is a gathering for thoughtful people.

We’ve spent the last two years proving that ACT is up to the job of fixing what matters. We’ve earned our stripes by proving that we can work with others while driving real change.

With cost pressures affecting every firm, farm, and family in this country, saving money is the first order of the day.

The ACT Party can point to an outsized role making the savings. As our slogan has said, we’ve been “Fixing what matters”.

On school lunches alone we’ve saved over $300 million, but the number sent back by students each day hasn’t changed. We knocked $200 million off the cost of the Waikato Medical School, and nearly as much off the electric car charging network. Brooke saved the taxpayer $12 billion by focusing the pay equity legislation back on actual gender discrimination.

We calculate each person who gave their Party Vote to ACT last time saved the taxpayer $57,000. At that rate the fastest way to balance the books is for more people to party Vote ACT!

But we’re not just making Government smaller, we’re making it more efficient. ACT Ministers are competent managers who get results.

More children are going to school, because we’ve retooled the attendance service. A growing number are going to charter schools that show disillusioned children education can be different. They’re learning a history curriculum that will give a balanced and inclusive view of our country and the rest of the world, instead of casting children as victims or villains by birth.

New medicines are being consented twice as fast and since I’ve been Pharmac Minister 41 new cancer medicines have been funded.

The Courts are hearing cases twenty per cent faster, under Nicole McKee, and overseas investments are consented in half the time. Passports are being issued in record time at Brooke’s Department of Internal Affairs.

Assaults in Oranga Tamariki facilities have fallen and KFC-on-the-roof incidents have dropped to zero since Karen’s been in charge.

Ram raids are down 85 per cent, youth crime is down fifteen per cent, violent crime is down across the board. Gangs were treated as pillars of the community, now they are barely seen or heard except counting their three strikes if they offend.

Andrew Hoggard is a one-man defence force, effectively keeping out biosecurity threats that would decimate our economy. We are fixing what matters right across Government.

The Government doesn’t just tax money and spend on services, though, it also regulates too much of our lives. Here I’m proud our party is driving the deregulation agenda. Time and again we are being proven right, after a long hard fight.

I voted against the Zero Carbon Act, the earthquake strengthening laws, and the Arms Act changes of 2019 and 2020. In each case our party was pilloried for standing apart from the crowd, and in each case New Zealanders (and the Government) has realized we were right.

Crippling methane reduction targets are being halved so farmers can keep on farming.

The earthquake strengthening laws are being scaled back to target real danger, while most buildings can continue to be used without financially crippling rebuilds.

Nicole McKee is legislating a brand-new Arms Act that will keep people safe while treating legitimate firearm users with respect.

You’re allowed to look for oil and gas again.

The war on landlords is over. Fairness is back in tenancy law and mortgage interest tax deductibility. One result of this change, along with falling mortgage rates, is that rents have actually fallen after years of tenant-crippling rises. 1700 Pet Bonds lodged so far is a genuine win-win for tenants and landlords alike.

The Holidays Act is so broken that even Government departments with all their resources couldn’t pay people the right amount. For small businesses, it’s a nightmare. Successive Ministers have given up trying to fix it, but there’s a new sheriff in town. Brooke is fixing the Holidays Act, even as she fixes unfair employment laws and restores common sense to Health and Safety law by focusing it on critical risks.

Simon Court, Parliament’s only civil engineer, has driven resource management reform. The number of consents will halve thanks to the simple principle of property rights: If it’s not affecting your neighbours, you don’t need consent to do it. The benefits are projected at three billion dollars a year.

The Ministry for Regulation is making it easier to do everything from baking a cake, building a garden shed, running a day care or hairdresser, growing hemp, or licensing agricultural and veterinary products.

Altogether this small ministry is unlocking hundreds of millions of dollars in economic value in its first two years… let alone reducing the stress and wasted time for the 590,000 small business owners.

That’s before passing the Regulatory Standards Bill that puts property rights in law for the first time in our country’s history.

I haven’t even mentioned the Treaty Principles Bill. We may have lost the vote, but we won the debate. Kiwis agree with the principles, because New Zealanders actually are equal. Like many Bills before it, the first vote won’t be the final say.

There is no longer a separate Māori health authority, nor co-governed three waters, and every ratepayer got a democratic say on Māori wards. The Government has an official policy of delivering services based on need, not race, thanks to ACT in Government.

Common sense is winning. Let’s keep it that way.

I’m proud that ACT’s MPs are in Government saving taxpayer money, making services more efficient, cutting red tape, and restoring equal rights for all citizens.

The net result is lower inflation, lower interest rates, and hope returning to the New Zealand economy. We are not there yet, we freely admit, but we have proven something that was an unknown two years ago:

ACT can be collegial in a collation in Government, while also driving the change our country needs.

The State of Our Nation

That was the good news part.

Now, the other news. New Zealand IS a great country, and we ARE heading in the right direction, but we’re not turning off those flashing lights on the dashboard.

Keeping the socialists out of power is necessary too for this country to survive but it is not sufficient. We must take on deeper challenges if we are going to build a country that meets the expectations of its own citizens well enough for them to stay.

ACT believes there are five warning lights on the dashboard that we must overcome.

1. The cost of living crisis is really a productivity slump. It is not just that inflation has driven up costs. It is that wages have not kept up with inflation. Real economic growth, after inflation, has gone backwards over the last five years.
   
   People feel a real sense of despair. We expect things to get better, and easier as we work for it each year. When we work our guts out only to find we’re further behind, it is easy to get jaded and angry.

2. A related problem is that the Government is not balancing its books. The Treasury forecasts it will spend $14 billion more than it takes in this year. If you count the blow out at ACC, the figure is $17 billion. If there are no nasty surprises, we are on track to post a small surplus by 2030, but then our ageing population will put us back into the black for more decades of deficit spending.
   
   As the old adage goes, if something cannot go on, it will stop. There is no law saying New Zealand cannot face a South American debt spiral. We are on a collision course unless we find the courage to front up and change.
   
   

3. People around the world are falling out of love with democracy, because they find Governments frustrating and unresponsive. Last year autocracies overtook democracies for the first time in fifty years. Only 12 per cent of the world’s people now live in liberal democracies, the lowest in fifty years.
   
   A strong democracy is a cornerstone of our identity. We are one of only seven countries that remained democratic throughout the 20th century. I don’t believe democracy is in serious danger here, but people are losing faith in our institutions, because Government is so damn bureaucratic and unresponsive.
   
   

4. We don’t have a positive, inclusive sense of who we are. The experiment of dividing ourselves into a Treaty partnership between Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti has been a disaster.
   
   People are told they are guests even though they were born here. Instead of being a country founded on ideas, where anyone can be a citizen if they follow the laws, they tried to make us a country based on identity, where you can only really be a New Zealander if your ancestors settled first.
   
   

5. An entire generation feels let down but all these problems. When young New Zealanders look at their student loan, their wages, their taxes, and the housing market, they can’t see how to make it add up.
   
   Nobody is saying the baby boomers had it easy. They worked hard. But they worked hard because hard work was a rewarding strategy. They had a fair deal, put in the effort, and your education will get you a career with rising wages, a house and a secure life. That deal feels broken.

I mentioned those voting with their feet. It is a great failing that New Zealand does not meet the expectations of its own citizens. Many are prepared to give up their family, their friendships, and their sense of place. We are, after all, a nation built on centuries of migration. Making brave voyages is in our DNA, but it can just as easily work the other way if we don’t get on top of these deeper challenges.

We need a party that will tell it like it is. ACT has proven time and again we are prepared to take on hard issues and provide brave but constructive solutions.

Through euthanasia, the Arms Act reforms, COVID-19, earthquake laws, the methane targets, and defining the Treaty, we have taken on the issues others fear with real solutions.

We are fearless. Many times we have stood apart from the crowd. We’ve been pilloried and lambasted, only to be proven right in the fullness of time.

We’ve also shown that, given the chance, we can competently execute in Government.

This year we’ll be taking on the very real challenges that New Zealanders feel with serious solutions that can set our country up for success.

Equal rights and positive-sum thinking with a smaller, more efficient Government

ACT’s solutions are based on three ideas that we need to break our country’s slump.

1. Equal rights for all citizens, so we can ALL feel like we are part of a country with a positive and inclusive identity

2. Positive-sum thinking, belief in people to make a difference in their own lives, instead of the scapegoating politics that has defined the last five years

3. A smaller, more efficient Government that you can trust to deliver quality services for affordable taxes

We need a story about who we are that is accurate and uplifting. We are not two peoples, tangata tiriti and tangata whenua. We are many peoples united by a common story.

We are all settlers who’ve come in waves to make a better life for ourselves and our children. As a nation of settlers, we are not only united by a common story. We are united by a positive story of risk takers and pioneers. That is the story of a people who belong, and can take on the challenges of a fast-changing world.

The story gives us values that are positive-sum. We don’t see wealth as something to divide, but something to create. If we just wanted to fight over the scraps, then we and our ancestors would have stayed where we were.

Our pioneering spirit remains, innovative companies like Rocketlab and Halter are storming the world like Gallagher once did with number 8 wire. We should celebrate success and denounce tall poppy syndrome.

We reject the endless blame game. Scapegoating one group after another hasn’t solved a single problem. We believe that most people, most of the time, are just trying to make the best of their time on earth, and we should start with that spirit.

Then we still need to balance the books, raise wages, and restore faith in our democracy.

A smaller, more efficient Government

Reaching the New Zealand we want is not easy, or we’d be there. But the most effective thing we have the power to do is demand a smaller, more efficient Government.

ACT has already shown we can move the dial, cutting waste and red tape, making the departments we control deliver for the people they serve.

The truth is though, that we are still over governed.

Why does such a small country have such a large Government?

Norway, a similar size to us, governs with 20 ministers across 17 coherent ministries, each clearly aligned to a broad policy domain.

The whole structure is set up to preserve itself. Why are there barely fewer bureaucrats than when we started trying to cut the numbers two years ago? Because the structure is set up so nobody is completely in charge of anything.

We have 28 ministers and two under-secretaries governing 41 departments. One department, MBIE, has 23 ministers. Some ministers, have seven portfolios. Nobody is solely responsible for getting a set of outcomes for a budget.

There are ministers who sit in cabinet, but there are a further eight who don’t actually go to the main cabinet meetings. They sit outside cabinet.

The Ministry for Regulation has been trying to count the number of regulatory agencies in New Zealand. Last I heard they were up to 250. The Human Rights Commission has been trying to count the ‘redress’ agencies, agencies you can go to with a grievance, and they have lost count.

That would be bad enough, but some ministers exist without any department at all.

Labour appointed a Minister for Auckland without any actual budget, department, or responsibility. I call them vanity portfolios.

The net results of this:

• Running all these agencies costs one third of the economy

• The results are unsatisfying

• The regulatory activity and interference from these agencies puts another layer of costs onto New Zealanders

We’ll never balance the budget, raise wages, or restore trust in democracy when Government is so large, inefficient, and unaccountable to New Zealanders.

This year ACT will be campaigning for a smaller, more efficient Government. Its features will be:

• No more than 20 ministers, who all sit in cabinet

• No more than 30 departments, so most ministers have only one

• No department answers to more than one minister

• No minister has a portfolio, there are only departments with budgets to manage

Reducing the number of ministers will save money, but it will also change the point of being a minister. No more vanity portfolios designed to appeal to a group of people.

Instead one minister will be solely accountable for getting results for their budget of taxpayer money from their department.

With a smaller government, a small business owner will spend less time and money battling paperwork and bureaucracy - an immediate productivity boost. Over time, they’ll benefit again as the Government takes less of what they earn, returns to surplus sooner, and needs less of their taxes to sustain itself. More productivity, more jobs, higher wages – all the Government needs to do is less.

I first floated this idea in a speech to the Tauranga Business Chamber last May. Since then the New Zealand Initiative has released a comprehensive report promoting a similar consolidation.

The Public Service Commissioner has said he wants to see a consolidation.

The Government actually has merged Environment, Housing, Local Government, and Transport into one Ministry.

This is an idea whose time has come, and we will be campaigning to ensure it happens completely.

Conclusion

It’s easy to forget life is good in New Zealand. Compared with most times, and most places in history and even today, our country is a success.

ACT is an important part of that, and our ambition doesn’t stop there. There is no reason why we shouldn’t aim to be the most prosperous and free country in the Southern hemisphere.

I’m proud of what your ACT MPs are achieving in Wellington. We now have a competent government and ACT has shown it can be competent and effective.

But we also know that, like many of our peer countries around the world, we are in a state of decline. Our future depends on good management, but good management is not enough.

We need the courage to take on hard issues. ACT has the best track record of any party for telling it like it is and driving real change.

If we’re going to make life affordable again, raise productivity, balance the budget and restore faith in our democracy, we need to take three key steps.

1. We need an inclusive and uniting story about ourselves as pioneers and adventurers. The good news is, that’s a pretty good description of our actual history. We just need to tell it.
   
   

2. We need to stop reaching for easy fixes, and finding a different group to blame each time there’s a problem. The good news is that our pioneering history sets us up well to navigate a fast changing world and find those smart fixes
   
   

3. We need a smaller, more efficient government, that frees up people’s time and money to provide for themselves and their families. That starts at the top.

This year we’re going to see a long hard campaign. I thank you for coming here in the afterglow of Valentine’s Day. With a few good ideas and love for our country, we can discover a New Zealand with a proudly beating heart.