Speech: Nicole McKee at Rally '26

ACT supporters, candidates, volunteers, members, thank you for filling this room. Thank you for giving up your Sunday afternoon because you believe New Zealand can be so much more than it is today.

I couldn’t be prouder to be standing up here, thanks to the trust and confidence of my caucus colleagues, as the new Deputy Leader of the ACT Party. Thank you.

Before I say anything else, I want to acknowledge Brooke van Velden.

Brooke has done an exceptional job as our Deputy Leader for six years. She has served this party, our Government, and New Zealand with intelligence, modesty, courage, and kindness. We will miss her dearly when she leaves later this year, and I am very grateful she is staying long enough to help teach me the ropes. Brooke, thank you.

I have to admit, I never saw myself becoming Deputy Leader of a political party. In fairness, I never really saw myself becoming a politician. When I gave my maiden speech, I said maybe this was my mid-life crisis. Now I’m a Cabinet Minister and Deputy leader of the only party that has the courage and the principles to unlock New Zealand’s potential.

My mother raised my sister and I on her own. She worked two jobs, night and day, to look after us kids. She showed me that dignity does not come from a victim mindset or from waiting for Government to save you. Before others can help you, you need to be willing to help yourself.

Later, when my husband was studying and we had six mouths to feed, I learned to hunt because that was how I could put meat on the table. Plenty of New Zealanders understand that. For some people, firearms are part of feeding their family. For others, they are part of farming, pest control, collecting, or competitive sport. I have represented New Zealand in shooting sports. I know the discipline, responsibility, and safety culture in that community.

Then came the horror of March 15th 2019. It was a day of united grief in our country. None of us ever wants to see anything like it again. But the laws that followed were rushed, confused, and unfair. They punished the wrong people. I saw good, law-abiding New Zealanders blamed and scapegoated, while the real failures were played down.

That is when I put my head above the parapet. I did it because I believe in property rights, fairness, democratic process, and the rule of law. I did it because my community was not asking for special treatment. They were asking to be treated fairly. They were asking for laws that targeted criminals instead of punishing people who had followed the rules.

That is why I came to politics.

Since then, I have become a Minister, and I haven’t forgotten why I’m here. I am leading a comprehensive rewrite of the Arms Act so New Zealand has firearms laws that improve public safety while treating licensed firearm owners fairly.

And after years of fearmongering and, frankly, quite disgusting smear campaigns against me and my reforms, the Arms Bill was supported unanimously by Parliament at its first reading. It shows you can stand on principle, make good law, and still bring people with you.

David Seymour asked me to join ACT because he saw that I shared ACT’s values. He saw potential in me, and he backed me. He also warned me not to be a one-trick pony, and I think I’ve proven I can be more than just the ‘gun lady’.

I brought back Three Strikes so the most serious violent and sexual repeat offenders are locked up for longer. I have worked to speed up the courts because victims deserve justice without endless delay. I have changed the way the Proceeds of Crime Fund is used so it goes towards preventing violent crime, not being returned to the Mongrel Mob as it was under Labour.

I have worked on anti-money laundering laws to make it easier to do business and harder to do crime. I’m putting fairness and common sense back into alcohol laws so the great Kiwi pub can stay open and our cities can be vibrant. And I have worked to protect children in overseas adoptions where loopholes in New Zealand’s laws meant some children were at risk of being put into homes where no child should ever be.

Those issues may sound different: firearms, courts, crime, adoption, money laundering, and alcohol. But they are connected by the same values. Protect the public from real harm, hold offenders accountable, respect the law-abiding, cut red tape where it serves no purpose, and remember that the state has enormous power, so it must use that power carefully.

That is why I am in politics.

But since I’ve been here, it’s become clear that New Zealand needs a more honest conversation about who we are, and ACT has been the only party with the courage to start that conversation.

I am proud of both my Māori and my British ancestry. I do not need to choose between them, and I do not need a political party to tell me what my identity is supposed to mean. My whakapapa is mine. My views are mine. My vote is mine. My country is mine too.

Te Pāti Māori claim to speak for all Māori. They do not speak for me. They do not speak for every Māori parent who wants their children safe and well educated, every Māori business owner who wants less red tape and more opportunity, or every Māori victim of crime who wants consequences. The Treaty should not be used as a weapon to divide New Zealanders. Equal rights before the law are the foundation of any civilised society.

Labour and the Greens say they care about minorities, but the smallest minority is the individual. Too often, the greatest threat to the individual is the state. It is the state that can restrict your speech, take your money, stop you building on your own land, or impose rules on your business.

New Zealand does not need politics built on envy, grievance, or excuse-making. We need politics built on aspiration. We do not become wealthier by punishing people for succeeding. We create opportunity by backing the people who work, save, invest, build, hire, and take risks.

That is the New Zealand I believe in: a country where effort counts, ambition is encouraged, success is celebrated, and every person has the chance to build a better life for themselves and their family, regardless of what century their ancestors arrived here. That is what I will fight for as Deputy Leader of ACT.

I am here for New Zealanders who want a fair go, who work hard, take responsibility, care for their families, help their neighbours, and want their country to be a place their children and grandchildren will grow up in and want to stay.

I know New Zealand’s best days are ahead of us. But we can only unlock New Zealand’s potential with the courage to make the tough, but necessary, decisions.

And if there is one person I trust to lead that fight, it is the man who saw potential in me nearly seven years ago, and who has never stopped believing in the potential of this country.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Leader of the ACT Party. New Zealand’s greatest freedom fighter, David Seymour.