David Seymour backs National’s Blair Cameron for Nelson electorate vote
The ACT leader urged supporters to give ACT their party vote while recommending National’s candidate for the closely contested Nelson electorate.
David Seymour, leader of New Zealand’s ACT Party, recommended an electorate vote for National candidate Blair Cameron at a public meeting in Nelson on 20 October, while urging supporters to give ACT their party vote, RNZ reported. The distinction matters in an electorate that Labour MP Rachel Boyack won from Cameron by just 26 votes in 2023, according to RNZ.
About 200 people attended the meeting at the Rutherford Hotel, RNZ reported. ACT’s event listing had scheduled Seymour to speak there at 6pm on 20 October.
Why Seymour recommended Blair Cameron
The endorsement came after a woman in the audience asked how best to support ACT in Nelson, saying the race would be tight and ACT candidate Chris Baillie had little chance of winning the electorate. Seymour said voters who liked ACT’s policies should party-vote ACT. For their electorate vote, he advised choosing someone who would answer a constituent’s call for help late on a Friday.
Seymour said he had spoken to Baillie before the meeting and that Baillie was not seeking the Nelson electorate vote. He said Baillie had described Cameron as a good person. ‘Based on the advice that I’ve had just in the last half an hour, I think you should give your candidate vote to Blair,’ Seymour told the audience, according to RNZ.
RNZ reported that Baillie, a small-business owner and former police officer, entered Parliament as an ACT list MP in 2020 but was not re-elected in 2023 because of his lower place on the party list. Boyack won the Nelson seat that year. Seymour also told the meeting he had worked with Boyack at Student Job Search about 25 years ago and considered her a good person.
Campaign issues raised at the Nelson meeting
Seymour told the audience the Upper South Island faced ‘real problems’ with healthcare, describing emergency departments and waiting lists in stark terms. He blamed Labour leader Chris Hipkins’s record as health minister and said the health system was still absorbing the replacement of district health boards by Health New Zealand. Those were Seymour’s political assessments, as reported by RNZ.
Seymour also pointed to a recent 1News poll as evidence that the election would be close. He said ACT planned to balance the books by the end of the decade without new taxes. Audience questions covered pay equity, employment, conservation, farming research and development, the Treaty Principles Bill and energy generation. Before the meeting ended, Seymour encouraged attendees to share their views and seek more party votes for ACT.
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Sources and context
- David Seymour endorses National candidate in Nelson electorate raceRNZ; report by Samantha Gee
- Events - ACT New ZealandACT New Zealand
AI-assisted article checked against the listed sources. NewsJaws did not conduct interviews or attend the reported events.