DESPITE CLAIMING that he wants a free and open debate on his Treaty Principles Bill, ACT leader David Seymour has spent the last several days 'playing the man, rather than the ball'. Among others, Seymour has attacked former National Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, former National Attorney General Chris Finlayson, Labour's Willie Jackson, Green co-leader Chloe Swarbrick and various members of Te Pati Maori. Even RNZ journalists have been targeted by Seymour, for daring to have an opinion he doesn't agree with.
David Seymour has done himself no favours and he is beginning to sound like a politician under real pressure. Perhaps he underestimated the response that his bill would provoke. Within the insulated environment of Parliament Seymour is a big fish in a little pond. Anyone who has watched him in Parliament knows that he enjoys playing to the gallery. Many of us would probably agree with former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern that he's an 'arrogant prick'. The difficulty for Seymour though he has lit the fuse that has sparked the mass movement, the hikoi, that is bearing down on Parliament today. And he doesn't like it.
Sometimes, maybe most of the time, Parliament is seen as a powerful institution impervious to the needs and demands of the people it claims to represent. Today's hikoi reminds us that, even when faced with the formidable forces of capital, political power and the corporate media, when we stand up and organise, when we speak out together, real change is possible.
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