ACT New Zealand (), also known as the ACT Party or simply ACT, is a right-wing, classical liberal, right-libertarian, and conservative political party in New Zealand. It is currently led by David Seymour.
ACT is an acronym of the name of the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, a pressure group that was founded in 1993 by former National Party MP Derek Quigley and former Labour Party MP Roger Douglas, who served as minister of finance under the Fourth Labour Government. Douglas' neoliberal economic policies, dubbed Rogernomics, transformed New Zealand's economy from a protectionist one into a free market through extensive deregulation.
After Labour lost the 1990 election and its neoliberal faction lost influence, ACT was built mostly by Douglas' former party supporters as a new political party for 1996. The introduction of proportional representation gave minor parties a greatly increased chance of getting into parliament. Former Labour MP Richard Prebble won the safe Labour seat of Wellington Central and led ACT to win 6% of the vote in the first MMP election. He continued as ACT party leader from after the election until 2004 when he was succeeded by Rodney Hide. ACT was briefly led by former National Party leader Don Brash for the 2011 election, after which the party caucus was reduced to one seat. It continued as a single-MP party based out of the Epsom electorate until 2020.
ACT supported the Fifth National Government in confidence and supply from to 2017. It is currently one of the three parties in the National-led coalition government established in 2023.
History
Formation The name comes from the initials of the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, founded in 1993 by Sir Roger Douglas and Derek Quigley. Douglas and Quigley intended the Association to serve as a pressure-group promoting Rogernomics—the name given to the radical free-market policies implemented by Douglas as Minister of Finance between 1984 and 1988. The Association grew out of the 'Backbone club', a ginger group in the Labour Party that supported Douglas and his policies. In 1996, New Zealand switched to using the MMP electoral system. The new electoral system gave smaller groups a much better chance of entering Parliament, and encouraged the Association to transform into a political party and contest elections. The nascent party's manifesto was based upon a book written by Douglas entitled Unfinished Business. Douglas served as ACT's first leader, but soon stood aside for Richard Prebble (his old ally from their days in the Labour Party).
1996–2004: Prebble's leadership
Under Douglas, ACT had languished at 1% in opinion polls, but with Prebble's populist rhetoric the party increased in support. In the , ACT fielded 56 list candidates. Prebble won the electorate, and with 6.10% of the total party vote, ACT also sent seven list MPs to the 45th New Zealand Parliament.
In the , ACT obtained 7.04% of the party vote, making it eligible for nine list MPs.
In the , ACT obtained 7.14% of the party vote, making it eligible for nine list MPs.
On 2 December 2004, both Douglas and Quigley announced that they would step down as patrons of ACT. They stated as the reason that they wished to have more freedom to disagree with the party publicly.
2005 election Prebble's sudden departure from the leadership of ACT in 2004 signalled a decline in the party's electoral fortunes. Rodney Hide led ACT into the . It obtained 1.51% of the party vote, but due to Hide winning the seat of Epsom, it did not need to obtain the necessary 5% threshold of the party vote. This was only enough to allow one list MP Heather Roy, to join Hide in parliament.
2008–2011: First term in government In the 2008 New Zealand general election, ACT fielded 61 list candidates, starting with Rodney Hide, Heather Roy, Sir Roger Douglas, John Boscawen, David Garrett and Hilary Calvert. The election marked an improvement in ACT's fortunes. Hide retained his Epsom seat and ACT's share of the party vote increased to 3.65% (up from the 1.5% gained in the 2005 election). The combination allowed the party five MPs in total.
In addition, the National Party won the most seats overall, forming a minority government, the Fifth National Government of New Zealand, with the support of ACT as well as the Māori Party and United Future. John Key offered both Hide and Roy posts as Ministers outside Cabinet: Hide became Minister of Local Government, Minister for Regulatory Reform and Associate Minister of Commerce, while Roy became Minister of Consumer Affairs, Associate Minister of Defence and Associate Minister of Education.
After 2008, some caucus MPs and organisational members became dissatisfied with ACT's coalition partner status and argued at ACT's national conference (27 February 2010) that there were insufficient fiscal responsibility policy gains for their party and that the National Party had slid from its earlier commitment to the politics of fiscal responsibility over the course of the previous decade. Throughout 2009, there had been at least one reported ACT caucus coup attempt against Hide's leadership, believed to have been led by Deputy Leader Heather Roy and Roger Douglas. However, it faltered when Prime Minister Key supported Hide's retention and threatened a snap election. In addition, the party's polling of a lowly one to two percent in most opinion polls meant only Heather Roy might accompany Hide after any forthcoming general election, if Hide retained ACT's Epsom pivotal electorate seat.
On 28 April 2011, Hide announced that he was resigning the ACT leadership in favour of former National Party leader and Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash who joined the party that morning. Brash's leadership was unanimously approved by the party board and parliamentary caucus on 30 April. Brash promised to focus the party on controlling government debt, equality between Māori and non-Māori, and rethinking the Emissions Trading Scheme, with a target of getting 15 percent of the party vote in the next election.
In November 2011, a recording of a conversation held between John Key and the former National Party member and former Mayor of Auckland City John Banks, who had been selected as the new ACT candidate in Epsom, was leaked to Herald on Sunday. 3 News also obtained copies of the recording suggesting the two politicians were discussing issues related to ACT New Zealand's leadership. Media dubbed the affair teapot tape.
2011 election: Decline In the 2011 New Zealand general election, ACT fielded 55 list candidates, starting with new leader Don Brash, Catherine Isaac, Don Nicolson, John Banks, David Seymour and Chris Simmons. The election was a disappointment for ACT, with the party's worst election result since it began in 1996. John Banks retained the Epsom seat for ACT, however the 34.2% majority held by Rodney Hide was severely cut back to 6.3% as large numbers of Labour and Green voters in Epsom tactically split their vote and gave their electorate vote to the National candidate Paul Goldsmith. Nationwide, ACT received only 1.07% of the party vote, placing eighth out of 13 on party vote percentage. As a result, ACT were only entitled to one seat in the new Parliament, filled by John Banks. Subsequently, Don Brash announced that he had stepped down as leader during his speech on election night. Following the 2011 general election John Banks stated that he believed that the ACT brand "...just about had its use-by date..." and needed to be renamed and relaunched.
Their previous partners, the National Party, again won the most seats overall, and formed a minority government. The Fifth National Government of New Zealand had ACT support as well as that of United Future and the Māori Party, providing the coalition with confidence and supply.
2014 election
ACT leader John Banks announced in December of 2013 that he would retire at the next election and stand down as party leader, to focus on contesting allegations of electoral fraud in court. Three candidates declared their intention to replace Banks: John Boscawen and Jamie Whyte stood to replace him both as ACT leader and Epsom candidate, while David Seymour only stood for the latter role. In February 2014, the ACT board announced they had selected Whyte as the party's leader and Seymour as their candidate for Epsom. Whyte, who had only recently returned to the country, had a degree in philosophy and was a noted writer and columnist in Britain. Seymour first stood for the party in 2005, and was employed by a Canadian think tank at the time of his selection. Boscawen had strongly opposed selecting separate candidates for the leadership and Epsom, and resigned as party president after the announcement.
Later in the month, Whyte stated to the blog The Ruminator that he did not believe consensual incestuous relationships should be illegal. Whyte initially defended his statement, which he said did not reflect party policy. However, Whyte said the following day that he had regretted the comments.
At the party's conference in March, Whyte announced ACT's support for a three strikes policy for burglary, and for reviewing and replacing the Resource Management Act. A new yellow logo was also introduced for the party. Kenneth Wang, previously a list MP for ACT, was elected as the deputy leader by the party board in April. Whyte said in July that he would stand in the Pakuranga electorate, although he would only campaign for the party vote.
In late July, Whyte called for the abolition of laws based on race, saying that Māori enjoyed legal privilege akin to that of the aristocracy in pre-revolutionary France. Susan Devoy, the Race Relations Commissioner, described Whyte's statement as "grotesque and inflammatory". Whyte called for her resignation in response, describing Devoy's comment as electoral interference, and for the abolition of the Race Relations Commissioner. He named Fiji's removal of race-based laws as a prospective model for New Zealand. Whyte's comments on race relations caused Guy McCallum, an ACT board member and candidate in Dunedin North, to resign from the party.
At the 2014 election, Seymour won the Epsom electorate, but ACT's party vote of 0.69% was not high enough to elect a list MP. National Party leader and prime minister John Key had encouraged his party's supporters in Epsom to vote for Seymour. Most National party voters in Epsom followed his recommendation and split their vote, with 60 per cent giving their candidate vote to Seymour.
ACT agreed to support the National government for a third term, with Seymour being named parliamentary under-secretary to the education and regulatory reform ministers. Whyte resigned as party leader on 3 October, and was replaced by Seymour.
2017–2020 term: resurgence Wang resigned as deputy leader on 9 July 2017, the same day ACT released its party list; Beth Houlbrooke was announced as his replacement.
The party list had 39 candidates, none of whom were elected. While Seymour retained the Epsom electorate, entitling him to a seat in parliament, ACT received 0.5% of the party vote, its worst result to date. Following the 2017 election, Seymour considered rebranding the party to the Liberals. Amidst this, Seymour visited Berlin in 2018 as a guest of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which is affiliated to the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Ideologically similar to ACT, the FDP had lost its seats in Germany's Bundestag in 2013, but returned at the 2017 election after a rebrand. In June 2019, ACT changed its party logo to closely resemble the FDP's, with the addition of the colour magenta.