A prominent partnership schools manager has claimed that government partnership school champion David Seymour attempted to dissuade him from airing his concerns about the sector in writing to avoid their reaching the public domain. In an opinion piece published today on The Spinoff, Alwyn Poole, academic manager of Mt Hobson Middle School, says that David … Read more
There was a lot of love between the politicians kicking off the campaign with a debate at Auckland University last night, and then it got ugly. Toby Manhire relives the good and the bad of it all. If the curtain-raising set-piece in election year presages the 2017 campaign proper, we can expect an engaging, amicable … Read more
MPs on all sides have embarrassed themselves in their ignorance of Uber and similar services. The simplest, cheapest way to tackle traffic gridlock is for the ruling party to abandon its timorous don’t-rock-the-boat attitude, writes ACT leader David Seymour. I sometimes joke that my parliamentary colleagues aren’t in their current job because they got bored … Read more
The Spinoff’s magical interns Katie Parker and River Lin spent an evening gobbling fish and listening to people talk about death. Here they converse via email about what they learned about David Seymour, assisted suicide and their own mortality. Katie: River! So last night you and I were fortunate enough to attend a pretty exciting … Read more
Opposition among disabled people to assisted suicide stems from long experience of encountering negative attitudes and human rights abuses, writes Robyn Hunt. I assure David Seymour that assisted suicide is a really big and complicated deal. It is no coincidence that disabled people all over the world oppose it. Our opposition arises from a (largely … Read more
Senior ministers just want the assisted dying issue to go away. But for people like Rachel Rypma, legislation could not be more important, writes David Seymour. At first I thought the issue of legalising assisted dying would be a really big deal. One of those major culture war type battles like gay marriage or the … Read more
David Seymour has thrown his member’s bill into the parliamentary hat. But the legislation currently being debated in Canada differs in some important ways, writes Andrew Geddis. The case of Lecretia Seales last year brought to prominence the issue of doctor assisted suicide/aid in dying (it’s a telling sign of how divided views are that … Read more
A pantheon of observers of New Zealand politics were asked to cast their minds over 2015, select champs and flops, ups and downs, and the story to look out for in 2016. Today, Part One: The Champs. We asked our experts to rank the three best performing individuals in politics for 2015. Below, read the … Read more
David Seymour rode to the rescue of publicans and pub-loving rugby fans a couple of months back when he introduced a bill enabling licensed premises to open for World Cup screenings in the early, very early and very, very early morning. Toby Manhire catches up with the one-man ACT caucus over breakfast, beer and All … Read more