David Seymour: On mullets, spooning Gerry Brownlee and the best way to open a beer

Editor’s Note: These quotes are all 100% real, as weird as they are. Massive doesn’t endorse David’s platform, hence why we just gave him shit-posting questions and called it a day. Better we distract him than let him run off to NZ Herald where they, God forbid, let him talk about politics.  

You’ve probably all seen David Seymour’s grin in the media. Leader of the ACT party in Parliament and MP for Epsom, his name is widely known in the political field. In the last couple of weeks, David began his ‘Campus Freedom Tour’ around numerous university campuses in New Zealand. His purpose for this tour is stated as to “show the only way to live healthier, wealthier lives is to embrace free markets, free minds, and personal freedom”. Lol. Anyway, whilst on the Manawatū campus for Massey, Massive decided to have a wee yarn with the man, the myth, the legend.  

Politically? David Seymour and I aren’t exactly on the same page. But emotionally? The chemistry was unreal. As soon as I got the call from a random number and heard his voice on the other end asking where to find me, I knew this was the start of something beautiful. Yup, I have Daddy Seymour’s number in my phone, what a flex. 

We kicked it off with some pretty casual convo, just introducing him to the magazine and such, which he responded, “At least 60% of your messages are about drugs.” [Editor’s note: he’s not wrong and I’m not mad about it.] But, alas, he did not seem impressed. I wasn’t interested in getting heated over marijuana (make it legal though), so I diverted quickly to David’s favourite topic: himself.  

Now, there’s much more to David than you may think. He might look like he’s all suit and tie, but he knows how to get his hands dirty. If he wasn’t in politics, he’d “probably be wiring pumping stations in the outback of Australi”’ as a qualified electrical engineer. Not gonna lie, I would not have pegged David for the tradie type. He also said his hidden talent used to be opening beers with a fish slice (spatula, for all you normal people), telling me, “You could just show up to parties with a fish slice in your back pocket, and it just added a super amount of randomness.” A man who knows what to do with his hands. Kinda hot. 

He’s not just good with his hands, but his feet proved him to be an excellent mover on Dancing with the Stars in 2018. I couldn’t resist bringing up the topic fairly quickly, earning a glance from David to his watch and sighing “nine minutes in”, followed by an awkward laugh. However, he did say that while he wouldn’t return, it was a great experience. “I probably wouldn’t do it again, it happened at a time and place, but what it showed me was a really positive side of New Zealand. So, here’s this guy, clearly can’t dance, is completely hopeless at the task, but never gives up and keeps giving it a go, and something about that captured a lot of hearts and minds.” He also offered to be my mentor if I ever got offered to go on the show, which tbh I don’t think I’d need. I won best dancer at my Year 10 social for a reason.  

Like I said, me and David had instant chemistry. It wasn’t hard to get him talking about a bunch of random shit. I got disappointed when he said he wasn’t exploring the student culture in Palmy due to being 37 and feeling “a little bit old”. He did however make an excellent point, saying “How do you feel, like is it a bit seedy?” when he asked about people his age being in town, which I had to agree with. Upon discussing lockdown hobbies, David wondered “is it too late for the sourdough thing?”, seeing as in the last lockdown he was far too busy for any hobbies. “I’d been putting letters in people’s mailboxes for six years saying ‘if you ever have a problem, give me a call’ and they all did.” You might have to be pretty fucking desperate to give David a call, but lockdown will make people do anything.  

Now, David’s view on mullets was definitely one that I’d never heard before. He believed everyone should have a mullet once. “It’s about empathy. So, a lot of people don’t have empathy for mullet wearers. And I feel that if everyone had one at some point of their life, then they’d know like ‘I’ve been there’ or ‘I will be there at some point in my life’ and I think just a lot more love would break out, if everyone were obliged to have one. I think mullets should be something everyone does once.” 

When I told him my eight-year-old brother has a mullet, David said “it’ll make him a kinder person”. I’m from Gore. Some of the mullet-wearers down there are the nastiest bunch I’ve ever met. It’s hard to believe that hairstyle will make someone kinder, but okay David, pop off.  

I ended our chat with the classic game of “Kiss, Marry, Kill”, choosing a fine selection of political figures within New Zealand: Gerry Brownlee, Ashley Bloomfield, and James Shaw. I was gonna go shag, but after a warning from my editor that David can be unbearably awkward, I decided I simply did not have the emotional capacity to deal with that.  

Firstly, he chose Gerry for the kiss for a number of reasons, such as “he’d be great for a cuddle” and “I don’t think you could kill him”. I would genuinely pay to watch a livestream of Gerry and David snuggling. Lowkey would be kinda cute. Ashley Bloomfield was the choice to marry, which I wholeheartedly agreed with cos he’s 100% husband material. However, David said he would marry him because his shirts are always perfectly ironed; “he’s a drycleaner’s dream”. Nothing turns someone on more than a crisply ironed shirt. 

And of course, that leaves James Shaw for the kill. David Seymour, wanting to kill the Green MP? How surprising. David was pretty nonchalant about the choice, claiming that James Shaw has already made it and “he’d die happy, he’s got the Zero Carbon Act”. David ended the chat with possibly my favourite quote out of the whole interview. “He’s fucked the economy, that’s all the Green MP needs to do and he’s done it.” Oh David, you say the darndest things, you cheeky thing. Problematic, sure, but let’s gloss over that for the sake of everyone’s sanity.  

The interview revealed a lot about David that I would never have guessed: qualified engineer, can open beers with a fish slice, is a huge fan of mullets. Sounds like the typical tradie my mates would froth over on Tinder. Although I started off with extreme nervousness thinking it was gonna be clumsy small talk for half an hour, I walked away satisfied to know David on such an intimate level. Not only did I now have his phone number, but he also said I could claim he’s my cousin since we’re both from Ngāpuhi. I’d rather him be my daddy, but I guess my cousin is good enough.