David Breen Seymour (born 24 June 1983) is a New Zealand politician who has served as the 21st deputy prime minister of New Zealand since 2025 and as the 1st minister for regulation since 2023. A member of the ACT Party, he has served as its leader and as the member of parliament for Epsom since 2014. Typically classified as a right-libertarian populist, Seymour has liberal views on freedom of choice and economic policy, and conversely majoritarian and reactionary views on New Zealand civic nationalism and indigenous rights.
Seymour spent his early years in Whangārei and joined the ACT Party while studying at the University of Auckland. Following his graduation in 2006, he worked in the engineering industry. Subsequently, he worked for conservative think tanks in Canada during the 2000s, and was linked to the Atlas Network. He stood unsuccessfully for election to the New Zealand House of Representatives in 2005 and 2011, before being elected in as ACT's sole MP. He then replaced Jamie Whyte as party leader.
Seymour was re-elected in , returning as ACT's sole MP. In , he led ACT to one of its best results in the general election, winning ten seats and retaining his Epsom electorate. He was chiefly responsible for the End of Life Choice Act 2019, which decriminalised euthanasia in New Zealand via referendum in 2020. In the 2023 general election, Seymour was re-elected and the ACT Party increased its representation to 11 seats. This was the best result in the party's history, with the party picking up an extra electorate seat in Tāmaki. ACT subsequently formed a coalition government with the National and New Zealand First parties. Under the coalition arrangement, the position of deputy prime minister was split between Winston Peters and Seymour. Peters served until 31 May 2025, when he was succeeded by Seymour.
Seymour's views on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and the ACT Party's Treaty Principles Bill have led to major controversy in New Zealand. He is a strong opponent of co-governance with Māori, and as part of the current government he and ACT have proposed major changes to the principles through reinterpretation of the original Māori text of the Treaty of Waitangi. This includes the removal of any references to "partnership (co-governance)" (between the Crown and Māori) from the treaty's use in law and instead refer to "all New Zealanders". As per the coalition agreement, National and New Zealand First supported the bill to select committee. Ultimately, the bill was voted down on its second reading on 10 April 2025 by a vote of 11–112, with all ACT MPs voting in favour of the bill. Backlash to the proposals led to the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti, which formed one of the largest protests in New Zealand history.
Early life Seymour was born in Palmerston North on 24 June 1983. His family moved to Whangārei when he was a child. He is descended through his mother's father from a Māori great-great-great-grandmother, Maraea Te Inutoto, whose husband was Stephen Wrathall. Te Inutoto was from Tauwhara marae at Waimate North and a member of the Ngāti Rehia hapū of Ngāpuhi. The family's Māori ancestry was discovered through research by Seymour's great-uncles when he was seven years old. Seymour went to Auckland Grammar School and then the University of Auckland, where he graduated in 2006 with a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical & Electronic) and a Bachelor of Arts (Philosophy). He then worked in engineering. During the 2000s, Seymour worked for conservative think tanks in Canada for five years as a policy analyst. These think tanks include the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the Manning Centre. These think tanks are associated with the Atlas Network, which was noted by the former chairperson Debbi Gibbs. Seymour has consistently played down the influence to the organization.
Early political career
ACT activism and candidacy Seymour is a long-time member of ACT. He initially got involved through the student organisation ACT on Campus at Auckland University, of which he was president.
Seymour contested three elections before his eventual success in 2014. He first stood for ACT in in Mt Albert and was also ranked 37th on the party list. He was unsuccessful in the electorate, which was held by Helen Clark, the prime minister at the time, and with 1.51% of the party vote ACT returned only two members to parliament, leaving Seymour out. While living in Canada, Seymour contested the 2008 election for ACT as a list-only candidate, ranked 55th.
At the 2011 general election, Seymour stood for ACT in the electorate, but the electorate was retained by the National Party's Nikki Kaye. Seymour was ranked fifth on the party list, but with 1.07% of the party vote, ACT was unable to return any list MPs to parliament, and John Banks, who had retained the seat for ACT, was the party's only sitting member.
Path to leadership, 2011–2014 After the 2011 election, Seymour worked as a ministerial adviser for Banks, who was appointed an Associate Minister of Education for the John Key-led National government. Seymour assisted with the development of the government's Partnership Schools legislation. In late 2013, John Banks resigned from his ministerial positions following criminal charges in relation to electoral returns in his bid for the Auckland mayoralty in 2010. In June 2014 he announced he would resign from ACT Party leadership and not contest Epsom in the 2014 election.
In February 2014, at the same time that Jamie Whyte was made leader of the ACT Party, Seymour won the nomination to stand as the party's candidate for Epsom. The electorate had already proven strategically important for ACT. Seymour's selection for Epsom, over former deputy leader and party president John Boscawen, was described by political commentators as the "clean slate" choice and a "fresh face". Seymour was the first confirmed candidate for the Epsom electorate, and at an Epsom public meeting during his campaign he was described as "the most popular with the crowd" and "the star of the night, intelligent, witty and articulate".
During the 2014 election campaign, Seymour released a campaign video online which the ACT Party described as going "viral" after it received around 35,000 views. Seymour said of the video: "I think it was just totally real, we didn't set out to make it funny or make it a viral video, it was just me being me, that combination with rather retro production values ... you wouldn't want to watch it standing up." Seymour was endorsed for the Epsom electorate by Prime Minister John Key, despite Key's National colleague Paul Goldsmith also contesting the electorate.
Fifth National Government
First term (2014–2017) At the election, Seymour was elected for the Epsom electorate with a majority of 4,250 votes. Jamie Whyte did not win in his bid for the Pakuranga electorate, and Seymour replaced Whyte as the leader of ACT on 3 October 2014.
Ministerial portfolios National returned as a minority government with ACT in confidence and supply in 2014, and Seymour was appointed parliamentary under-secretary to the Minister of Education and Minister of Regulatory Reform on 29 September 2014, as a result of National's confidence and supply agreement with ACT. Seymour was given responsibility for partnership schools, and reforms to the Resource Management Act 1991 and other regulation.
In October 2015, a Labour Party member's bill to make parliamentary under-secretaries subject to the Official Information Act passed its first reading in Parliament. Seymour accused the bill of personally attacking him, and said it was not necessary because under-secretaries did not have decision-making powers. Nonetheless, Seymour was one of 109 members of Parliament who voted in favour of the legislation at its third reading in June 2016.
Contracts in the second round of applications for charter (partnership) schools were completed on 11 September 2014. In January 2016, the contract was terminated for a Northland charter school from the first round, Te Pūmanawa o te Wairua. Seymour continued to support the policy and push for more charter schools to be established.
End of Life Choice Bill
On 6 June 2015, Seymour confirmed that he was preparing a member's bill known as the End of Life Choice Bill that would legalise assisted dying. This bill was in response to the decision in Seales v Attorney-General that stated only parliament had the ability to address assisted suicide laws. On 14 October 2015, Seymour lodged the End of Life Choice Bill into the member's ballot, launched a website promoting his bill, and released an ACT-commissioned poll of 2800 people showing 66% public support in favour of legalising assisted dying. The bill passed its first reading 76–44 in December 2017 and its second reading 70–50 in June 2019. In the committee of the whole House, support from the New Zealand First party became conditional on a referendum to decide whether the law should come into force. An amendment to require a referendum passed 69–51, and the bill passed its third reading with the same numbers on 13 November. The bill received royal assent on 16 November 2019, becoming the End of Life Choice Act 2019. A referendum was held on 17 October 2020. The vote was held in conjunction with the 2020 general election, and official results were released on 6 November 2020. It was accepted by New Zealand voters, with 65.1% in support and 33.7% opposed.
Sale and Supply of Alcohol legislation In August 2015, Seymour introduced a member's bill to allow bars and rugby clubs to extend their bar trading hours when they are televising games from the Rugby World Cup. Most games, due to the time difference between New Zealand and England, started between 4 am and 6 am New Zealand Time, meaning that alcohol would not usually have been allowed to be sold. Despite opposition from the Green Party and the Māori Party, Seymour's bill passed all three readings, meaning that bars and rugby clubs were allowed to open for Rugby World Cup games.
LGBTI cross-party group In 2015, Seymour became a member of a cross-party group initiated by Jan Logie to look at and advocate for LGBTI rights. The group also included: Catherine Delahunty (Green), Chris Bishop (National), Denis O'Rourke (NZ First), Denise Roche (Green), James Shaw (Green), Kevin Hague (Green), Louisa Wall (Labour), Nanaia Mahuta (Labour), Paul Foster-Bell (National), and Trevor Mallard (Labour).
In Opposition (2017–2023)
Second term (2017–2020)
Seymour was re-elected to Parliament for Epsom in the 2017 general election as the sole ACT Member of Parliament.
End of Life Choice Act
On 8 June 2017, Seymour's bill was selected from the members' ballot. The bill was debated at its first reading on 13 December 2017, and passed with 76 votes in favour and 44 against. It was then reviewed by the Justice Select Committee. It reappeared before the House for a second reading on 26 June 2019 and passed, with 70 votes in favour, 50 opposed. An amendment to the bill, which included the requirement that it be approved by a binding referendum before it would take effect, passed prior to its third reading with 63 votes in favour and 57 opposed. The bill reappeared before the House and passed its third reading on 13 November 2019 with 69 votes in favour and 51 votes against.
In an interview on the day of the third reading, Seymour said that he was confident that the public would vote to put the act into law, noting that "there was overwhelming support and it should easily pass the referendum." The act was approved in the 2020 New Zealand euthanasia referendum, which was held in conjunction with the 2020 general election, with a 65.91% of voters in favour of the act.
Gun control