The casual disdain of Seymour's "jandal makers" slip

The only worthy pursuits in ACT’s Aotearoa are those which create value and profit for Seymour’s “Change Makers”. Jandal makers and home bakers need not apply.

I had Seymour’s State of the Nation Address on in the background at work today. I didn’t really want to listen or watch as I thought I would probably just end up being annoyed but figured I may as well.

The speech is nothing special or that different from what you’d expect from ACT and Seymour. And despite it being leaked that Seymour was expected to “blow open” the privatisation debate, he only talked about privatisation briefly.

As for the rest of the speech, the usual touchstones were there. How bad Labour was, government debt, lack of economic opportunity, the need for fewer regulations and less “red tape”, the need to define the Treaty Principles. This is Seymour and ACT’s bread and butter.

But it was the framing of the speech and one particular line that caught my ear.

Seymour used his speech to argue that New Zealand is at a tipping point and what we do in the next few years will determine which “invisible tribe” the country is run by: the “Change Makers” or the “Majority for Mediocrity.”

Seymour’s Change Makers are

People who act out the pioneering spirit that built our country every day. We don’t just believe it is possible to make a difference in our own lives; we believe it’s an obligation.

Change makers load up their mortgage to start a business and give other people jobs. They work the land to feed the world. They save up and buy a home that they maintain for someone else to live in. They study hard to extend themselves. They volunteer and help out where they can. They take each person as they find them. They don’t need to know your ancestry before they know how to treat you.

Too often, they get vilified for all of the above. I know there’s many people like that in this room today. ACT people are Change Makers; we carry the pioneering spirit in our hearts.

On the other hand, the Majority for Mediocrity are people who

would love nothing more than to go into lockdown again, make some more sourdough, and worry about the billions in debt another day.

They blame one of the most successful societies in history for every problem they have. They believe that ancestry is destiny. They believe people are responsible for things that happened before they were born, but criminals aren’t responsible for what they did last week.

Far from believing people can make a difference in their own lives, they believe that their troubles are caused by other people’s success. They look for politicians who’ll cut tall poppies down – politicians who say to young New Zealanders ‘if you study hard, get good grades, get a good job, save money, and invest wisely, we'll tax you harder’.

This is typical rightwing moralising. Change makers believe in themselves and use their agency to make a difference (nevermind that all of the activities he lists are rent-taking or profit-making ventures). The Majority for Mediocrity on the other hand want to stay home, do nothing, and live off of other people’s hard work.

Nothing new to see here. But a few minutes later in the speech, Seymour makes a rare rhetorical slip-up. It reveals something fundamental about his and ACT’s worldview. It lets the carefully-curated mask slip and reveals the callous, disdainful face beneath. It puts the lie to all the talk about equality and opportunity for everyone.

In fact, Seymour or his handlers thought the remark potentially-damaging enough to scrub it from the official transcript.

The remark comes when Seymour is talking about how many Kiwis are leaving for Australia. He infers that these are all Change Makers who are tired of not being rewarded for their hard work.

And every time more Change Makers leave, that puts the country even closer to being taken over by the Majority for Mediocrity. These are the hard leftists. Of this crisis, Seymour states

New Zealanders who leave for Australia are tipping us towards a Majority for Mediocrity. Motivated New Zealanders leaving is good news for the shoplifters, conspiracy theorists, and hollow men who make up the political opposition.

It’s here that Seymour makes his slip. In the original speech, at the 18:24 mark, instead of “hollow men”, he says “jandal makers.” There is an audible murmur when he says this.

Seems like kind of a weird and silly thing to say. Jandal makers? Why would jandal makers be in the leftist opposition? Jandal makers are probably just as industrious and hardworking as anyone else. They provide a necessary service: making shoes. And they probably get satisfaction and fulfillment out of their work.

But that’s the reason that this slip-up is so revealing and had to be scrubbed. It reveals something about the kind of work that Seymour and other right-wingers value. They only value productivity that provides value and profits.

Seymour can’t conceive of a society where people engage in work simply for the satisfaction of it, rather than being productive in the service of profit-making. That’s why his description of Change Makers focuses on work that turns a profit even though he frames it as providing a service.

What’s more, people who wish to live in a society that allows them to stay home and make bread or be a shoe cobbler aren’t just unproductive. They are enemies. Political opponents. Sponges who only want to live on the dole instead of fulfilling their responsibility to society to be productive. And there is no place for them in Seymour’s New Zealand.

This is the casual disdain that animates Seymour’s worldview. Change Makers are better and more worthy of success than others. In fact their wealth and success is evidence of their Change Maker bona fides. Anyone who is unable, or does not want to run the capitalist rat race is mediocre by nature and worthy of the utmost disdain.

This is, at its heart, a callous, cruel, small, selfish, and exploitative view of society. Strip away all of the flowery rhetoric and what you are left with is the belief that wealthy people are inherently better than others.

That’s why the “jandal makers” comment was scrubbed from his speech. That’s the society that Seymour believes in and that’s the vision he offers to New Zealand.

I’ll take a society with more bread bakers and jandal makers. Thanks anyway.