How do you solve a problem like David Seymour? | Raw Politics | Newsroom

This week on the Raw Politics podcast: By the time David Seymour's Treaty principles bill is over, he'll be Deputy Prime Minister as well as coalition mischief-maker in chief.

Christopher Luxon must wake up some days with the Sound of Music song of exasperation playing in his head. How does he deal with the problem of Act leader David Seymour and his will-o-the-wisp coalition contrarianism?

Newsroom political editor Laura Walters, senior political reporter Marc Daalder and co-editor Tim Murphy discuss Seymour's carefully calibrated political agitation, externally on the Treaty Principles Bill and internally in the coalition, sticking his Act Party's view into other minister's portfolios, other parties' business.

We ask if Seymour will put aside any of the party politicking when he ascends to the deputy premiership in April, or if, buoyed by the platform gained by advancing the principles bill to a select committee, he will continue haunting Luxon's dreams.

Politics doesn't come any bigger globally than Wednesday's presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and the Raw Politics panel assess the fallout, and the media and social media verdicts on an historic face-off.

The most menacing TV debate politician of the age was undone, this time, by someone who had practised hard, picked her targets and stuck relentlessly to her plan.

Our reader question asks where and why public servants have been made to sign additional Non-Disclosure Agreements under this Government. The panel has fears for growing secrecy in the machinery of state.

Finally, the panelists recommend something to read, listen to or watch on the weekend ahead:

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This week's recommendations:

Laura: Andrea Vance’s latest piece in The Post on the $410k spend on contractors and consultants at the Ministry for Regulation:

Tim: RNZ’s Eloise Gibson’s report on Climate minister Simon Watts distinguishing between ‘coal and coal’ to defend opening up to mining

Marc: A piece by the second-best writer with the surname Daalder, in The Atlantic on the US election

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