Leader of ACT New Zealand

The leader of ACT New Zealand is the highest-ranked political position within ACT New Zealand. The current leader is David Seymour, who became the leader in October 2014. He is the longest serving Act Leader, serving more than 10 years as of 2024.

Leader of ACT New Zealand
Incumbent David Seymour since 4 October 2014
Type	Party leader
Formation	1994
First holder	Roger Douglas
Deputy	Deputy Leader of ACT New Zealand
Website	https://www.act.org.nz

The leader is appointed by the party board. The leader is not required to be a member of parliament; when the leader is a member of parliament, the party constitution states that the leader is responsible for "the supervision, co-ordination and conduct of the Party’s activities in Parliament."^[1] The leader serves until they resign or the board removes them.

The party leader and deputy party leader are ex officio members of the ACT board. The board consists of a maximum of thirteen members, consisting of regional representatives, party MPs, the party president, party vice-president, the party treasurer, and others at the discretion of the board.^[2]

List of leaders

No.	Leader	Portrait	Electorate	List placement[a]		Term start	Term end	Elections contested
1	Roger Douglas (b. 1937)		None (was previously a Labour MP; re-elected as the third-ranked ACT list MP in the 2008 election, after leadership term)			1994	24 March 1996	None
2	Richard Prebble (b. 1948)		Wellington Central	1st	1996–1999	26 March 1996	13 June 2004	1996 1999 2002
			List		1999–2005
3	Rodney Hide (b. 1956)		List	7th	1996–1999	13 June 2004	28 April 2011	2005 2008
				5th	1999–2002
				2nd	2002–2005
			Epsom	1st	2005–2010
4	Don Brash (b. 1940)		None (was previously leader of National; was first on the ACT party list for the 2011 election but ACT did not gain enough party votes)			28 April 2011	26 November 2011	2011
5	John Banks (b. 1946)		Epsom	4th	2011–2014	15 February 2012	2 February 2014	None
6	Jamie Whyte (b. 1965/1966)		None (was first on party list for the 2014 election but ACT did not gain enough party votes)			2 February 2014	3 October 2014	2014
7	David Seymour (b. 1983)		Epsom	None	2014–2017	4 October 2014	incumbent	2017 2020 2023
				1st	2017–present

Timeline

See also

• Leader of the New Zealand National Party
• Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party
• Co-leaders of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
• Co-leaders of Te Pāti Māori
• Libertarianism

Footnotes

1. List placement sources^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]}