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Summarised by Centrist
Former National candidate James Christmas, who was previously seen as a possible future minister and Attorney-General, will contest this year’s election as an ACT candidate.
He is one of eight people seeking ACT’s nomination in Tāmaki, the Auckland seat being vacated by Brooke van Velden.
Christmas, a barrister who worked under Chris Finlayson and later advised John Key and Bill English, said the move was a “positive decision” rather than a rejection of National.
After missing out on Parliament in 2023, he said he returned to politics in 2025 after discussions with figures including Richard Prebble and Roger Douglas. He described himself as a “classical liberal” and said ACT’s positions on individual liberty, property rights, equal citizenship and the smaller state helped draw him across.
ACT leader David Seymour welcomed the move and said Christmas could hold a leadership role in future. Seymour also said Christmas brings “intellectual grunt” to constitutional issues, including Treaty matters and the relationship between courts and government. Christmas has co-authored a book with Finlayson on Treaty settlements and said Treaty principles had been “sprinkled like confetti” through legislation, often leaving officials and courts to fill in the gaps. He said Parliament should take a proper look at those provisions after 40 years.
Editor’s note: Some of Christmas’ public record suggests he appears to come from the Finlayson tradition: not obviously hostile to all forms of co-governance. Some public statements suggest he is amenable to the settlement-era local and environmental kind of co-governance. The final section of his book co-authored with Chris Finlayson discusses the future of the Māori-Crown “partnership” established over several decades, including Māori land reform and freshwater. That may surprise some ACT supporters.
Read more over at The NZ Herald
Image: NZ Law Society
