Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has ruled out any government rescue for Orana Wildlife Park, saying taxpayers should not be asked to keep it open.

The Christchurch park faces possible closure if it cannot raise the money it needs.

“I’ll start by saying I love lions and big cats. I’ve got a lot of time for them. But the government can’t do everything,” the ACT leader told Chris Lynch Media.

The test, he said, was where the line gets drawn.

“If the government’s going to save this particular thing, what is the government not responsible for? In my view, you can’t have a government that taxes people to pay for wildlife parks.”

“There’s things the government does need to do. We need the government to do sewers and roads and police, keep people basically safe so that they can decide whether they want to build and visit wildlife parks. It’s not the government’s job to fund wildlife parks.”

Seymour was equally blunt about the National Party’s supermarket policy, which he has described as desperate and visionless.

Breaking up Foodstuffs would leave the Australian owned Woolworths untouched, he said.

“They’re not going to go after Woolworths because we have an agreement with Australia called Closer Economic Relations, and part of that is that neither government will attack businesses from the other country. So that’s a non-starter.”

He said he understood why voters were angry.

“People have had a pretty tough six, seven years. People’s wages have barely kept up with prices, and because everyone obviously needs food, one of the things people are angriest at is the food market and the supermarkets, because that’s where you go and you hand over the money twice a week.”

“A lot of people are saying to the ACT party, when’s the ACT party going to really crack down on the supermarkets? And if we were a party that was just driven by focus groups, then we’d come out with some policy saying yeah, we’ll beat them up, we’ll break them up, we’ll control their prices or whatever. Every other party is now saying something like that. Why are we different? Because we know that it won’t actually work.”

By National’s own numbers the saving would be about $2.38 a week, Seymour said, which is roughly what a year of food price inflation has already taken off a $125 grocery bill.

“I just saw someone comment online. They said, well, if you use your loyalty card you can save that much.”

“If you read the research it says, well, we don’t really know, it’s a bit of a guess. And it could be that breaking up these businesses will be so disruptive it’ll force the prices higher. So even the best case scenario is not very good, and you might not even get that, and worst case scenario it could be worse still.”

He drew a comparison with the ban on oil and gas exploration, and said the supermarket proposal went further.

“With the oil and gas the government just said we won’t give you any more permits. With this they’re saying we’re going to attack the business you’ve already got. It’s pretty wild stuff. I’m pretty surprised from the National Party.”

“It feels like the ACT party is now occupying the space the National Party should occupy, and that is protecting people’s right to invest and do business and be protected by the law in this country.”

Asked whether National was panicking, Seymour said the party was hard to read.

“They seem to be taking a lot of different positions, and it is sometimes hard to see where it’s coming from.”

ACT wants the minimum wage frozen for three years. Asked why a worker on the minimum wage should accept that while the cost of living rises, Seymour did not soften it.

“Because it’s not the government’s job to give people a rise in wages.”

Wage growth came from new ideas, more skilled workers and investment, he said.

“A baker with a bigger oven can bake more bread and they get paid more. It’s that simple. And this whole idea that people get paid more because the government makes a law, well, if that was true, hell, I’d make it $50. But it’s not true.”

The freeze was aimed at people who cannot get a start, he said, pointing to the 15 percent of 15 to 24 year olds not in employment, education or training.

“One out of every six of those young people are sitting there saying I need experience to get a job, but I need a job to get experience. I can’t get a start.”

“Every time we pull the minimum wage up, employers say well, it’s going to cost me $23.95, maybe next year it’s going to be $24.50 or something. I’m going to pick the person that’s already got experience. I’m not going to give someone a chance. So this is all about putting another rung in the ladder.”

Put to him that young people might not bother applying for a job with no rise for three years, Seymour said employers were competing too.

“I don’t think there’s anyone that won’t give a raise for three years. If you’re showing up, you’re doing your job and you’re treating people well, I’d be amazed if you didn’t get a raise.”

He said he had about 60 people across his own organisation.

“I’m always worried that some of our talented young people are going to come in one Monday and say sorry, London’s calling. Some of them have. I was just talking to one a few months ago. She’s got a great life in Sydney now. I’d rather she stayed with us.”

“If you’re an employer and you get good people, you don’t care what the minimum wage is. You just want to keep them. And you’ll pay what you can afford based on the productivity and the revenue of your company, not based on what the government says.”

Seymour was also asked about Christchurch Conservative Party leader Helen Houghton, who secured a public apology from author Byron Clark and publisher HarperCollins after challenging her inclusion in a chapter on women and the alt right in Clark’s book on extremism. Seymour has been called a Nazi online many times himself.

He answered by arguing New Zealanders agree with each other far more than the shouting suggests.

“There’s only 5 million of us and we’re not actually that different in our political views. If you ask a hundred New Zealanders what they think about all the big political issues that people have argued about for the last 400 years, you’ll find very few people who don’t believe in freedom of religion. No one in New Zealand thinks slavery is a good idea anymore. We’re the country of Kate Sheppard. Nobody disagrees with that.”

“What we argue about today is relatively small details underneath those big agreements. We can probably work through the remaining issues without having to brand people or dismiss them or say that they’re Nazis or have some sort of secret agenda, because most people most of the time are actually trying to do good.”

He then extended the courtesy to his usual opponents, with a caveat.

“You even look at the Green Party. Obviously it would be helpful if they picked up an economics textbook, but hey, look, hope springs eternal.”

The Greens came up again when Seymour was asked about Green candidate Tania Waikato, who was filmed mouthing the lyrics of a song with an obscene refrain in front of footage of him, about a month after telling RNZ that bullying behaviour in Parliament would get a person fired in an ordinary workplace.

Seymour said he had not seen the video.

“If that was one of our candidates they’d be sacked.”

Asked about the apparent hypocrisy, he declined to go further.

“I don’t even know who Tania Waikato is. I hope that she’s feeling better. Sounds like she’s had a hard day. Sometimes she’s got some reasonable things to say.”