AM host Lloyd Burr says revelations ACT leader David Seymour had been Snapchatting school kids "just feels icky" and it "looks bad".
The discussion with co-hosts on Wednesday morning comes after a New Zealand mum raised concern after finding out David Seymour replied to Snapchat messages from her then-14-year-old daughter and other teens back in 2016.
Both the ACT leader and the students say the content was not inappropriate. But the mother says the fact a much older politician was direct messaging them at all is bizarre.
Other students, including a former Epsom Girls Grammar student, have also come forward to Newshub.
The Epsom student said she was 14 when she started messaging Seymour on the app. She said she would always initiate the messaging, which had become schoolyard fun, and Seymour would sometimes reply on consecutive days making what Snapchat calls a 'streak'.
Snapchat allows users to send messages and images that last a few seconds before they're automatically deleted.
Seymour said he was just being courteous.
"I've done absolutely nothing wrong other than be responsive using the technology of the time," Seymour told reporters on Tuesday.
"I've always sought to behave the same online as I am in person. Courteous, responsive, and polite. School kids come up to me and ask for selfies, I think it would be a terrible thing if New Zealand got to the stage where I had to say 'no sorry - you don't have permission from your parents'."
But the concerned mum is now calling for guidelines around how politicians communicate directly with young people on social media.
And AM hosts agreed when discussing the issue on Wednesday that the communication, while not inappropriate, felt "icky".
Melissa Chan-Green noted how the ACT Party is against lowering the voting age to 16, so questioned if the party should be targeting them by way of messaging students about their policies, including via Snapchat.
"I think it was just an appalling lapse of political judgement, or political optics from Seymour," Burr responded.
"I agree to his point we want politicians to be accessible to everyone so you can actually reach out to them and stuff like that, but just the optics of a grown man politician in a power position, in a position of power, messaging someone who is children - under the age of 16 they're still children - and yes you've been to their schools and you've got Snapchats and stuff and selfies with them but Snapchatting them in an app where the messages delete and the photos delete it just looks bad.
"Even though nothing bad was done according to all the people who came forward… it just feels icky doesn't it?"
Newsreader Amanda Gillies said when her husband described the story to her before it ran on Newsroom, detailing how at the time Snapchat was new and cool and Seymour was on Dancing With The Stars "twerking on stage" and connecting with young people, she thought it was okay.
However, on reflection Gillies said the contact still made her uncomfortable.
"It was until I thought 'how would I feel if my teenage daughter in her uniform was Snapchatting an older man who's a politician' and that's when I thought 'I don't feel comfortable with that'."
She added that at first she thought about how he talks to people in the street, but then decided this kind of contact "borderline crosses the line".
"We say there was nothing inappropriate but if it was my teenage daughter in her school uniform, young, and having this sort of interaction that's where I just feel it's not right and that's where we've got to be so careful.
"I think part of the issue is when they [politicians] go to a school thing or when they're in a public street it's public, there are people around, there are teachers, there are people of age. I think it's that whole slide into your DMs [direct messages], it's the private nature that direct contact with no supervision."
Chan-Green then raised the question of, if we think it's inappropriate for someone like Seymour to be able to message children online, should we be letting those under 16 on social media?
Reading out audience feedback, several viewers agreed that it should be up to parents to supervise or stop their children communicating with Seymour and then no response would occur.
"If as a parent you feel uncomfortable with your children being on social media or your young teens being on social media then you should do something about that," Chan-Green said.
But Burr said: "You can't control it though."
"Kids are gonna find a way around it, they'll just use someone else's phone… He [Seymour] shouldn't lower himself to that level."
