All posts tagged United Future

Dunne to contest the next election?

Peter Dunne may have hinted that he intends contesting the election next year. When asked how long he will stay in politics he said “that decision’s ultimately not made by me but by my voters in Ohariu in the first instance, and that’s a decision that they will have the opportunity to refresh or reject next year”.

On United Future he said “we represent the flickering flame of liberal democracy in New Zealand”

And admitted “That does wax and wane from time to time”.

This was in an interview on Q+A this morning when Jessica Mutch asked Dunne about the future of UnitedFuture.

JESSICA Let’s talk about the future of United Future. How long will you stay in politics?

PETER I have no idea, because that decision’s ultimately not made by me but by my voters in Ohariu in the first instance, and that’s a decision that they will have the opportunity to refresh or reject next year.

JESSICA Your popularity in Ohariu has been going down. You got 1400 in the last election. Do you need to have a cup of tea with the prime minister?

PETER Well, my majority actually went up at the last election.

JESSICA 1400 isn’t a huge majority, though.

PETER No, it’s not, but it’s better than it was. And I’ve been there for nearly 30 years. I don’t need cups of tea with people. I think they know me pretty well and they can make a judgement.

JESSICA I mean a cup of tea with the prime minister.

PETER Yes, I know what you mean. I didn’t have one with the prime minister.

JESSICA Will you have one, or will you want one this time?

PETER Actually, I have a cup of tea with the prime minister quite frequently. It’s just that the public doesn’t see it. (LAUGHS)

JESSICA When you say ‘cup of tea’, will you ask for one with the prime minister this election?

PETER I’m not going into that at this stage because the election’s nearly 18 months away. What the lie of the political land is at that time is far too soon to speculate upon. What I will say is this – that United Future has been around for a long time. We represent the flickering flame of liberal democracy in New Zealand. That does wax and wane from time to time. There will always be people who will coalesce, if you like, around that point of view, and we’re here to represent those points of view.

JESSICA That’s a nice place to leave it. Thank you very much for your time this morning, Peter Dunne.

Video: Peter Dunne on the balance of power (9:48)

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Peter Dunne on the power of his vote

Peter Dunne was interviewed on Q+A this morning. He was asked about “how much power a one-man party has in parliament.”

JESSICA You do hold a lot of power. You’re a one-man party. We’ve seen since 2008 that you’ve actually held the crucial vote on 20 pieces of legislation. Is it right that one person, yourself, has so much power?

PETER Well, firstly, I didn’t put myself in that position. The electorate dealt the cards at the election.

JESSICA But how do you deal with that?

PETER And the second point is how I deal with it. I don’t just wake up each morning and decide what capricious thing am I going to do today. I’ve got a quite developed matrix of how we deal with things. Firstly, is the issue under debate covered by the confidence and supply agreement that United Future has with National? If it is, as was the case with the mixed ownership model, for instance, then the outcome is very clear.

JESSICA Let’s touch on that for a moment – the asset sales legislation. You obviously hold the power to get that through for National. Does that give you a lot of extra power and bargaining power back?

PETER In some senses it does, on unrelated issues. But that was a very clear case. Our election policy said we oppose-

JESSICA Like what? What kind of trade-off-?

PETER I don’t want to go into specific detail, because that actually destroys the advantage that you’ve got. But come back to that one. Our election policy said that we were, in principal, opposed to asset sales except if the government nominated the energy companies and Air New Zealand, we would agree to that provided the public shareholding was to be no greater than 49% and there was a cap on individual shareholding. That was included on our negotiations and put into the agreement. And the government at that point didn’t want to statutorily specify those limits-

JESSICA So you got some influence over that.

PETER And so it became a no-brainer to vote for it when the legislation arrived.

JESSICA Another one-

PETER So that’s the first point. The second point – because I haven’t finished what I was saying before – if it’s not covered by the Confidence and Supply agreement, is it something that was covered by United Future’s election policy? And if it was, clearly you vote for in accordance with that. That’s why I’m backing Paid Parental Leave, for instance. The third one is neither of the above, and then it just comes down to, basically, the circumstances of the time and what seems like the right thing to do.

JESSICA And one of those things will be about SkyCity. The government will need you if it needs to work out some kind of a deal with SkyCity. Have you worked out any kind of pay-off for that?

PETER My view on that is quite simple. I think Auckland needs a world-class convention centre. In my role both as Associate Minister of Health and previously, I’ve been working over the last 10 years with the structure of-

JESSICA But will you get anything back?

PETER Hang on, hang on. And the important point about the SkyCity one, from my perspective, is if you can achieve the convention centre without a blowout in the number of gambling machines and an increase in the numbers of those, then that’s the best deal. But I’ve not seen any deal at this stage. It’s premature to talk about that. If there’s a trade-off then it may well be something that occurs at the time, but if you’re saying to me do I say ‘I support this in return for your doing that’, it’s not that crude.

JESSICA So you haven’t worked out any kind of agreement with-

PETER Well, it doesn’t work- I haven’t seen the details, so there is no agreement at this point, other than I’ve indicated the general view that I’ve just expressed to you. But it doesn’t work in the way of saying, ‘you give me this and I’ll give you that’. It works in the way of saying, ‘OK, I’ll give you this thing. Now, when there are things that arise that I might want, I suppose you could say there’s money in the bank’.

Video: Peter Dunne on the balance of power (9:48)

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Peter Dunne on IRD computer upgrade

Peter Dunne was interviewed on Q+A this morning. He was asked about the proposed IRD computer upgrade.

JESSICA MUTCH

Peter Dunne, thank you for your time this morning. I’d like to start off by talking about IRD and the upgrade to software. $1.5 billion seems like a huge amount of money. Why is it so expensive over 10 years?

PETER DUNNE, United Future leader

And that is simply a ballpark estimate. This is a series of essentially specific projects as you take various elements of the tax system.

JESSICA But why is it so expensive?

PETER The point is until we start the detailed work on each particular project, that figure is really only a ballpark estimate. I suspect it will differ and some projects will be a little bit less expensive; others may turn out to be a wee bit more. But what we are doing is fundamentally-

JESSICA Just to clarify, though, are you saying it could be more than $1.5 billion?

PETER No, I’m not saying that. I’m just simply saying that is a ballpark estimate at this stage. But what we are doing is changing the whole way in which we run our tax system. Without being too technical about it, when we set up the current system about 20 years ago, Inland Revenue simply collected tax. Since then, you’ve added Child Support, Working for Families, KiwiSaver, Paid Parental Leave – a whole range of other initiatives that have come on which have complicated the system. We need to have a technology that is now fit for purpose. And that’s the basis of this change, and we’ll be working our way through that over the next few years.

JESSICA Experts like Rod Drury have come out and said this is an obscene amount of money and it could have been done for cheaper. Is that true?

PETER Well, we’re working closely with Rod Drury. I’ve talked with him on occasions. I know he meets with the commissioner of the department regularly. I think some of the points he made are very timely reminders and warnings, and we’re certainly happy to work alongside him and others in the industry in New Zealand to make sure we get the best outcome. I mean, government technology projects don’t have a very good reputation, and there have been a lot of examples just of late – let’s take Novopay as a classic – which we’ve gotta learn from, and I’m determined that we will not repeat the errors. That means we will take our time, we will consult widely with the affected parties and the interests and make sure we get it right before we move from one stage to the next.

JESSICA Because Novopay, it’s cost $11 million already. I mean, do we run the risk of this blowing out with an even bigger budget?

PETER Well, I think they’re the fears. There are also fears about the governance and the supervision that clearly Novopay has drawn attention to. I’m determined, working with a group of ministers, that we’re going to work through this systematically. We’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. We know we have a big transformation project ahead of us, but it’s important to get each step of that right and only to go live when it is right.

JESSICA Let’s go back to that cost, though. An insider told the NBR last week that if this had been done five years ago it would have been in the ballpark of about $600,000.

PETER I find that comment a rather strange one. I don’t know who the person was. I don’t recall them having had any involvement in the discussions. I think this is someone inventing facts after the event.

JESSICA So if it was done earlier would it have been cheaper?

PETER Look, what happened originally, and this goes back to the time of the Labour government, we started out then to try and do a specific, off-the-shelf rebuild, starting – from memory – with the Student Loan project. In the event that proved impossible to do, so we’ve had to come back and start afresh. Inevitably in that process some costs accumulate that would not have been there had the original objective been able to be achieved. It wasn’t able to be achieved for one simple reason – none of the retailers, the product retailers, said they could produce a product that had the capacity to meet what we required, and that’s the essential problem here.

JESSICA Let’s have a look at Australia, though. They did a similar upgrade and theirs was $800 million. I mean, we’ve nearly doubled that. Why is it so expensive?

PETER Yeah, and their outcome was disastrous, because they got the political stitch halfway through-

JESSICA So will you learn from that?

PETER So what they ended up doing was they’ve effectively got two parallel systems. That is a disaster. What we’ve got to commit to is this – if we start this programme, we’ve got to commit, even though it’s long-term, to seeing it through, and that is where both the tension and the potential cost arises. But I’m determined that we start with designated projects, we get those right, we then move on to the next one, and so on and so forth until we’ve completed the complete transformation.

JESSICA How did you manage to convince the government that this was the best place to spend this kind of money at the moment?

PETER Well, very simply. We have a system, as I said before, which dates back to 1991 when the job of Inland Revenue was a far more specific one. We’ve added on a series of responsibilities over the years that only, in a way, Inland Revenue has a capacity to deal with. The problem we have at the moment is our system works perfectly well today but that the capacity to make policy changes of a significant nature or to add any new social programs to it is zero, so we’re essentially in a time warp. We either upgrade or we end up saying that the tax system stays as it is forever and a day.

JESSICA What sort of policy changes are you talking about?

PETER Oh, major changes. For instance, if we were to invent KiwiSaver today, we probably would not be able to implement it within the current system framework. Now, I think that that is actually quite perverse – the government being told by a systems constraint what it can and cannot do, not able to implement its policy objectives, whatever they might be. So it’s important we have change; the question is how you manage a significant change of this nature in a way that’s going to deliver the positive outcome you seek at the end and learn from the lessons that have been mounting up over the years about how not to do these things.

Video: Peter Dunne on the balance of power (9:48)

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Hipkins pisses on anti Charter Schools ally

Following Peter Dunne’s anouncement that United Future won’t back Act’s Charter Schools legislation Labour’s Chris Hipkins demonstrates why Labour have trouble building relationships with other parties:

Reason trumps charter schools rhetoric

Chris HIPKINS
Education Spokesperson
18 April 2013 MEDIA STATEMENT

If perennial fence-sitter Peter Dunne has pulled support for charter schools there can be no argument that this is bad policy, Labour’s Education spokesperson Chris Hipkins says.

“Mr Dunne’s announcement this morning that he will vote against legislation to establish Charter Schools is welcome. I am urging the Maori Party to re-think their position too.

“Peter Dunne is quite right when he argues we don’t need charter schools, that we already have a range of schooling options within existing legislation, and that the risks associated with charter schools are too great.

“New Zealand already has a world leading curriculum. Labour has always said that the risks of introducing charter schools far outweigh any perceived benefits. It is great to see Mr Dunne has come round to our way of thinking.”

That sort of pissiness and arrogance – an factual inaccuracy – will really do well building political bridges, policy support and coalitions, not.

Labour have been pissy with United Future (and other parties) on a number of bills over the last year.

A number of Labour MPs, like Hipkins here, are guilty of pissy and petty political pointscoring. With this sort of behaviour prevalent it’s no wonder there are so many internal problems within Labour.

In contrast yesterday both Grant Robertson and Louisa Wall gracefully acknowledged Peter Dunne’s support for the “Mondayisation” Bill and the Marriage Amendment Bill, so some of their MPs understand interparty relations.

But there is an embedded nastiness in parts of Labour that ultimately piss on the party’s own aspirations.

Hipkins could learn something off an MP from another party they have an uneasy relationship with:

Metiria Turei ‏@metiria

@PeterDunneMP pleased about this and your stance on Charter schools too

by Pete George on April 18, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on April 18, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/04/18/hipkins-pisses-on-anti-charter-schools-ally/

United Future not supporting Charter Schools

Peter Dunne has announced that he will not be voting for Charter Schools. Andrea Vance reports on Stuff:

Revenue Minister Peter Dunne says he will vote against legislation establishing charter schools.

However, the Government still looks to have the numbers, with the Maori Party giving support at the Bill’s second reading.

The education and science select committee reported back to Parliament last week on the Education Amendment Bill and it is due to have its second reading in Parliament later this month.

Associate Education Minister and ACT party leader John Banks wants the first schools up and running next year.

Dunne says he’s not convinced by the charter schools model and he is particularly concerned at proposals which will allow charter schools to employ teachers who are not registered or nationally certified.

The United Future leader is also worried the schools will not be compelled to follow the National curriculum.

“The current system already provides for a significant range of schooling opportunities, and I cannot see there is a need to introduce the partnership schools approach to achieve the level of flexibility the proponents of partnership schools are seeking,” he said.

Dunne has close contacts in education, and will have discussed this within the party. This is the first I have heard of it. I’m not a party of policy or voting decisions, I haven’t had anything to do with this decision.

I’ve only thought about Charter Schools superficially, but I’m not yet convinced they shouldn’t be allowed to be tried in some circumstances. For me Charter Schools need more research.

Dunne’s statement:

Media Release
Hon Peter Dunne
Leader of UnitedFuture

Thursday, 18 April 2013

Dunne: UnitedFuture to oppose charter schools

UnitedFuture leader Peter Dunne says he will vote against legislation to establish charter schools when it returns to Parliament.

“I advised the Prime Minister of this last evening, and the Minister and Associate Minister of Education this morning,” Mr Dunne said.

He said that while UnitedFuture supports choice and flexibility within the education system, it has not been persuaded that the charter schools model is either necessary or desirable to achieve that.

“The current system already provides for a significant range of schooling opportunities, and I cannot see there is a need to introduce the partnership schools approach to achieve the level of flexibility the proponents of partnership schools are seeking,” he said.

Mr Dunne said UnitedFuture is extremely concerned at other aspects of the proposed legislation such as partnership schools not needing to employ nationally certified and registered teachers, nor follow the national curriculum, while at the same time being fully funded by the taxpayer.

 

by Pete George on April 18, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on April 18, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/04/18/united-future-not-supporting-charter-schools/

United Future initial support for GCSB changes

Peter Dunne has confirmed that United Future will support the first step in the proposed Government changes for the GCSB, as Newstalk ZB report:

United Future likely to initially support GCSB reforms

United Future’s set to give initial support to the Prime Minister’s planned reforms of laws governing the GCSB.

Members of Parliament’s Intelligence Committee – party leaders in other words – were briefed on the proposed legislation last night.

Peter Dunne won’t give details, but says he and his colleagues were well briefed.

“I will probably support the first reading because I think it’s important that we start the process but obviously there are issues around that will need to be teased out during the select committee process so we’ll just wait and see.”

Mr Dunne says there’s a public trust issue for the GCSB.

That adds to the already committed support of  NZ First – see NZ First to back Government on GCSB.

Both Dunne and Winston Peters are providing cautious support but want to ensure the bill receives appropriate scrutiny.

Labour and Greens still want an independent inquiry rather than putting this straight through the parliamentary process. An inquiry would substantially extend the timeframe for change.

by Pete George on April 17, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on April 17, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/04/17/united-future-initial-support-for-gcsb-changes/

Modified asylum seeker Bill should now pass

The Immigration Amendment Bill looks like it will now pass after National modified it to get Peter Dunne’s support.

Asylum seeker bill watered down

The Immigration Amendment Bill originally set 10 as the number of people who would form a group of asylum seekers, and under pressure from United Future’s Peter Dunne it is going to change that to 30.

The definition is important because under the legislation a group can be detained under a single warrant, meaning authorities don’t have to process each one and seek individual warrants.

All the opposition parties oppose the bill and Mr Dunne, who has a support agreement with the government, thought the original definition was too harsh.

He said on Friday the government had agreed to change the group definition to 30 people, and because of that he would support the bill through its remaining stages.

This is a small but significant change.

‏@PeterDunneMP
Govt will back UF proposal that definition of mass arrival in new immigration bill be lifted by 300% – from 10 to 30, a sensible outcome

‏@dpfdpf
10 could be a large family :-)

@PeterDunneMP
and that was the problem

Not surprisingly Labour is still not happy.

Labour’s Darien Fenton says altering the definition hasn’t changed her party’s attitude to the bill.

“It aligns New Zealand with Australia’s punitive detention policies which have been so destructive in that country,” she said.

“It is based on National’s completely flawed premise that we are under the imminent threat of a mass arrival.”

Except the article also points out…

On Tuesday a fishing boat landed in the West Australian port of Geraldton with 66 Sri Lankan asylum seekers on board who said they wanted help to get to New Zealand.

Some inconvenient news for Labour, but they frequently prove unable to change their opposition when more facts become known.

by Pete George on April 13, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on April 13, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/04/13/modified-asylum-seeker-bill-should-now-pass/

Flexi Super – “an idea whose time is rapidly coming”

In the General Debate in Parliament yesterday Peter Dunne described United Future’s Flexi Super policy as “an idea whose time is rapidly coming”.

Recent major party policies on superannuation are not popular, either doing nothing or tinkering adversely affecting some people. Dunne said:

At the last election we saw the position taken by the two major parties, which was a polarised extreme in many senses: the National Party saying that the age of entitlement will remain 65 in perpetuity, effectively; the Labour Party saying that over a period of time it wishes to raise the age to 67.

The problem with both those positions is as follows: one is inflexible, and the other imposes a burden on working people to stay in the workforce well beyond the time that they might have planned to retire.

We are starting to see a rising tide of public information and public questioning now about the viability of the system.

Even before Flexi Super has been widely discussed it is favoured by the public over the National and Labour options…

What people are seeking is more flexibility and more choice, and I note with interest a recent newspaper survey that put a couple of propositions before New Zealanders.

When people were asked whether they favoured the status quo, 65; raising the qualifying age to 67; or giving people the option of retiring later for a bit more or earlier for a bit less, nearly 50 percent—49 percent—favoured the flexible approach.

The status quo was favoured by 29 percent, and 15 percent wanted to go to 67.

The poll results:

  • Flexible super age – 49%
  • Leave at 65 – 29%
  • Raise to 67 – 15%

In June last year Interest.co.nz collated Super age policies: What the different political parties say about whether to raise the Super age, and if so, when

UnitedFuture

Leader Peter Dunne has suggested introducing a ‘flexi-super’ scheme. The policy would allow for people to accept Super from ages 60-64, although payments would always be at a lower rate than normal. They could choose to get Super at 65 or hold off until after 70 and receive it at a higher rate.

National

On Monday, Key stood staunch on his pledge not to raise the Super age, telling Radio New Zealand that today’s report regarded costs in decades’ time, and no one was pushing for the Super age to be raised now.

Labour

The party changed its stance on Super in the run-up to the 2011 election. Labour’s new leader David Shearer wants to have cross-party talks on the escalating costs of Super and what needs to be done to preserve it for future generations. Shearer says he’s prepared to discuss Peter Dunne’s ‘flexi-super’ policy.

ACT

Since before 2008, the party has proposed raising the Super age. ACT endorses the Retirement Commission’s proposal to increase the age of eligibility from 65 to 67 over 12 years (same as Labour), saying it would be a fair way to give people time to adjust.

Greens

Its current policy is to keep the age of eligibility at 65. The party is open to cross-party discussions on the issue.

NZ First

Its policy is to keep the age at 65.

Maori Party

Wants to maintain the general age to at 65. However, advocates it should be brought down to 60 for groups of New Zealanders whose life expectancy is lower than average.

Mana

Opposes Super age increase and wants to see a “solution” for those with lower life expectancies like Maori, Pacific Islanders, and working class Pakeha. Its solution involves lowering the age of eligibility for these groups.

There seems to be a willingness by parties to discuss the super age. According to Dunne:

I note also with interest the interest that I have had from the Leader of the Opposition and from Government Ministers.

United Future, as part of its confidence and supply agreement with National, will lead a public discussion on Flexi Super. This will also generate interest in the whole superannuation issue.

There will be, within the next few months, a discussion paper issued publicly, as part of our confidence and supply agreement, inviting public feedback on this issue.

This is an idea whose time is rapidly coming. New Zealanders know that things have got to change.

Perhaps this year the age of eligibility of Super issue will get traction – that is long overdue.

And perhaps Flexi Super will provide the best solution. It allows the status quo for those who choose it, and those who want more flexibility would have choice.

—

Hansard draft:

Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue):

This afternoon I want to talk about a subject that will affect all of us at some point in our lives. A few days ago I saw a billboard that said that 15 percent of the children born this year will live to be well in excess of 100 years. The issue that that highlighted, and highlights for us, is the issue of superannuation.

This country has been grappling with that issue unsatisfactorily, really for the last 30 years.

At the last election we saw the position taken by the two major parties, which was a polarised extreme in many senses: the National Party saying that the age of entitlement will remain 65 in perpetuity, effectively; the Labour Party saying that over a period of time it wishes to raise the age to 67.

The problem with both those positions is as follows: one is inflexible, and the other imposes a burden on working people to stay in the workforce well beyond the time that they might have planned to retire.

We are starting to see a rising tide of public information and public questioning now about the viability of the system.

No one is seriously suggesting that we should cut the pension—no one apart from the far right. No one is seriously suggesting a radical increase in the age of entitlement.

What people are seeking is more flexibility and more choice, and I note with interest a recent newspaper survey that put a couple of propositions before New Zealanders.

When people were asked whether they favoured the status quo, 65; raising the qualifying age to 67; or giving people the option of retiring later for a bit more or earlier for a bit less, nearly 50 percent—49 percent—favoured the flexible approach.The status quo was favoured by 29 percent, and 15 percent wanted to go to 67.

Within that survey is the answer to the question that New Zealand confronts, and that is why United Future, as part of its confidence and supply agreement, is promoting the concept of flexible superannuation.

A person who makes the choice to retire early at, say, 60 would get around 65 percent of the core entitlement of New Zealand superannuation, the person retiring at 65 would get 100 percent, and the person who chose to defer retirement until age 70, or to defer picking up their superannuation, would get around 130 percent of the core entitlement.

What that recognises is a couple of things: firstly, New Zealanders are working longer; and, secondly, and probably most important in the context of this debate, they want the choice about when they retire.

They do not want to be told by the State that they have got to work 2 more years, to 67, to qualify. They are uncertain about the viability of 65.

They want to be able to arrange their affairs in a way that they can make the choice.

What makes this policy even more attractive is that with the increasing uptake of KiwiSaver, in years to come we will have many, many more New Zealanders qualifying for a KiwiSaver payout at the age of 65.

So the argument that is raised by some, that you cannot afford to retire on a reduced rate of superannuation early, will be diminished by the fact that people actually know that there is a big nest egg coming at 65.

Flexible superannuation provides an answer to the issue that confronts New Zealand. It does not cut the overall level of pension expenditure, but it certainly stabilises it.

It gives New Zealanders more choice about when they retire, and people who feel that they are physically exhausted long before 65 can make some plans with certainty about picking up superannuation at a reduced rate at an earlier time.

Others who feel hale and hearty, or who are in a position where they are financially independent, could well choose to work later and then pick up their superannuation later.

There will be, within the next few months, a discussion paper issued publicly, as part of our confidence and supply agreement, inviting public feedback on this issue. What I note with interest is the overwhelming support that the newspaper poll indicated already, before this issue has really had a huge amount of traction in the public.

I note also with interest the interest that I have had from the Leader of the Opposition and from Government Ministers.

This is an idea whose time is rapidly coming. New Zealanders know that things have got to change.

If you go back 50 years, the age profile in New Zealand was the classic Christmas tree. Now it looks much more like a lamppost. It is probably going to become more like an inverted Christmas tree in the future.

What we have to do now is plan for that time and put in place a sensible approach to superannuation that is sustainable and that will last for future generations, and Flexi Super is that answer.

InTheHouse video of Peter Dunne’s speech: General Debate – 10th April, 2013 – Part 4

by Pete George on April 11, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on April 11, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/04/11/flexi-super-an-idea-whose-time-is-rapidly-coming/

Is it sensible comparing Labour and United Future policies?

Simply put Labour’s policies are vague, negative and sparse, versus United Future’s comprehensive list of policies.

In an April 1 post Scott Yorke at Imperator Fish inadvertently raised an interesting point. He was presumably trying to mock United Future policies compared to Labour’s.

A couple of weeks ago I was trawling through various political sites for inspiration. I was planning a post attacking United Future’s Peter Dunne, and during the course of researching my post I came across the United Future website.

I had expected to find there a trove of daft ideas to inspire my attack, but I came away surprised at how sensible most of the party’s policies sounded. I’d always regarded Peter Dunne as a bit of a joke, a one-man band allowed to continue in Parliament due to a nudge-nudge-wink-wink deal with National over the Ohariu seat.

But once I read United Future’s site I realised there was a lot more to Peter Dunne than met the eye. I immediately cancelled my anti-Dunne post.

I doubt that Scott bothered to actually look at any UF policies, but there are a clear, comprehensive range of policies  (see below).

In comparison Labour’s policy web page is paltry and vague. A David Shearer signed statement says:

Right across the economy we will make fundamental changes. We will replace a simplistic hands-off approach with a smart hands-on one.

Shearer simplisticly keeps referring to hands off versus hands on, but does anyone actually know what having Shearer’s hands on Government would mean? He doesn’t even seem to be have his own hands on his leadership.

Labour’s policy approach is vague and at times contradictory – for example Clayton Cosgrove and David Parker seem to have different ideas about how Tiwai should be handled, see Labour’s conflicting priorities with Tiwai. And David Shearer was typically vague, saying that  “the Government should have stepped in earlier” and been “more hands on”.

Labour’s website policy page links to detail in an old policy document…

Our 2011 election manifesto remains Labour policy unless we specifically announce a change to it, although all policies in the manifesto are under review as Labour builds toward the 2014 election.

…but some of that has already been discarded, or again, Shearer doesn’t know if his hands are on or off:

Labour gone cold on GST-free food

Labour is considering going back on one of its major election promises – GST-free fresh fruit and vegetables.

It says it has to prioritise, but the tax break would be the third major policy the party’s scrapped since the last election, if they go back on it –  and the Government says it’s impossible to know what Labour now stands for.

“If we can’t afford policies then they will have to go. GST off fresh fruit and veg is one thing we’re looking at,” says Labour leader David Shearer.

“We’re going to have to throw out some of the policies that are going to cost us a lot of money,” says Mr Shearer.

GST-free healthy food would cost $317 million, and would be tricky to enforce.

Mr Shearer says its savings and jobs policies are more important.

“How does that fit with GST off fresh fruit and veges? Can we do it all? I doubt if we can. We’re going to have to prioritise,” he says.

So Mr Shearer’s refusing to say outright whether the policy will definitely go, but all signs point to it being too costly, too difficult and too low down the list.

Is Yorke really seduced by this “bold rhetoric promising economic transformation, jobs and growth”?

Labour’s policy page has “the new policies you see below are the start of our new way of doing things.” Five policies are listed.

Housing

The housing market is failing thousands of Kiwis. The biggest barrier to home ownership is the difficulty of getting on the first rungs of the housing ladder.

Over the past 50 years the number of new affordable homes being built has dropped from a third of all new homes to just 5 per cent.

That’s why Labour is taking a bold hands-on approach to help Kiwis into their first home.

Economy

Many of National’s policies have passed their use-by date. Economists, many governments and major institutions such as the IMF realise that the world has changed. They know new answers are needed.

New Zealanders understand this too and know that we must change as well.

Kiwis want real and innovative solutions to take this country forward. They want a Government that sees problems and gets stuck in to fix them rather than try to explain them away.

That’s why there is significant support for major Labour policies, including KiwiBuild, raising the retirement age, universal KiwiSaver, updating our monetary policy and a capital gains tax.

It’s time for a hands-on government, one that is committed to making a real difference in people’s lives.

That is really Labour’s “bold rhetoric promising economic transformation, jobs and growth”.

Education

Under National, education is going backwards. They are adopting tired ideas from countries with education systems that are less successful than ours.

Increasing class sizes and putting unqualified and unregistered teachers into classrooms are not strategies for success.

National are happy to spend $36 million on National Standards that measure the problem; Labour would rather spend that money fixing the problem.

Once again Labour leads with negatives.

Jobs

National is taking us down a path to fewer jobs, lower wages and more of our young people seeking better opportunities in Australia.

The gap between the rich and the rest of New Zealand has never been wider – and it’s growing. It’s a lack of well-paid jobs that is sending 1,000 Kiwis a week to Australia for better wages.

It’s disappointing that John Key said he would give New Zealanders a reason to stay in New Zealand, and now he’s setting new records of Kiwis leaving for Australia.

Labour’s plan has concrete steps to create more jobs and better opportunities for New Zealanders.

Negative, negative, negative, vague.

Canterbury

Labour wants Cantabrians to have more control over the rebuild.

The rebuild will only succeed if Cantabrians can have their voices heard and respected. David Shearer spent over 20 years working in disaster zones around the world. He knows first-hand that locally driven recovery is the only way that works.

You can’t rebuild Canterbury from the top floor of the Beehive in Wellington. The vision of the future has to come from the grassroots right here in Canterbury.

John Key and Gerry Brownlee just don’t understand. They see local people as a barrier to progress instead of as the key to recovery.

Under National, CERA has engulfed the functions of councils, elections have been cancelled, and people dealing with insurance issues have been abandoned.

A Labour Government would put people back at the centre of the recovery.

They don’t promote being more hands on because they are implying Labour would be more hands off in Canterbury.

If Labour lead the next government the Christchurch rebuild will be well under way. Making major changes to how that is being done risks being disruptive. Apart from the standard negatives this policy is little more than a rhetorical nod to Christchurch, at best too late.

Those are Labour’s five policy topics on their website. They focus more on attacking National, with a bit of vague waffle about what they might do.

Mocking United Future policy as sensible is risky for Labourites, especially when looking at the lack of common sense in their own paltry list of lamentable rhetoric.

In comparison United Future have a comprehensive policy list that says what they propose, and don’t concentrate on whinging about their opponents.

And – who in Labour would want to see David Shearer having a policy debate with Peter Dunne?

UF_Logo-RGB-350dpi

Practical Policies for New Zealanders

by Pete George on April 2, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on April 2, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/04/02/comparing-labour-and-united-future-policies/

Peter Dunne – the week that was

Peter Dunne has done “my latest video blog” – The Week that Was.

He admits “it hasn’t been the best of weeks”, with some prominent but relatively minor setbacks. But he turns his focus to positives. Small parties get scant coverage of what they are beavering away at.

So Dunne details “all the other things that are happening that United Future is playing a major part in”.

  • Our synthetic drugs legislation, our psychoactive substances bill…is seen as world leading, innovative, and a step that all other countries should follow.
  • In the next couple of weeks or so, the child support legislation, bringing about the major child support change for the first time since the scheme was implemented over twenty years ago, the culmination of a four year project.
  • The whole issue of superannuation back on the agenda…United Future’s flex-super, we’ll have a discussion paper out in the next few months.
  • We’re also going to release in the next couple of months our new national suicide prevention action plan for the next three years, that’s the culmination of a lot of work over the last year to eighteen months.
  • We’ve got the game animal council bill about to come back through parliament.

Like any politician who has been around for two or three decades Dunne has accumulated many detractors, and he attracts many more simply because of his current coalition connections. But he works away and gets things done.

There won’t be many MPs that cover such a varied workload as Dunne – Minister and Associate Minister, party leader and sole representative in Parliament, plus electorate MP.

Within a week or so recently he went from:

  • Accountants and Tax Agents Institute NZ Annual Conference in Blenheim

to

  • UNODC narcotics conference in Vienna (where the Psychotic Substances bill being implemented here received much interest and praise)

back to

  • International Fiscal Association tax conference in Queenstown, keyonote address on current tax issues

then back to the fray in Wellington, birthday on Sunday, then to find his carpack tax consulting process had been sabotaged by special interest groups.

Someone at Kiwiblog called that troughing!

And after all that he’s put together this shoulder shrug, positive look forward video.

I have to admire Dunne’s doggedness and determination to keep doing what he can. A bit of a car park quibble is pretty minor.

by Pete George on March 21, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on March 21, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/03/21/peter-dunne-the-week-that-was/

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