Hon Peter Dunne
MP for Ohariu
Leader of UnitedFuture

Embargoed until 10am
Sunday, 21 August 2011

Dunne: UnitedFuture has out-delivered bigger parties

UnitedFuture has “consistently belied its size and got its policies into the system” over many years, its leader Peter Dunne said at the party’s election year conference.

Speaking immediately before Prime Minister John Key at the conference in Mr Dunne’s Ohariu electorate, he said that “on a pound for pound basis, on an MP for MP basis, UnitedFuture has been the most successful support party under MMP”

“The saying ‘punch above your weight’ could have been invented for UnitedFuture when you look at the list of what we have delivered.
• The Families Commission
• Medicines New Zealand under which nearly 250,000 more Kiwis get access to medicines they need
• All donations to charity tax deductible
• Business tax reform

“And in this term alone:

• Transmission Gully getting the go-ahead
• The Game Animal Council which is set to go
• Income Sharing legislation before Parliament
• Payroll Giving introduced just 18 months ago to benefit charities which are already $3 million better off (and Telecom just signed up)
• Major personal tax cuts
• Gift Duty on the way out – in fact, I guided the bill that does away with it through Parliament just this week.

Mr Dunne said the Greens were proof that real achievements could only be made from the government benches and not from opposition.

“For all their MPs over many years now, what have they actually delivered? I do not say that to have a go at them. It is not a cheap shot.

“I say it to demonstrate that being on the government benches is where you make a real difference – and surely that is the point of politics,” Mr Dunne said. “I have done that; UnitedFuture has done that.”

He said the party had launched a number of policies in the last few weeks, including:

• The Winter Warmers policy, with a $50 per month winter power bill subsidy for over-65s – “and after the week we have just with a snow-bound New Zealand, don’t we need that!”
• A free annual health check for over-65s
• Exempt all overseas contributory pensions from the provision of Section 70 of the Social Security Act
• Allow people take superannuation at reduced rates down to 60, or at increasingly enhanced rates if they wish to hold off until between 66 and 70.

“We will unveil further new and innovative polices in the weeks ahead – and they all come back to families, young and old. We will not be bound by ideology and dogma. They will be straightforward policies geared at helping the lot of middle New Zealand,” Mr Dunne said.

UnitedFuture’s polices can be found at www.unitedfuture.org.nz

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