Dunne Peter: Motions — America’s Cup 2013—Emirates Team New ZealandText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDunne Peter: Motions — America’s Cup 2013—Emirates Team New Zealand[Sitting date: 26 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13772. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I rise on behalf of United Future to associate myself with the sentiments that others have expressed during this debate. I happen to be one of those curmudgeonly yachting enthusiasts who did not think that the advent of these giant catamarans was appropriate for the America’s Cup tradition and who wondered whether the public would actually be seized by the event or would just see it as big boys with big toys. The activities of Team New Zealand over the last several weeks and particularly over the last 19 days have proven to me how wrong my fears were. This event has captured the public imagination. It was interesting staring out my window in a forlorn moment during the race this morning to see virtually no traffic in the streets of Wellington. People were actually glued to television sets or radios or streaming video etc. because the nation had taken this event to its heart.We wondered a lot over the last week I guess how it could be that on Saturday morning we were poised for victory but for some fickle wind and running out of time when we were just a few seconds away from crossing the line to the situation on Thursday when Team New Zealand with everyone’s hopes on its back was fighting for grim survival. That is the magic of match racing of this particular calibre. Every tack and turn every twist everygybe every foil every sail change and every tacticians’ discussion that we have all been witness to over the last few days has I think brought home the sheer rush of adrenalin that everyone gets watching this degree of sport.It is true that this has been described in some quarters as being more a victory for technology than for sport. Certainly technological advancement and the vast amount of dollars invested by both teams to bring the latest degree of technology and skill to their operation was relevant but at the end of the day you cannot take the event away from the individual sailors who competed both for Emirates Team New Zealand and for Oracle Team USA. It was their skill their determination their raw strength and their courage that achieved the results that they did.We can take solace in the performance of our team the dignity with which they embraced their defeat and the goodwill that they have created between New Zealand and San Francisco. I notice that the Mayor of San Francisco said today that two great things about this cup were one that the United States won and two that firm bonds were formed with New Zealand by the city of San Francisco. Although we can take all of those as positives we must congratulate Oracle Team USA on a simply stunning performance. And we can note with some satisfaction that of the crew members of that boat there were I think some eight New Zealanders the boat was built in New Zealand and there is a long New Zealand tradition so if we want to stretch it we can claim that we all won today. I think there were two Americans on the boat I say to my colleague.What is important now though is that we do not wallow in self-pity and gloom because of defeat in this contest. We take from it the positives. We congratulate our team—Grant Dalton Dean Barker and all of them—on a job well done and we move forward. If anyone says that the money that was invested by the Government to achieve this result was not money well spent I completely defy that criticism because this has been a very positive outcome for New Zealand. The challenge now is to make sure that we learn the lessons that we regroup that we get a better team together—even better next time—and that next time when we are on match point we nail the event.Motion agreed to.