Dunne Peter: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDunne Peter: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 09 December 2008. Volume:651;Page:56. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): Mr Speaker may I begin by congratulating you on your elevation to the Speaker’s Chair and also the Deputy Speaker and the Assistant Speakers on their appointments. I wish them success in the roles they are about to undertake. I want also to pay my respects to our Governor-General the Hon Anand Satyanand and his wife Susan for the tremendous job they do as our vice-regal representatives. They bring a dignity and a style to the role that befits the modern face of New Zealand. I look forward to the day in this House when we can pay tribute to our head of State as the head of the republic of New Zealand not still as a British dominion and colony. But that is for another time.I also acknowledge the contributions made by the mover and the seconder of this debate. What struck me during their speeches was not just their experiences and their tone but the fact that they represented very much a new face of New Zealand. All of us in this House and across this country will have to come to grips with what that new face means and what its implications are for the development of policy for the delivery of government and for the expectations of our people over not just this 3 years but 3 years and beyond many times after that.I express my congratulations to the Prime Minister on his election victory the stunning nature of it the way in which he has smoothly and seamlessly put his Government together so quickly afterwards the confidence that he brings to the role and the assurance that demonstrates that he will be a Prime Minister who will make New Zealanders feel proud of their country once more.I also want to join with other members in paying a huge tribute to the previous Prime Minister the Rt Hon Helen Clark. I think she has served New Zealand with extraordinary capacity passion and commitment over the last 9 years. She is widely regarded in international circles and she has a huge contribution still to make. I for one fully support her in whatever her next endeavour might be because she has been a great and loyal servant of this country.I also pay tribute to the previous Deputy Prime Minister the Hon Dr Michael Cullen with whom it was my privilege to work closely over a number of years. I just want to say to Dr Cullen that although we had some disagreements at times we actually had a very robust relationship—a good working relationship—and I value what we were able to achieve during those years. I wish him well for whatever the future may bring for him in that regard.I also acknowledge the Hon Phil Goff as the new Leader of the Opposition. It has been said many times that he “fits big shoes” and all those sorts of clichés. I just simply know that Phil will bring a commitment and a dedication to the role and one will never be left wondering where he stands on issues. I wish him well in whatever he carries forward.The election that just passed was not a particularly good one for United Future. I would be the first to acknowledge that. I lament the loss of my colleague Judy Turner and I acknowledge those members who have said kind things to me about her performance over the last little while but I am confident there is a future for her.There is also a future for a party like United Future with a strong and explicit commitment to all of the freedoms and the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to promoting human dignity and freedom to respecting the role ofparents and families—a party that says that the National Party is too conservative but the Labour Party is too socialistic and all the others are simply too dogmatic or extreme and a party that is fundamentally committed to making New Zealand the best multicultural nation it can be. While that flame flickers I will be here to fan it.In the agreement that United Future concluded with the Government after the election there are a number of significant points I want to go over because they are beneficial for a wide category of New Zealanders. I am delighted that our policy of income splitting for parents with dependent children which we were able to advance during the course of the previous Government will now be given legislative form and sent to a select committee where the whole issue of household income and the way in which second-income earners in households in particular are acknowledged by the tax system can be carefully and thoroughly examined. I look forward to that legislation in about 18 months’ time.I am also pleased that we were able to conclude in our agreement greater use of the private sector in the provision of surgery particularly elective surgery to help reduce those waiting lists in the public sector. It is simply crazy to have large waiting lists in the public sector while we have surplus private sector surgical capacity. I will be looking forward to working with the Minister of Health and others on a formula by which that balance can be redressed and that surgery provided in a more even way to the vast number of New Zealanders who currently miss out. I would like to see us ultimately moving to the objective of guaranteeing everyone over the age of 65 as a first instance access to elective surgery within 6 months of diagnosis. I think that is an attainable objective. I think it is one that would give people a sense of hope and a sense of commitment that is currently lacking.I am pleased also that we will be advancing further the work onMedicines New Zealand the National Medicines Strategy which was developed during the previous term of Government to give us a better balance between cost of medicines access to medicines and the supply of those medicines to the New Zealanders who need them. In particular there are some immediate priorities that I want to focus on in that regard. The first is the issue of funding for Pharmac. At the moment Pharmac’s funding is determined in a very ad hoc manner—basically what is left over in the health budget after everyone else has had their say.Hon David Cunliffe: That member knows better; he was an Associate Minister.Hon PETER DUNNE: One of the things thatMedicines New Zealand focuses on is moving to a principles-based approach to funding which is something Mr Cunliffe will know all about because he agreed with it when he was Minister of Health. In fact that will be delivered during the course of this year and it will ensure that we have a better balance in how funding is determined so that issues such as the Herceptin argument for argument’s sake will not have to be addressed in the way that they are at the moment.Looking forward beyond that there is the issue of the much greater involvement of the pharmacy sector in the provision of medicines and pharmaceutical care and work is already under way in terms of discussions with the Pharmacy Council the Pharmacy Guild and others about how that better integration can occur. I am looking forward to significant progress in that area over the next term of Parliament.I want to say a word about the issue of public-private partnerships and I am pleased that in the agreement the question of Transmission Gully has been addressed and its eligibility for a public-private partnership acknowledged. I am not at all convinced that that is necessarily the way to go at this stage but I am convinced—and I see that Mr Hughes nods and agrees with me—that the highway needs to be built and that we need to make some decisions during these 3 years about the way in which this is funded and the way in which that development occurs and I see a public-private partnership as apotential option. I am pleased that in the agreement we have provision for that occurring and I am certain that as a result of discussions that are about to get under way we will see progress and we will see some certainty delivered on what has been a festering sore in Wellington’s transport regime for many many years.I want to make a few comments about the issue of the emissions trading scheme. What is important is that the review that is being proposed to be carried out by a select committee is seen as being a way in which we ensure that this country meets its responsibilities in a proper way. This is not the time to try to reinvent the wheel in terms of some of the science. I certainly do not see it as appropriate or competent for a select committee to try to second-guess a lot of the international evidence that has been available but it is a time to look at whether the regime that has been put in place for New Zealand is in fact a workable one is in fact constructive and does not impose too many costs on New Zealanders and New Zealand households. I believe that the review that has been announced and the terms of reference that have been foreshadowed will enable a select committee to come to grips with that work in a relatively coherent and quick way and to recommend a way forward so that this country puts in place a regime that is sustainable in the environmental sense sustainable in the economic sense and sustainable in the political sense as well.This Parliament has a very large workload ahead of it and I say to the new members who have joined us that they are coming to Parliament at an extraordinarily challenging time in our country’s history because as I indicated in response to the speeches from the mover and the seconder of the debate we are seeing a new tide here and I am sure it will be reflected in the speeches of other members. A new generation effectively has come to this House and they expect their requirements to be met. They expect their interests in terms of the broad sweep of policy to be addressed and I am sure that within the various parties they will be urging all of their leaderships to reflect their interests to a much greater extent. So I think the next 3 years will be exciting. I think they will be challenging I think they will be stimulating and overall I think they will be positive for New Zealand—and it will be the members of this House who will contribute to making that so.