Dunne PeterHon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): A couple of weeks ago the people who run the doomsday clock shifted it from 5 minutes to midnight to 3 minutes to midnight—a timely reminder of the dangerous and challenging times that the world faces at the moment. We have seen some dramatic examples over the last 12 months. Who would have predicted Brexit? Who would have predicted not just that Donald Trump would be elected but that he would set about keeping his promises? And the tragedy of all of that has been that the response of a number of the Western democracies of which we are part has been to try to pull the drawbridges King Canute - like and say: Well look we're going to have to make changes to accommodate these things." The consequence of that response has been that a number of the solid liberal democratic values that our societies have been founded upon are being put at risk.United Future makes no apology for standing against this trend. We are for cultural diversity. We stand up for what the various cultures and their backgrounds and their traditions contribute to making all of us better and we do not believe in walls or other impediments being put in their place. We are not opposed to immigration. Immigration is a good thing. Well managed it grows our skill base it grows our country it makes us better. And we are globalists. In these days where neo-protectionist policies seem all the rage it is worth standing up for some of the things that actually made this country the great country that it is. New Zealanders are open-hearted they are open-minded they are forward-looking they are modern they are green and they are internationalist. They need a voice that says all those things for them demonstrates it by action and makes a contribution in Government and that is what United Future seeks to do this year and beyond.There is a compelling logic to the case. We are not going to let the populists run amuck with our country. We have seen the damage they are causing elsewhere—the division the chaos the instability the uncertainty. I take my hat off to the Prime Minister. Good on him for having a favourable conversation with the President of the United States yesterday. But it is a mark of how unreal this world has become that the fact that conversations on telephones between world leaders are now judged on whether one hangs up on the other or not. In this very uncertain unreal unpredictable world some constants are needed and standing up for the traditional liberal values that have made New Zealand the country it is is amongst those constants. It is time to recognise diversity.We had a wonderful display marred by one or two incidents in the last 24 to 48 hours of what New Zealand can be at its best: people coming together to celebrate our shared heritage our background—what we have in common by virtue of the fact that we reside on these islands. We should never ever shy away from standing up for those things because if we do what we do is we yield to prejudice we yield to intolerance we yield to bigotry. There has been too much of that in evidence around the world over the last couple of years and it is little wonder that the doomsday clock now ticks at just 3 minutes to 12.All of this brings the focus back to being about what Governments can do to benefit the people whom they are elected to represent—a people-centred approach to policy that builds on our respect for each other our traditional sense of value and creates opportunities for families to thrive and for communities to grow and become more powerful and vibrant. I want this afternoon to throw out just four ideas that could contribute to New Zealand making significant progress in a number of critical areas where we have concerns at the moment.There has been a lot of talk in this debate already and in this country over the last year or so about housing and there are huge issues with the supply of adequate and viable housing for young families. Some of those are land-use issues. Some of those are capacity constraint issues. Some of them are financing issues. One step that the Government could take at no cost would be to allow young families young couples—recipients of Working for Families—to capitalise on an annual basis their Working for Families entitlement to go towards the cost of either bridging the deposit gap or meeting their housing costs. That is a very simple concept. It comes at no cost because the money is money they are already receiving. It is simply advanced and paid in a lump sum for housing purposes and I think that would make a significant contribution to many struggling young families at the moment who want to know—forget the niceties and the details of where the house might be; they are not interested in that—how they can even afford to think about a house. Here is one step that could be taken to make that a possibility.We talk a lot about our clean green environment and preserving it—and rightly so—and I think there are a couple of steps we could easily take now that would give effect to that and send a signal for future generations that would be very powerful. Why not impose a levy of $25 on every visitor coming to New Zealand to support the conservation estate to make sure that the walks the track the huts and the infrastructure are maintained? That would raise about $75 million a year and that would free up other resources within Vote Conservation for the protection of endangered species and other areas of critical concern and it would be a signal that we care for our future and are determined to ensure that our environment is best protected and best enhanced and best able to be enjoyed by those who visit.At the same time there is a huge push today to promote greater use of electric vehicles and a lot of worthy steps have been taken. I understand that since the end of last year there has been a charging network literally from North Cape to Bluff. But the problem is still an access one for people being able to buy that electric vehicle. And what United Future proposes is that the Government set up a $5 million fund for the purchase of such vehicles—cars scooters or even bicycles. That would be up to $5000 for each individual—or one-third of the total cost being able to be claimed—offset against the cost of that vehicle.Let me give you an example. The best scenario I can think of is the purchase of a Nissan Leaf which could cost around $15000 second-hand. Under this policy a person would be able to claim $5000 of that grant towards the purchase of that vehicle. What the scheme would do would be to fund approximately a further thousand electric cars a year coming on to the road and that would be very beneficial for all of the environmental progress for the use of electric vehicles for the protection and enhancement of our wider natural environment. It would not cost very much but the benefit would be huge for New Zealanders.I want to go to the other end of the scale now and pick up some comments made by my colleague to my left when he spoke about superannuation.Grant Robertson: Not to your left Peter.Hon PETER DUNNE: No he is not to my left. It was a figurative comment I assure you. He is probably way off beyond the Labour Party in the solar system when it comes to that. Never mind. He made some comments about superannuation. I want to come back to something that United Future has proposed for years which is still the most viable solution to superannuation and that is to take the choice out of the Government's hands and place it back with the recipient—Flexi Super—allowing people the choice of whether they take a discounted rate of superannuation from age 60 or an enhanced rate if they defer to the age of 70. What that does is it gives people control over their own lives over their own futures and they can make their plans based on their circumstances and their assessment of them.Bear in mind that increasingly most people have access to KiwiSaver; more will in the future. So the combination of compulsory KiwiSaver and Flexi Super does give people a good package for their retirement. It puts a peg in the cost. It does not cut the cost of superannuation but it allows it to plateau at around existing levels and it ensures that people as they live longer and more healthily can continue to live productive lives.The Prime Minister made a couple of references in his statement to the virtue of stable and reliable Government in uncertain times. I want to reiterate that virtue because a lot of the success that New Zealand has achieved in recent years where we have become the envy of a number of other countries that say to us "How did you do that? We can't imagine being able to do these things in our country." has come about because the Government has been stable and reliable right through the 2000s—not just this current Government but its predecessor as well. That stability and reliability has occurred because of its support partners.So Mr Deputy Speaker I see you are giving me the evil eye or the winding hand to conclude. I will certainly conclude by saying that this is an important year for New Zealand to stand up for its traditional values of tolerance respect for diversity openness and globalism. I will do all I can during this parliamentary term and beyond to promote those virtues."