Dunne Peter: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
Dunne Peter: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
[Volume:644;Page:14067] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 Madam Speaker I begin by congratulating you and your fellow presiding officers on your year of stewardship over the House in sometimes difficult and testing times but always with strength and dignity and a quality we admire. I acknowledge too and congratulate Mary Harris on her appointment as the new Clerk of the House of Representatives. I think you will honour that role Mary and I look forward to working with you over the next few years. 
I pay tribute to all of the staff: messengers security people Bellamy’s people library staff the information technology people our secretarial staff and the myriad of other people around this building who help to make it function. I acknowledge the contribution they make during the course of the year. I acknowledge too the work of my own office: my immediate political staff my departmental seconded staff my party staff my departmental officials and the others who have helped to make it possible for me to function effectively this year—my out-of-Parliament staff my regional staff and so on. 
I pay a special tribute to my deputy Judy Turner for her loyalty consistency and friendship and for her warmth and calming advice in so many stressful situations. Judy you are a treasure and you are a treasure to this Parliament and this country and I appreciate being able to count you as a friend and a colleague. 
This has been an extraordinary year. United Future has had its ups and downs but despite the fact that we are somewhat diminished in size we are actually better for it and very happy to have been through the process we have because we were able to reassert ourselves as a genuine centre party and not be sidetracked by other issues as we might have been previously. 
It has also been a year in which United Future has been able to make very significant progress. The business tax review which the Minister of Finance referred to earlier on arose as a direct consequence of the United Future confidence and supply agreement. I was very proud as Minister of Revenue to bring in the legislation that gives New Zealand business its first tax cut since the heady days of Roger Douglas in the 1980s. I was proud also to deliver on our promise of removing the cap on charitable donations in order to make that a much more attractive proposition. I was proud too to see that we are moving down the path of introducing a payroll-giving system. 
I was delighted to work with my colleagues in the Green Maori and ACT parties and occasionally with my friends from New Zealand First on other issues. I think about our joint press conference and the action we succeeded in bringing to bear on the repeal of the sedition laws. I think about the work we did on a code of conduct and I will be making some announcements in the next few days in relation to my annual list about how parliamentarians have behaved. I will be reflecting on how that list might have been different had everyone in this Parliament signed up to that code of conduct. But I know that that is something Madam Speaker has an interest in and I am sure we will have more discussion about it in the future. 
A lot has been said about the political year 2007 and at this late stage of it I do not propose to rehearse too many of those arguments. Everyone says at the end of every year what an extraordinary year it has been—“It has been one of the longest and toughest I can remember.”—but I suspect that that is more a reflection of our ageing process than of the challenges we face. But this year has had some particular aspects to it that were unusual. We have had two very high-profile public debates on issues quite varied from the one we have just dealt with in terms of electoral finance and earlier in the year it was the issue of the smacking of children. 
What concerns me at the end of this year—and I will just inject a moment of seriousness into this debate for a little while—about both of those debates is not so much the issues themselves but the way in which we as a country now seem to handle those issues. Everything seems to be a crisis these days. Reason has gone out of the window. Common sense and a quiet persuasive way of dealing with issues is secondary to seeing everything as being the greatest crisis to befall our nation at this particular time. Opinions become remarkably polarised abuse flies and argument rationality and debate go out the window. I suspect with a great deal of concern that as we embark upon election year next year we will see that trend become more and more entrenched and it is bad. It is bad for our Parliament it is bad for our people and it is bad for our country. We ought to be able to engage in good healthy debate that is about issues but we have to get away from seeing everything as being the greatest crisis for Western civilisation that is imaginable. 
The media has a part to play in this. The march to sensationalism—this determination to trump the other outlet by making one’s version of the story bigger bolder and greater than everyone else’s—is contributing a lot to this. So much more is coming also from this vastly improved web of international and internal communication we have but I do not think that as a people we are any better for it because we have lost our capacity to listen we have lost our capacity to engage and we are in danger of losing our capacity to debate. As we embark upon election year next year with all of the issues that that will give rise to my earnest plea is that we just think a little bit about reason. 
I note that this is not just limited to New Zealand. I recommend to members that if they want to do a little serious reading alongside the light holiday stuff over the next few weeks then they should read Al Gore’s latest book  
The Assault on Reason 
 because that really sets out a lot of these arguments in a very compelling way. It brings the issues that we all care about back to a respective philosophical base and I think that all of us need to think about that as we embark upon the election campaign next year. 
But before that happens a lot more will happen. There is the festivity of Christmas there is the time with family and friends and there is the ability to unwind to relax to relive the great battles of this year—always with the glory that we put on them after the event—and just to recharge the batteries. As members do so I invite them to reflect upon one thing: we will have a longer summer this year because United Future working with Mark Holmes from the Nelson City Council was instrumental in having daylight saving hours extended. So those summer barbecues—and I heard reference made to Mr Goff’s plans a little earlier—will be able to occur with greater frequency. With the La Niña weather pattern around I am sure that there will be more stability and long evenings for the conversation the plotting and all of the encouragement that goes on around them. 
As we come to the end of this year it simply remains for me to wish every member of the House a very happy Christmas and a peaceful time with family and friends. Believe it or not I enjoy most members’ company most of the time—my good friend Mr Harawira over there springs to mind immediately. We have our differences but I think one of the things that marks this country out as great and marks this Parliament out as special is that there is a bond between us. We can actually talk and joke and move on to the next issue without holding any long-term grudges. So Madam Speaker I offer my best wishes to you and I offer my best wishes to my fellow members of the House. I wish everyone good luck for the festive season and may 2008 bring each and every one of us our true and just desserts.