Peter Dunner, currently the leader of the United Future political party, has been a force in the politics of Aotearoa New Zealand for quite some time. This book, published in 2002, is a compilation of excerpts from various speeches he had given in the previous ten years or so. Roughly organized into chapters addressing topics such as health care, international relations and environmental policy we get treated to the political vision and ideals of the United Future platform.

Going into the book I already had somewhat of a liking for Peter Dunne, seeing him as a fairly moderate politician with a slight leaning to the right of centre. Upon completing the book I am left very much with the same image. It does bring a sense of patriotism and pride that such a politician occupies that place in the political spectrum here. Especially as his stance on say tertiary education is that the government should subsidize 80% of tuition fees (currently they subsidize 66%) and that there should be increased commitment to governmental funding of scholarships. Or his 80% governmental assistance for primary health care costs. He is however to the right of me so in some areas I found his policies to be problematic. For instance his goal of cutting back on Ministers comes off as counter productive and a blatant attempt at populism as opposed to a balanced dialogue into the feasibility of dumping increased workloads on already stressed workers.His policies regarding marriage and drug use are also disheartening. That being said, while I would note vote for him, he is a political player that I can respect.