Middleman treads Remuera's footpaths

Peter Dunne says United Future is a centre party, able to work with either side of politics Picture / Richard Robinson

Standing in the middle of a Remuera Rd footpath, shoppers streaming around him, United Future leader Peter Dunne is scanning the newspaper.

He objects to the suggestion that he could be the kingmaker in the formation of the next Parliament.

"I don't like the term. I think it implies a sort of power play and it's not really ..."

The unspoken, of course, is that the word was irretrievably besmirched while NZ First leader Winston Peters held the country to ransom during 1996's coalition negotiations. So what description do you prefer, then, Peter?

"Pivot," says Mr Dunne, accompanying the word with a thoughtful frown. "Being the central point. The fulcrum."

Both words are a bit like Dunne, 51: sensible, reasonable, free of emotive undercurrent.

First impressions suggest there would be small chance of Mr Dunne, his party's sole electorate MP with Ohariu-Belmont, submitting to spontaneous goofiness at any time, and absolutely not during an election campaign. In answer to a deliberately frivolous question, he responds with "I don't do frivolous questions."

Mr Dunne, out and about with his Epsom candidate, not-for-profit sector manager Janet Tuck, is the only politician to have been a Cabinet minister in National and Labour Governments in the 1990s.

Of course he denies a suggestion he is a shameless opportunist who goes where the wind blows.

"United Future is a centre party, and by definition we have to be able to work with either side of politics."

The Greens try to pull Labour to the left, he adds. Act tries to draw National further right: "We want to pull both parties more to the centre."

The day before there had been a carefully staged meeting to talk coalition conditions with National leader Don Brash on the noisy, stinky footpath outside a Mt Eden cafe.

By the way, says Mr Dunne, he was drinking English breakfast tea, not herbal: "Peter Dunne is not a herbal tea man".

There will also be a meeting with Prime Minister Helen Clark to discuss deals.

Mr Dunne's pet project, his Families Commission, appears safe with either major party, but he has two other "bottom lines", he says: no change to cannabis laws, and no outlawing of hate speech.

"I believe in absolute freedom of speech for everybody [but] I am not condoning what people - and I - would regard as unacceptable."

He says he enjoys quitting Wellington - "somewhat introverted and obsessed with politics" - to campaign in the streets.

The campaign so far has been "extraordinary" and he has few concerns over his 12,534 majority in Ohariu-Belmont, his patch for 21 years so far.

"I suspect," he says, "that the biggest threat is complacency - the electorate's assumption that the result is a foregone conclusion."