Peter Dunne

Peter Francis Dunne (born 17 March 1954) is a retired New Zealand politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ōhāriu. He held the seat and its predecessors from 1984 to 2017 – representing the Labour Party in Parliament from 1984 to 1994, and a succession of minor centrist parties from 1994. He was the Leader of Future New Zealand from 1994 to 1995, United New Zealand from 1996 to 2000, and United Future from 2000 to 2017.

He served as a Cabinet minister while in the Labour Party and later in governments dominated by the centre-right National Party and by the Labour Party. From 2005 to 2008 he held the posts of Minister of Revenue and Associate Minister of Health as a minister outside of Cabinet with the Labour-led government. After Labour suffered an election defeat in 2008 to the National Party, United Future was reduced to having Dunne as its sole MP. However, in a deal between United Future and National, Dunne retained his two portfolios outside Cabinet. On 7 June 2013 he resigned his warrant as a minister due to a purported leak from his office. He effectively was an independent MP between 25 June 2013 and 13 August 2013 when United Future was temporarily deregistered. On 28 January 2014 Dunne was reinstated as a minister holding the Internal Affairs, Associate Health, and Associate Conservation portfolios.

On 21 August 2017, Dunne announced that he would retire from politics and pulled out of campaigning for re-election at the 2017 New Zealand general election. United Future lost its sole seat in Parliament and attained only 0.1% of the party vote. He is retired as a politician, and is now a political commentator. Provided by Wikipedia