Peter Dunne speaks to Gordon Campbell

SCOOP: The interesting thing about Mr. Common Sense & Reliable is the body of evidence that indicates he is neither. I'm not talking about Dunne's memorable fit of pique on election night in 2005 ….or actually I am, but only as evidence of an underlying reality, rather than an out-of-character incident. Being sensible is very stressful. 'He seemed so normal,' is after all, an observation that the neighbours of serial offenders routinely make.

With Dunne, it is more a case of serial identities. On the surface, Dunne can seem like a plodding, hyper-rational figure – the Ken Barlow of New Zealand politics. Yet since 1996, Dunne's party lists have zig-zagged in dizzying fashion, often with barely a name recurring between elections. The ethnic minority line-up in 1999 for instance, was markedly different to the neo- Christian line-up he assembled in 2002. For years, Dunne has been willing to hitch his little engine to whatever chain of wagons is available, before chugging off in whatever direction is most likely to deliver him the goods.

The public has sometimes been very surprised by what Mr Sensible has actually delivered. Thanks to the workings of the television worm, Dunne hit his peak during the 2002 election campaign as the Sensible Little Chap, the moderate alternative to a dreaded Labour-Green combination in government. Ironically, the public's sudden infatuation with United Future in 2002 did not save the system from extremism. Quite the contrary - that fling put a bunch of Christian radicals from Dunne's fundamentalist party list into Parliament.

To Dunne's relief, those United Future MPs have since gone down in electoral defeat and/or chosen to pitch their revival tent elsewhere. United Future now face the prospect of re-inventing themselves for this year's election. Once again, it seems to be flip-flopping. For the past six years, Dunne has posed as the steady, reliable hand restraining Labour from going off the rails with any left wing, anti-business agenda – but in 2008, Dunne will be posing as the steady reliable restraint stopping National from going off the rails with a possible right wing, pro-business agenda.

Such a history might have left any other party in Parliament typecast as a bunch of chancers and flakes – yet the myth of steady-as-he-goes somehow endures. Beneath the surface, there is constant movement. Dunne may have been deeply involved in framing the tax outcomes announced in the last two Budgets, but barely before the Budget dust had settled, he was off wooing National for a place in its governing configuration next year.

Such elasticity could be inevitable, the ignoble lot of any small, would-be centrist party. Yet it crops up with regard to some of more the controversial issues before the House as well. In Peter Dunne, the tobacco and gambling industries have what is perhaps their most sympathetic voice in Parliament, during times of need. Scoop political editor Gordon Campbell talked to Peter Dunne last Friday morning.

Read the interview – click here.