Coalition possibilities not talking economics

The minor parties with a chance of forming a Government with National or Labour after the election are not taking many hard and fast economic policies into coalition talks.

While middle-of-the-roader United Future is hanging tough on the continuation of the Families Commission and the preservation of cannabis and hate-speech laws, finance spokesman Gordon Copeland says the party has no "public economic bottom lines".

However, "we do have some bottom lines in each spokesmanship role that we would bring into negotiations. It's fair to say income splitting for couples would be one of those. We think the present tax system is fundamentally unfair and I, as revenue and finance spokesman, would want to have that on the table."

Copeland is concerned with households' high level of debt. To help address that, the party would like to see some form of compulsory savings scheme. That may also figure in coalition negotiations.

If United Future was dealing with Labour, the KiwiSaver scheme would go some way to satisfying Copeland's wishes, but if it was dealing with National, a savings scheme "is something we'd like to talk about".

As for the balance of United Future's economic policies, "during negotiations we'd try to advance our policy agenda as far as we could push it".

The other strong contender for coalition talks are the Greens. "We're making it clear we have no non-negotiable bottom lines in this campaign," co-leader Rod Donald said.

"We will put up a range of proposals and we will argue them forcefully and see if we can cut a good deal."

While the Greens are keen to portray themselves as business-friendly, they have a large number of policies likely to make industry blow its stack if implemented. The question is which, and how many, of those policies they would stand a chance of advancing in a coalition.

"We will need to make some progress on a range of policies to make it worth going into government."

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says his party would not form a coalition with Labour or National, but would support the best polling major party from outside the government.

Peters has been unwilling to talk about what he'd want in return for that support. "We don't bum around with bottom lines," he said. "People who run around with bottom lines end up dying - politically that is.

"We have things that are very, very important to us, but it's a circumstance that whether you're in or out of government, of setting out to achieve them in any environment in concert with others."

The Maori Party was an unlikely starter for coalition talks, although "you never know", finance spokesman Monte Ohia said.

Tax cuts for the poor and business as well as raising the minimum wage were bottom lines for the party. While "maybe the figures are negotiable", the party would walk out of coalition talks if it did not make some headway on those issues.

WHAT THEY STAND FOR

United Future
Income-splitting for couples for tax purposes.
Compulsory savings scheme.

NZ First
Removing GST from petrol.
Buying back privatised state assets and stopping the sale of others.
No free-trade deals with low-wage economies.

Greens
No free-trade agreements with low-wage countries.
Higher carbon taxes and new eco taxes.

Maori Party
Tax cuts for the poor and business.
Higher minimum wage.