Treaty stance needs to be softer, says Brash

Don Brash says National is 'elaborating on' key policy planks such as welfare. Picture / Andrew Labett

National leader Don Brash says the party needs to present itself as more centrist on just one front - that of Treaty issues.

But he concedes the party is also grappling with its policy positions in other areas which it marked out as key hard-line planks before the last election, including welfare and law and order.

National's annual conference begins in Christchurch tonight and will be largely used as an opportunity to work on developing policy.

Details of a slide presentation given to an April regional conference and leaked by Labour this week reveal the party's desire to present a warmer image.

It encourages MPs to connect better with women and women's organisations such as Rape Crisis and youth and to become more active in charities.

Some MPs also believe the party needs to take a more centrist line on some policies in order to broaden National's support base.

Asked if there was a debate within caucus about the party becoming more centrist, Dr Brash said: "I don't sense that."

But he added: "I think there's one qualification I'd make to that. In the Treaty area there's a very strong commitment to one law for all ... a very strong commitment that we should be treating New Zealanders as New Zealanders."

"There is also a feeling ... that it's very important that National does not come across in some way anti-Maori and I think we do need to balance what we said about the Treaty with some other stuff which will make that crystal clear."

In the lead-up to the last election, he said, "I think there was a concern among some New Zealanders that the National Party had become racist, a charge I totally reject."

Deputy leader Gerry Brownlee will urge delegates at a closed meeting on constitutional issues this weekend to revisit the party's stance on the role of the Treaty in constitutional debate.

Behind his repositioning plans is a desire to create a policy platform which would gel more easily with that of the Maori Party, emerging as a potential coalition partner.

Mr Brownlee raised similar issues at a regional conference this year, but the story backfired after he initially appeared to give mixed messages about whether to change the party's opposition to the Maori seats as well.

National welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins recently revealed there were problems around how to use the "stick" when it came enforcing the party's policies around benefits.

Dr Brash said the party wasn't softening on welfare policy, rather "It's a question of elaborating on it".

The party didn't want to penalise children by financially docking their parents' benefits if they failed to meet their obligations, or for example had additional children while on the DPB.

Yet it didn't want to encourage "a pattern of life which brings in more and more children into highly dysfunctional families".

National has danced around the issue of how to respond to the Government's plans to reduce the prison population, aware that while it has called for tougher sentencing and lock-up measures, the public mindset appears to have shifted.

Dr Brash conceded "there may be" a case for reducing the number of people in prison, but the party was still working on its position.