KEY POINTS:
Labour leader Helen Clark launched her election campaign yesterday aiming to capitalise on public anger over party-hopping politicians and waste in the public sector.
"Our mission is to clean up Government and to clean up Parliament, too. We want the defectors out," she told a cheering crowd in the Auckland Town Hall already in party mood after a 45-minute routine by Pacific band Te Vaka.
Labour's law to force MPs who left their parties to resign from Parliament would be accompanied by a new era of moderation, frugality and integrity in the public sector, she told the meeting.
"The party is over for the senior management of [Work and Income New Zealand] and of all those other Government organisations who have wasted public money."
Building on the theme of a new Government for a new century, she promised to "reclaim our country" from a Government "propped up by a ragtag mob of defectors and opportunists."
In front of more than 1200 party faithful - organisers claimed 1500 - she gave a personal commitment to implement Labour's seven core pledges.
Brandishing the party's credit-card-sized pledge card, she said students would get a fairer loans scheme, hospital waiting times would be cut, state house tenants would see a return to income-related rents, and this year's cuts to superannuation would be reversed. There would be a crackdown on burglary and youth crime.
Personal tax and GST would not increase for those earning less than $60,000, and company tax would not go up.
Helen Clark defended Labour's plan to raise personal tax on earnings above $60,000, saying she had lost count of the number of people who had said they did not mind paying more tax if it was spent on health and education. She said Labour would not promise more than it could deliver, but would do its best to deliver more than it promised.
Some of the loudest cheers came for her promise to repeal the Employment Contracts Act, which was "unfair to workers" and "a barrier to developing a skilled and productive economy."
Helen Clark steered away from personal attacks on Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, but slammed the "don't-care" parties for governing through the 90s in the interests of the few, not the many.
Under Labour, she said, the interests of the country would be put ahead of freemarket purism.
She pledged personal action on three defining issues: recognition and support for arts and culture; closing the gap between rich and poor and between Maori and Pacific Islanders and other New Zealanders; and preserving native forests.
