KEY POINTS:
Finance Minister Michael Cullen says a National-ACT government with Roger Douglas in its cabinet would take a tack to the hard right.
Sir Roger today said cutting taxes, slashing government spending by $5 billion and privatising parts of the health and education sectors could put $100 a week back into the pocket of average wage earners.
The former finance minister, whose policies became known as "Rogernomics" during the fourth Labour government, has said he will stand at the election for ACT and hopes to be elected through the party's list.
ACT has been keen to maximise publicity around the return of its founder and today Sir Roger presented several of the policies he would push for if he returned to the Cabinet table as part of a National-ACT government.
They included:
* Immediately cutting the top tax rate to 33c and adjusting tax thresholds for inflation since 1999;
* eventually introducing a tax-free threshold of up to $40,000;
* axing the Working for Families scheme.
* slashing government spending by between $3 billion and $5 billion;
* introducing education vouchers for all children;
* renting out hospital wards to doctors to practise privately.
Sir Roger also criticised Dr Cullen, who he said was "something of a disaster" and "one of the poorer ministers of finance in the last 50 years".
Dr Cullen today said that coming from Sir Roger, the comments were flattering.
"Just when everybody thought it might be safe to vote National out of the box, like something out of an old horror film, comes Roger Douglas," he told reporters.
"We all know what that means - flogging off the schools, flogging off the hospitals and cutting benefits and everything else that Roger wanted to do and Ruth Richardson did and he did in part."
He said Sir Roger would not be satisfied with a low Cabinet post and he was happy to compare their respective records anytime.
"Here we have a record-long period of growth since the second World War, one of the strongest set of government accounts in the developed world, one of the lowest rates of unemployment in the developed world.
"Roger gifted to us the longest period of downturn in New Zealand's economy since the second World War and rising unemployment."
But National's deputy leader Bill English today appeared to give Sir Roger the cold shoulder.
"We're not interested in a hard-right agenda," he told reporters.
"I don't see him having a place in a National Party Cabinet."
However, he would not definitively rule out the possibility.
Mr English also rejected the suggestion former Act MP, Stephen Franks, who was last night selected as National's candidate for Wellington Central, was still pursuing a "hard-right agenda".
But Sir Roger said he was keen to return to Cabinet, and if he had the opportunity would look to stop Labour's "growth-busting" policies in their tracks.
The Labour-led Government's policies had increased government spending by 10 per cent in real terms, but with little or no gain in productivity.
Axing those policies would put about $100 a week back into the wallets of average wage earners, he said.
The top personal tax rate and Working For Families in particular had reduced incentives for workers through excessively high marginal tax rates.
He said help to working families was better given through a tax-free threshold.
ACT leader Rodney Hide said ACT was keen to reveal its policies as early as possible to distinguish itself from National, whose policies were almost identical to Labour's.
Electing National alone would not significantly change the country's direction, even though there were many people in the party who agreed with ACT's policies.
- NZPA
