KEY POINTS:
Sir Roger Douglas, resurrected as the Act Party's star attraction, will announce on Sunday which seat he has decided to contest in the election.
The former Labour finance minister founded the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, which became the Act Party.
He cut most of his ties with it when Rodney Hide became leader in 2004 because he didn't like Mr Hide's headline hunting style and considered there wasn't enough focus on policy.
Since then Mr Hide has toned down his scandal mongering and in March this year the reconciliation was complete.
Sir Roger said he was returning to active politics because there were no longer any significant differences between National and Labour, New Zealand was in a dreadful state and neither of the main parties had the courage or the will to do anything about it.
He lives in Auckland and is expected to stand in one of the city's electorates, which he doesn't have any chance of winning but by being a candidate he will have opportunities to raise his profile and talk about ACT's objectives.
Since his return he has become the architect of its economic and tax policies.
He would slash government spending, rent out hospital wards to doctors for private practice, introduce education vouchers and give average wage earners $100 a week through tax cuts.
Earlier this year he said he would like to be a cabinet minister in a National/ACT coalition government, which caused a minor flap.
National's leader, John Key, was forced to rule that out and assure voters he wasn't going to have anything to do with radical, right-wing policies.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said Sir Roger's broken promises on asset sales in the 1980s were a factor in her decision to become leader of the Labour Party and she still opposed his "absolutely horrific" policies.
ACT gained its first MPs in 1996 - the first election under MMP - when Richard Prebble won Wellington Central and the party broke the 5 per cent barrier.
It performed well in 1999 and 2002, but its vote collapsed in 2005 when supporters switched to National under Don Brash.
ACT gained only 1.5 per cent of the party vote, but Mr Hide managed to win Epsom from National and it has two MPs, Mr Hide and Heather Roy.
Mr Hide is likely to retain Epsom in this year's election, because National isn't going to make a serious attempt to win it back.
But to have a presence in Parliament that will give it any clout in a deal with National post-election, it has to raise its party vote to around 5 per cent at the very least.
Sir Roger is a big part of the plan to do that and he is expected to be given a high place on the party list.
That should ensure he gets into Parliament even if ACT doesn't get much more than 3 per cent of the party vote this time.
- NZPA
