KEY POINTS:
National is brushing off suggestions it is not very different from Labour and promises voters that coming policy releases on tax, health, education, energy and law and order will clearly differentiate it from its rival.
National - still well ahead in the polls with the election no more than three-and-a-half months away - opens its annual conference in Wellington tonight with the traditional cocktail party. The climax will be leader John Key's keynote address late on Sunday morning, which it's understood will focus on economic matters.
Mr Key has this week been fielding questions about his pledge to keep Labour's Working For Families tax credits intact if National wins Government.
The turnaround led Act leader Rodney Hide to suggest the only thing Labour and National disagree on is who should be Prime Minister - but Mr Key last night said that was not so.
"What you will see now is a rollout of our major policy areas, which are tax, health, education, law and order, energy - and I think across those you will see quite marked differences."
Despite National embracing many of Labour's core policies, there are some differences, predominantly in youth justice, education, ACC and industrial relations.
For National the big unknowns remain its personal tax cut programme, its plans for how much debt it would tolerate, and what its big plan for infrastructure is.
Mr Key said the differences between the parties also came down to their fundamental values - National believed in greater freedom, smaller government and less interference.
Asked what he thought the difference was, Finance Minister Michael Cullen said last night National would lead the country down a fundamentally different path with "creeping privatisation of health and education".
"Being in Government is not just about the popular programmes you continue to deliver or the assets you are not selling off, as Mr Key would have you believe," Dr Cullen said.
"Every day things happen that you have to respond to. Whether it was protecting Auckland Airport or not joining the Iraq war, Helen [Clark] has responded to events in a way that is fundamentally different to what John Key would have done had he been in power."
Dr Cullen said leadership on those issues was arguably the "single most important dividing line".
