KEY POINTS:
2.02pm: NZ first leader Winston Peters has joined John Key in breaking the tradition that politicians do not get involved in interest rate decisions. Mr Peters has said the Reserve Bank should cut rates now and not wait until its next scheduled announcement on October 23.
He said: "The bank is sitting on its hands while companies collapse, jobs are lost and the equity disappears from family homes.
"Other countries are slashing interest rates and doing everything they can to stay afloat while in New Zealand the Reserve Bank is taking a finger in the wind approach."
- NZ HERALD STAFF
12.24pm: Te Ururoa Flavell, launching the Maori Party's youth policy in Hastings, says it will not be "announcing any policies to get tough on teenagers, to send youth to boot camps, to focus on youth crime".
He said: "We choose to focus instead on youth potential. We have a very important reason to do so. 46 per cent of the Maori population are 19 years and under. This is a massive contrast to the total New Zealand population - where only 29 per cent are 19 years and under."
11.39am: The Green Party supports making the Maori seats harder to scrap, it said today.
National has a policy of axing the seats once all historic Treaty of Waitangi grievances are settled. It has set a target of 2014 to achieve its goal.
The Maori Party on the other hand wants to entrench the seats - ensuring they could not be repealed without a 75 per cent majority in Parliament. At present a simple 50 per cent majority is needed.
The Green policy released today aligns it with the Maori Party.
Green MP Metiria Turei said general seats required a 75 per cent vote to be abolished and she had drafted a member's bill to require any decision on Maori seats to meet the same threshold.
She said the party's Maori issues policy also included more support for Maori education and promoting greater teaching of Maori language in schools.
The party also supported refashioning the justice system to put more focus on restorative justice and rehabilitation. That would help Maori people who had high rates of imprisonment.
- NZPA
10.23am: United Future leader Peter Dunne has accused the Ministry of Social Development of 'dropping the ball' over funding for the nation's children's health camps.
"These camps play a vital role in helping our more disadvantaged youth and the prospect of their closing because of a tight-fisted Government is just not on," he said.
"I wrote to the Minister of Social Development, Ruth Dyson, last week about health camps' funding and received a thoroughly unsatisfactory, bland answer."
- NZ HERALD STAFF
10.15am: National is accusing Labour of being big-spenders. The party's deputy leader Bill English says he wants to hear from Helen Clark "where the $1.3 billion she promised on the campaign trail yesterday is going to come from".
Mr English said he referring to "the billion dollar fund for the Greens, $133 million on a near-copy of National's benefits policy, and around $250 million on maintaining the floor of superannuation at 66% of the average after-tax wage".
- NZ HERALD STAFF
9.00am: The Greens turned personal against Helen Clark yesterday, issuing a statement headed: "Greens worried campaign is taking its toll on PM".
Co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, irritated that the Labour leader did not give the Greens credit for a $1b house insulation scheme, claimed the stress of the hustings might have caused the Prime Minister's memory to fail her.
"Helen Clark apparently cannot remember back just a few short months when the Green Party conducted long and intense negotiations to secure the $1 billion Green Homes Fund during the negotiations over the Emissions Trading Scheme.
"Surely she would not be taking the credit for another party's work and ideas? We suggest she take a few weeks off the campaign to put her feet up and give her memory time to recover."
- NZ HERALD STAFF
