National's policies a '1990s rehash', claims Government

National leader Don Brash at the party's annual conference in Wellington yesterday. Picture / Fotpress

National has no new policy and plans to serve up a repeat of the 1990s, the Government says.

National used its annual conference, which ended in Wellington yesterday, to attack the Government's "wasteful spending" and its "pandering to minorities".

No new major policy was released at the conference, but National's key players hammered home their belief that the Government was increasingly extreme and detached, while National's policies represented "mainstream New Zealand".

But Social Development Minister Steve Maharey said National's policies were a "rehash" of ones that had already failed in the 1990s.

"What we saw this weekend was a party desperately scrambling for policies and failing to offer a single idea that would take New Zealand forward," he said.

National's education policy spelt a return to the competitive environment of the 1990s, which had brought enormous division to the sector, according to Mr Maharey.

Its tax cuts policy would require cuts to health and education spending, while its proposed work for the dole scheme had already been tried in the 1990s and had failed to achieve results, he added.

And he claimed National's policies would lead to an increase in food bank queues and child poverty.

National leader Don Brash said his party had no plan for large-scale reductions in health and education.

National believed tax should only be used for core services, such as health, education, roads, law and order and those who could genuinely not look after themselves, "not paid out to hire more bureaucrats, or fund more twilight golf courses".

By giving money back to people to reinvest in the economy, public healthcare and education would be eventually strengthened through more wealth and a larger tax base, Mr Brash said.

Later, Dr Brash said that people were concerned "that the Labour-led Government has been pandering to minority interests for too long", but he could not define what a "mainstream New Zealander" was.

- NZPA