1.
National gives the majority of tax cuts to the rich
Act wants to give it all
- National's promised tax cuts will see someone on $100,000
get $10.48 a week whereas someone on $9,500 gets nothing.
- Act will give those on $100,000 $160 a week but still
nothing for those on $9,500.

2.
National wants to give the Prime Minster a $10.48 a week tax
cut
Act wants to give her 42 times more than that
-If National is in government Jenny Shipley will get
a $10.48 a week pay rise.
- Act wants to increase that to $451 a week, nearly
the twice the income of someone on the minimum wage.

3.
On 1st April 1999 National cut the value of super
Act wants to abolish it
- National will continue to cut superannuation claiming
they can't afford an aging population while giving tax cuts
to the rich
- Act wants to do away with superannuation and replace
it with an Owen Jennings/Winston Peters style compulsory savings
(tax) scheme.

4.
National closed 39 hospitals
Act wants to sell the rest
- National will continue to close and partially privatise
hospitals
- Act will actively seek buyers for the lucrative parts
of public hospital business and run down the rest of the public
system for eventual sale.

5.
205,000 people are jobless.
Treasury predicts unemployment will remain at roughly that
level for the next 50 years
- National keeps unemployment at 6% to keep inflation
down by raising interest rates through the Reserve Bank whenever
the economy is growing.
- Act will cut $650 million of government assistance
to business over the next two years meaning unemployment will
dramatically increase.
- Act's Leader Richard Prebble, together with Act's
founder Roger Douglas, led New Zealand, when he was last in
Government, to five negative growth years and increased unemployment
from 62,000 (1985) to 140,400 (1990)

6.
National has burdened 250,000 young New Zealanders with $3.4
billion of student debt
Act wants to double it
- Since 1992 student debt has risen to $3.4 billion.
Under National it is projected to double in the next 6 years.
- Act wants to double student debt even faster. They
will add at least $100 million a year to student fees and want
to remove student allowances from all students. This will double
student debt twice as fast as National. They will also privatise
New Zealand's publicly owned universities.

7.
National wants to keep minimum wages at $7 an hour
Act wants to reduce this to zero
- National has abandoned the annual review of the minimum
wage. It will languish at $7 an hour for adults for the foreseeable
future.
- Act has made it clear they want to abolish the minimum
wage.

8.
National wants to set up toll roads
Act wants to sell all roads
- National's plans to corporatise roads and start satellite
charging of cars have been shelved until after the election.
- Act is all for privatisation of roads.

9.
We spend $7 billion more a year than we earn overseas
National and Act want more cheap imports
- National abolished tariffs on cars and other goods
directly contributing to our trade imbalance and destroying
at least 5,400 jobs overnight
- Act wants to speed up tariff reduction and destroy
another 33,000 jobs in the car assembly, clothing, footwear
and carpet-making industries

10.
National says provincial New Zealand doesn't want or need more
hospitals
Act says privatising rural hospitals is the answer
- National claims the crisis of rural health with GPs
isolated and far from professional support will not be helped
by reopening rural hospitals
- Act says the answer is to privatise the remaining
hospitals

11.
On February 1 1999 National cut the DPB by $26 a week
Act wants to abolish it
- National will continue to cut benefits so it can afford
tax cuts for the rich.
-Act wants to take benefits away from people with children,
regardless of whether there is a real job for them or not.

12.
National has sold $9.3 billion public assets to add to the
$9.8 billion sold by the 1984-90 Labour Government
Act wants to sell the rest
- National will continue to sell public assets.
-Act will sell anything that they can, including schools,
hospitals, universities and even the roads

13.
National doesn't like free visits to the doctor for under 6s
Act will abolish them
- National has constantly attacked the under 6s free
doctors visits and will review them
- Act will remove them immediately

14.
National wants employers to negotiate Christmas away
Act wants to abolish it
- National's moves to allow employers to 'negotiate'
holidays with their employees have been shelved until after
Christmas
- Act wants to abolish the Holidays Act and thereby
effectively abolish Christmas for many working families.

15.
National has given Telecom a free hand to increase monopoly
profits
Act wants to abolish even the Kiwishare
- National has done nothing about Telecom's abuse of
its local line monopoly in the last nine years. It also ignored
Telecom's breech of the Kiwishare when it started charging
for local calls for internet use
- Act wants to abolish the Kiwishare and exercise even
less control over exploitation of consumers by monopoly enterprises
like Telecom.

16.
National has followed a relatively reasoned programme to deal
with Treaty claims on the basis that the Treaty of Waitangi
is a permanent founding document of partnership for New Zealand.
Act wants to put all Treaty claims in an envelope and shred
them
- Acts policy of putting time limits on Treaty Claims
presumes that there is some kind of time limit to the Treaty
itself which is course is a living document.

17.
National has sold 10,000 state houses
Act wants to sell the rest
- National has made housing less affordable by increasing
rentals in state houses and selling thousands of them
-Act wants to sell the remaining 60,000 state houses,
putting even greater pressure on rental accommodation.

18.
National refused locals a say on where Casinos are sited
Act wants one on every street corner
- National has ignored Alliance moves to allow local
communities a direct vote on whether Casinos should be in their
communities.
- Act thinks Casinos are good for the economy and good
for jobs, and sending gambling profits out of New Zealand is
a good way of increasing our overseas debts.

19.
National has dragged its heels over global warming
Act thinks it is all a conspiracy theory
- National has ignored our international targets on
reducing greenhouse gas emissions preferring to set up a global
market place to trade in CO2 instead.
- Act thinks that global warming is a 'conspiracy theory'.

20.
National has refused to tell us what is in our food
Act thinks Frankenstein foods are great for New Zealand
- National have repeatedly blocked Alliance moves to
introduce meaningful labelling of genetically engineered foods.
- Act thinks labelling GE foods will destroy our economy
even through Europe has adopted such measures.

21.
National wants to log 181,000 hectares of Native forests on
the West Coast
Act wants to open up our conservation estate for more business
development
- National has actively collaborated with Timberlands
to mislead the public and misuse public money in a PR campaign
to log some of our last lowland rainforests.
- Act believes private-property rights and common law
provide effective incentives for environmental management,
and the Resource Management Act is part of a government plot
against property developers.

22.
National has consistently attacked teachers
Act wants to declare war on them
-National removed kindergarten teachers from the State
Sector Act and has conducted running battles with teachers
for most of the last three years.
- Act blames teachers for most problems in schools and
wants to smash teacher unions.

23.
National has bought expensive frigates
Act wants nuclear ships back in our harbours
-National has spent millions on frigates and F16s but
cannot afford a basic effective troop ship.
-Act calls our anti-Nuclear policy a cold war anachronism
and wants Nuclear ships back in our harbours.

24.
National wants private prisons
Act wants to build more of them
-National is looking at privatising our prisons.
-Act wants to spend $838 million on new prisons rather
than investing in new jobs.

25.
National sat on tougher gun control laws
Act wants to abolish them
-National sat on the Thorp report recommendations and
failed to act on them.
-Act continues to oppose gun registration saying gun
registration is nonsense.

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