New Zealand entered a new era of conservative rule yesterday, with prime minister-elect John Key promising to be a moderate amid fears some of the country’s policies on global warming and indigenous people could be rolled back.
Voters on Saturday elected the wealthy former currency market trader to lead them through the global financial meltdown, handing long-serving left-wing Prime Minister Helen Clark a crushing defeat.
Key said yesterday that he hoped his National Party and coalition partners would be sworn into government within about a week so he can attend the APEC summit of Pacific Rim leaders in Peru on Nov. 22 to Nov. 23. The financial crisis will top the summit agenda.
“We think it would be in the best interests of the new government if ... as prime minister, I was able to attend that meeting,” Key told reporters in Auckland.
That would mean fast-tracking final negotiations with coalition partners on posts in government to speed up the formal handover process.
In nine years in power, Clark helped build New Zealand’s reputation as one of the world’s greenest and most socially progressive societies, based around the South Pacific nation’s rugged landscape and strong indigenous Maori culture.
Key campaigned as a moderate, but his policies include plans to eventually abolish special parliamentary seats for Maori and making the country’s greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme more favorable to business.
Senior National official Stephen Joyce yesterday sought to allay fears that Key may have a hidden right-wing agenda — as Clark had alleged — saying he “will lead a centrist government” that would not be deflected into “economic extremism.”
Key sought to address the issue in his victory speech late on Saturday, saying: “You have my pledge. I will lead a government that serves the interests of all New Zealanders.”
Key says the farming export-dependent economy is the top priority, with the global financial meltdown expected to make a recession already under way even worse. He has promised to introduce debt-funded tax cuts before the end of the year and establish a razor gang to review and trim government spending.
“New Zealand voters took a major swing to the right yesterday,” the Sunday Star Times newspaper said on its front page, calling Key’s reform plans “major and controversial.”
National’s win was emphatic, but under New Zealand’s proportional voting system the larger parties almost always require the support of smaller ones. Key has struck alliances with two smaller groups to give him a parliamentary majority.
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