PM pulls purse out for election

By John Armstrong

political editor

National's campaign to win back hearts and minds in middle New Zealand accelerated yesterday with Jenny Shipley issuing soothing assurances about hospitals and universities - plus a blunt message to judges.

The Prime Minister's annual statement to Parliament, which outlines her minority Government's agenda for this year's session, brings National back to election-year basics by promising to tackle hardcore criminals, lift standards in schools and build hospitals.

Mrs Shipley later insisted it was a coincidence that the $200 million-plus hospital rebuilding project in Auckland, which she announced yesterday, had come in an election year.

She also dismissed suggestions her speech was a convenient pre-election repackaging of National, saying already-established programmes like Family Start for disadvantaged families demonstrated her Government was "caring."

However, her speech to Parliament was a stark contrast to last year, when she delivered a tough message about individual responsibility on the back of the work-for-the-dole scheme and announced the subsequently-doomed code of social responsibility.

The welfare reform message now takes a back seat - along with micro-economic reform and privatisation. Yesterday's statement instead flags "social investments" - code for extra spending on social services, including Maori-based programmes in a nod to Tau Henare's Mauri Pacific.

Mrs Shipley also promised the state would remain the "largest" provider of hospital services, while universities and polytechnics would not be privatised.

She said it was time "to put a peg in the ground" in advance of Labour-Alliance scare campaigns.

For a Government long critical of a "bricks and mortar" approach to health services, the speech made much of constructing new hospitals in Auckland and Wellington and modernising hospitals in provincial cities, including Tauranga.

On top of that spending, there is more money for free flu injections and more assurances free health care for children under six will continue.

As long promised, pensions will become portable for Pacific Islanders from October, enabling them to return home on retirement.

Tougher jail sentences for "home invasions" and tighter bail laws were signalled weeks ago, but the law and order package is bolstered by the creation of crack police squads to concentrate on burglary, car theft and violent crime.

Mrs Shipley pointedly stressed New Zealanders wanted the courts to respond to the "strongly-held" wish for longer sentences for serious violent crimes.

She was less clear on exactly how the Government will boost pay packets. On tax cuts , she again said decisions would have to await the May budget. She would not say whether National would be able to outline a specific percentage cut for the 2000-2001 financial year - a specific it will want to contrast with Labour's tax rise.

Act's leader, Richard Prebble, grumbled about elements of the statement, but confirmed his party will support National in this week's confidence motion.

Labour accused Mrs Shipley of "election-year puffery", while the Alliance described the statement as "a speech of monumental cynicism."

Pictured: Jenny Shipley delivering her Prime Ministerial statement. HREALD PICTURE / MARK MITCHELL.