Labour overturned 30 years of history by introducing a dual mandate for the Reserve Bank, asking it to target both maximum sustainable employment and price stability. National would end the experiment and get the Bank focused on one core job: putting the lid back on inflation.

At worst, new costs could push some businesses to the wall and at best they’ll add more upward pressure to already high prices. Here are three examples:

• National would restore interest deductibility for rental properties.
• We would withdraw the Fair Pay Agreement legislation.
• We would axe the Government’s plans for a Jobs Tax to fund their social insurance pet project.
• And we would make 19 changes to back farmers while protecting the environment

We’ll cut the red tape that is stifling investment, like the failed CCCFA. We’ll focus on getting Kiwis off welfare and into work because there are 57,000 more people on jobseeker benefits under Labour despite businesses crying out for staff. And we’d sort out the mess at Immigration NZ so New Zealand businesses can access the skilled workers they need to grow the economy.

New Zealand should be a country where if you work hard, you can get ahead. But after years of economic mismanagement by Labour, topped off by two years of rampant inflation, huge increases in interest rates, and a shrinking economy, most Kiwis are going backwards.

National’s Back Pocket Boost tax relief plan will increase after-tax pay for the squeezed middle, making a family with kids, on the average income of $120,000, up to $250 a fortnight better off, and an average-income child-free household up to $100 a fortnight better off.

National wants better public services and in government that means we will make the investments needed to deliver them. We will improve health, education and other vital services Kiwis rely on. What we won’t do is accept the lazy approach currently being applied by Labour, which seeks to measure how much a government cares about something by how much taxpayer money it spends on it, instead of the outcomes it delivers.

National understands public spending has no value if it does not deliver real results for people. The next National Government will be relentlessly focused on outcomes, not announcements.

We won’t default to centralising every aspect of the economy, be it polytechnics, local water assets or health services. Nor will we resort to another round of working groups each time we identify a new challenge. National believes every government has a duty to spend taxpayers’ money as effectively and efficiently as possible.

We believe this Labour Government is failing in that duty.