New Zealand enters new era of conservative rule

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WELLINGTON, (New Zealand), Nov 9 (AP): New Zealand entered a new era of conservative rule Sunday, with incoming Prime Minister 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 Saturday elected the wealthy former currency market trader to lead them through a recession worsening because of the global financial meltdown, handing long-serving Prime Minister Helen Clark and her central-left Labour Party a crushing defeat.
Key said Sunday he hoped his National Party and coalition partners would be sworn into government within about a week so he can attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit of Pacific Rim leaders in Peru on Nov. 22-23. The financial crisis will top the summit agenda.
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 "Lord of the Rings" 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 emission trading scheme more favorable to business.
On Sunday, he promised to follow through on tax cuts and pro-business, tough-on-crime policies that include registering the DNA of any suspect arrested for an imprisonable crime.
"I don't believe we need to be radical," Key told the TV One network in one of a round of media appearances Sunday. "I've made it quite clear I want to run a center-right government, a moderate government."
Key says the economy, dependent on farming exports and tourism, is the top priority, and that the worldwide downturn will mean a "tough road ahead" for New Zealand.
He has promised to establish a group of cost-cutters to review and trim departmental budgets, and spending for infrastructure such as Internet broadband, and to make it easier for other big private-sector projects to go ahead.
National's win was emphatic, but under New Zealand's proportional voting system Key requires minority party support to get a majority in the 122-seat Parliament.
Key's small party allies include the rightist ACT that wants to slash taxes, reduce public services and privatize state-owned enterprises, but also the United Future Party that says it will rein in ACT's hard-right tendencies.