Leaders of New Zealand's two main political parties launched their campaigns on Sunday for next month's general election with speeches pointing to a straight-forward battle between traditional socialist and conservative forces, dpa reported. Prime Minister Helen Clark, a veteran politician who has spent 24 of her 55 years in parliament, will seek a third consecutive three-year term in office at the September 17 ballot, a feat never before achieved by her Labour Party. Don Brash, her senior at 64 but in politics only three years after heading the country's central bank, is bidding to restore power to the conservative National Party, which governed for 38 out of the 50 years until Clark won in 1999. "This election is high noon for New Zealand," Clark told 1,200 Labour Party faithful at her campaign launch in Auckland, supported on stage by New Zealand movie star Sam Neill. She claimed her opponents were out to restore free-wheeling free-market economic policies to the country and slash state services. Nearby, Brash was promising 1,000 of his supporters big - but as yet unspecified - cuts to the top income tax rate, which Labour raised to 39 per cent to pay for increased welfare benefits, and a halt to socialistic social engineering and political correctness which has legalized prostitution and civil union ceremonies for gays. "Its time for a change in direction," said Brash, saying voters had a "momentous choice" between two very different policy programmes, sets of values and styles of politics. Clark said: "There is no mood for radical change in our country," and accused the Nationals of promoting "the politics of division, fear and exclusion". --more 1052 Local Time 0752 GMT
