(Continued from previous page)
which is really about ceding a lot of sovereignty and control to Maori - some of which we agree with, and a lot which we don't - so there's going to be some very big differences in the policies we put forward.
The Government has put a lot more power into the hands of unions, which we think is wrong. People ought to be able to choose who represents them in their workplace, rather than have to become a member of a union. So there are things like that we have already declared where we will make changes. As their policies become clearer in the minds of the people and the laws they pass, we'll be able to distinguish what further changes we will make. But compared to most other governments in the past, I think there will be a lot more difference between the Opposition parties and the Government.
Education policy is a big area; we believe the education policies the Government is introducing amount to really 'dumbing down', rather than rewarding young people that are bright, success-oriented, and really want to do as well as they can. A lot of things the Government is doing are really trying to bring everybody down to the same level, rather than rewarding or encouraging excellence and capability. These are policies we will want to change.

Rebeccah: Have you any ideas or plans to help small businesses?
Max: In fact, we put in place a lot of initiatives - I was responsible for some of them - like the BizInfo scheme. That was a completely different way of trying to reach out to small businesses, and giving things that they told us (through surveys) they needed. We used the Internet and modern outreach tools. To their credit, the Government is not going to get rid of that policy, even though they criticised it very severely when we put it in place.
We announced, just before the last election, a new policy called 'Bright Future', which was a collection of policy initiatives in the education, science, business area. That really pulls together the basis of our small business policy; it's not about throwing taxpayers' dollars at businesses,

but it is about helping those, say with technology grants in areas we thought are important. Or encouraging young people to get degrees and skills that we need as a country, but which our education system hasn't produced anywhere near enough, for example science graduates. We announced three or four things that would have helped both individuals and small businesses, to get the skills they needed to grow.
Rebeccah: What do you think of the money that was given to the NZ Army instead of the Air Force?
Max: The money that this Government has given to the NZ Army was to buy the equipment we were going to purchase anyway, so they're not doing anything new, in the sense of what we had committed to do. What the Government has done is show they don't like having a defence force that has a sharp end to it - the ability to deal with the people who shoot bullets or rockets at you. And this goes back to what I said before, that the Government wants to turn our defence force into a UN policeman-type role based around the army. We fundamentally disagree with that, and think there needs to be balanced re-equipment of the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force. This means buying new planes for example, for our Air Force - replacing some old aircraft with relatively new ones, as we contracted to do with the F-16's.

Rebeccah: If you had a choice of portfolios, which would it be?
Max: That's a very good question - I've been talking about that with Jenny Shipley over the last few days. I've been lucky that I've been Minister over a pretty fair range of things. I guess my first love would be Minister of Finance, but that's not to be. I think I'd like to concentrate on an external area - defence and foreign affairs - and thirdly in the area that the Bright Future package was, tertiary education and business. But at the end of the day that's up to the Leader; she will determine the allocation as she thinks best.

Rebeccah: Has it been difficult to maintain your public profile since you have been in Opposition?
Max: It's much, much more difficult, although I have probably had a lot less difficulty than other people - partly because I'm responsible for the