Use Sir Roger's expertise, says Roundtable

The new National Party-led government should draw on the expertise of Sir Roger Douglas, according to the New Zealand Business Roundtable.

Prime Minister-elect John Key is meeting ACT leader Rodney Hide and United Future leader and the party's sole MP Peter Dunne today.

Business has welcomed the election of a centre-right government and market traders are relieved there is a clear result.

Mr Key has ruled out ACT MP Roger Douglas being a minister but Mr Hide has said the issue is not dead.

Bill English, who is expected to be finance minister, said there would be no cabinet position for Sir Roger but the Government would be open to advice from a wide range of people, Radio New Zealand reported.

Business Roundtable executive director Roger Kerr said he did not want to get into the debate about cabinet positions, but Sir Roger should be called on to help with the current economic crisis.

"There is a lot of nonsense about extreme policies," he said.

A number of Sir Roger's policies had been tinkered with but they were still largely in place. Sir Roger was an extremely experienced person whose expertise ought to be drawn on.

"It is high time that Roger's role was recognised as almost saving the economy so to speak and he would have a lot to contribute in the current environment."

The roundtable has congratulated Mr Key on his conclusive victory in the election.

The roundtable wants policies to improve productivity and address the country's large current account deficit.

It is in favour of privatisation and freeing up the private sector to undertake commercial activity to grow the economy.

"We'd say it is fiscal policy and regulatory policies that should be the top priorities," said Mr Kerr.

"The last thing we should be doing at the moment is following these ideas that have been doing the rounds of spending up yet further. That is a sort of mistaken Keynesian idea," he said.