Wellington - After nine years of liberal centre-left government, New Zealand has taken a decided swing to the right in Saturday's general election, but how far remains to be seen.

The conservative National Party's leader and prime minister-elect John Key says the organisation is "arguably more centrist and probably a little more pragmatic" since he became its leader two years ago.

But his future coalition partners in the free market ACT party maintain a strident right-wing agenda of slashing government spending, privatising state-owned businesses and creating competitive markets in the health, education and welfare sectors.

How far Key takes the country to the right will depend on how much pressure ACT's five Members of Parliament under their feisty leader Rodney Hide succeed in exerting.

It will be ACT's first time in government and commentators expect them to make their presence felt, especially as the quintet includes Sir Roger Douglas, architect of the radical changes that transformed the New Zealand economy two decades ago.

Key said he would run a centrist government and after campaigning on a broadly centrist programme, analysts said he had no mandate for a sharp turn to the right.

But he needs ACT's five seats for an overall majority in the House of Representatives and they are bound to have influence over policy.

Key has said he will retain what he calls his party's "core values and principles of personal freedom, individual responsibility and a competitive economy", and he campaigned on traditional conservative issues including limiting the bureaucracy and locking up criminals for longer.

Key has, however, embraced a number of Labour policies, including pledging not to sell a state bank founded by the centre-left government, maintaining a superannuation scheme Labour introduced and retaining its "working for families" tax breaks scheme.

He was even hailed as barging into traditional Labour territory with a pre-election support plan for workers who lose their jobs in the current recession. It was noticeably not targeted at the Nationals' traditional big-income earning supporters, but Key said the economic crisis required extraordinary measures.

These moves, along with accepting Labour's 20-year-old anti-nuclear policy and approving its decision not to join the US-led invasion of Iraq, dismayed right-wing diehards, including the ACT party.

Hide dubbed Key's Nationals "Labour-Lite", saying he was adopting socialist policies in order to get elected and that the country needed tougher right-wing policies.

Labour has painted Key as a gentle, kindly-faced, front man for Nationals' big business backers bent on dismantling the welfare state and limiting workers' rights.

Key has made it clear there will be little change to New Zealand's foreign policy under his government.

"Relationships between nations should be unaffected by the swings and roundabouts of domestic politics and New Zealand, as a smaller country heavily dependent upon international trade cannot afford that luxury," he said. (dpa)