Bermuda will take its first steps towards sustainable development policies if the Progressive Labour Party is handed a second term at the helm of Government, the party promised yesterday.

And the first PLP government has delivered on its promises and will continue its mission to build a "new Bermuda", Premier Jennifer Smith said at a Press conference to launch the party's platform.

"We can say without fear of contradiction that most of what we set out to do, what we promised the people of Bermuda, has been done," she said.

"We are not in the business of making idle promises. We did not promise a chicken in every pot because it couldn't be delivered. What we promised was to build a new Bermuda and we are delivering on that promise."

The document will be distributed in tomorrow's edition of The Royal Gazette. It contains no major surprises - the party has said since the beginning of its campaign that it is running on its record.

And it will build on the foundation laid over the last four and a half years.

Much of the 44 page document is a laundry list of accomplishments, while much of the rest of it contains promises to do more of the same.

But the PLP is looking into developing an energy plan which would reduce the Island's dependence on fossil fuels in favour of alternative energy sources, banning substances harmful to the marine environment and, it says, it will have a greater focus on sustainable development policies, if re-elected.

"We intend to promote a government-wide understanding of the principle of sustainable development and to develop better mechanisms to better integrate environmental considerations into the decision making process," the platform says.

Innovations in transport include introducing a shared ride system for taxis and introducing new standards for crash helmets.

The PLP is also promising to reduce the size of Cabinet and make Ministers full time, if re-elected, continue a programme of zero based budgeting which should see better control of current account spending and legislation to create an Ombudsman Office will be pushed through.

On education the PLP is planning to open a special needs school by September this year, launch a mathematics literacy project to raise student achievement in mathematics and will "consider the feasibility of a school for performing arts". Moves to make school boards more autonomous, introduce parental responsibility rules and regulate home schools will continue, the platform states. On housing the platform says that it has made "inroads" on the emergency housing list and significantly reduced outstanding debts to the Bermuda Housing Corporation.

It promises that the PLP will look into "various forms of non traditional building methods as well as non-traditional complexes". "It spells out how we are going to capitalise on the successes of the past four and a half years and the launch of our platform today is certainly no coincidence," she said.

"We've said at the beginning of this election campaign that this government will run on its record and so we have."

Surrounded by almost all of the party's candidates, Premier Jennifer Smith started off by saying that she was "impressed by the demand for our platform".

The party, she said, had produced a general election platform since its inception in 1963. "We are the only political party that can make that claim and we have continued this tradition into Government." At question time she refused to acknowledge that the platform had been delayed. She said the party had always distributed its platform the Saturday before the general election, and she could have distributed it before but chose yesterday to do so.

"I happen to know that people in Bermuda know who they are going to vote for. People's vote is based on more... the platform we are presenting now is a continuation of our plans and a continuation of what we are going to do for the new Bermuda.

"Certainly when we began five years ago we laid out the new Bermuda we believe in. People who bought into that vision have not changed that opinion and certainly are not going to desert halfway through the building of the new Bermuda.

"The platform is for most people a physical entity that they can hold that contains within it what they already know are the policies and platforms of the Progressive Labour Party."

Asked whether more time should have been allowed for public debate on the two major parties' proposals, she said: "So you feel that the current Opposition should have more of a chance than we did in our 35 years in Opposition when there was no UBP platform at all? And no question asked by reporters during that time, of that lack?"

•The PLP holds its final election rally tonight at Bernard Park.

All 36 of the party's candidates will be present at the event which will start with a parade from Alaska Hall to the park.

Theatre boycott activist Kingsley Tweed is slated to address the crowd. Mr. Tweed left Bermuda some two years after the 1959 theatre boycott citing threats to his life. He was invited back by the PLP and arrived on Sunday ending 40 years of self exile.