LABOUR PARTY'S PLATFORM

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21085, 9 February 1934, Page 5

LABOUR PARTY'S PLATFORM

♦ PROPOSALS FOR REVISION At the conference of the New Zealand Labour party, which is to open in Christchurch on Easter Monday, April 2, the alterations proposed to the platform at the conference last year will be submitted. The alterations provide for the removal of much verbiage, and, if adopted .should result in the platform and the policy of the party being set forth in clearer terms. The socialistic objective o£ the party remains unaltered and the method of attaining it by constitutional means is unchanged. Banking and State Ownership of Utilities The policy of the party in regard to finance and credit has been clarified and is proposed to be set out as follows: "The establishment of a Central State Bank to organise and control the banking system and credit resources so as to provide maximum facilities for use at minimum cost in primary and secondary production." The existing platform provides for the establishment of a State owned shipping service, State-ownership of all branches of insurance, development of existing State enterprises establishment of State farms and the extension of public ownership of national utilities. This is all deleted in the proposed new platform and the following is substituted: "The progressive extension of public control and ownership of national utility services." Nationalisation of the medical service has been dropped from the platform and the section relating to health is proposed to read as follows: "Organisation of the hospital and medical system to ensure adequate medical, surgical, and nursing attention for all." Education, Taxation, and Unemployment The clauses relating to education have been carefully revised, and several items have been deleted, one of which was that Esperanto was to be included in the curriculum for all State schools. The revised clauses impose on the party an obligation to maintain a system of free, secular, and compulsory primary education, and free secondary education, to supply to pupils all school books and all equipment free of cost, and to include in the curriculum an organised system of physical culture. Similarly the platform regarding taxation is proposed to be modified and to read: "Readjustment of the taxation system to conserve the commun-itv-created values to the State, with graduated direct taxation on unearned incomes and special remission on earned income." A new clause is added relating to unemployment, as follows: "Immediate provision of productive work to enable unemployed to earn sufficient to maintain themselves and their dependents, with ultimate transference to ordinary productive employment."