MR FRASER AT INVERCARGILL

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24053, 15 September 1943, Page 4

MR FRASER AT INVERCARGILL

ADVERTISEMENTS IN NEWSPAPERS

USE IN AUSTRALIAN ELECTION

(P.A.) INVERCARGILL. Sept. 14. The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser) received an attentive hearing from a large audience of about 800 in ths Civic Theatre to-night. He spoke for two and a half hours without any interruption except occasional bursts of applause. A motion of confidence in the Labour Government was carried, with only a handful of dissentients. “When you see some of the advertisements that are appearing in the newspapers just now, you should know that they were used in Australia just recently against Mr Curtin, and you know the result,” said Mr Fraser. “Some of them have what Shakespeare called ‘an ancient and fish-like smell’.” One advertisement showed him, as Prime Minister, being moved on a chessboard by Mr Walsh and Mr Roberts. The pubic would not believe the propaganda that was being used against Labour, and they would have the same result as in Australia.

“Though some flats are inevitable in some of our cities, I hope that New Zealanders will never become a nation of flat livers,” said the Prime Minister. He was speaking' of the Government’s housing programme, and said the most spectacular achievement had been the erection of 16,000 State rental houses. During the six years before Labour took office 13,000 building permits for private dwellings had been taken out, and in six years under Labour 38,000 permits had been issued. In 1934 ’State Advances loans for homes had numbered only 10. During Labour’s term of office, 7800 loans had been made, 5400 being on a special basis of up to 95 per cent, of the cost,, and in some cases 100 per cent. The National Party’s manifesto advocated lending 95 per cent, of the cost of homes by the State Advances Corporation. Labour had already done that. “The National Party manifesto is largely similar to our own,” Mr Fraser said. “They lock the same externally. They are the same from the lips outwards, but from hearts to lips they are very different.”