MR SULLIVAN’S CAMPAIGN

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 25020, 31 October 1946, Page 8

MR SULLIVAN’S CAMPAIGN

OPENING MEETING AT NEW BRIGHTON

LABOUR’S ECONOMIC POLICY DEFENDED

The Hon. D. G. Sullivan opened his campaign as Labour candidate in the Avon electorate at New Brighton last evening. In spite of heavy rain, there was an attendance of about 70, which gave Mr Sullivan an attentive hearing and accorded him a vote of thanks and confidence.

Reviewing industrial expansion, Mr Sullivan said there were now 22,000 vacancies in industry, but when the Government took office there were more than 50,000 workers unemployed as a result of the previous Government’s incapacity to deal with the problem. Labour had turned its back on the economists, stopped the policy of deflation, and substituted the entirely new policy of expansion conceived by the Labour Party in New Zealand. Labour substituted happiness and prosperity, of a standard not reached in any other country, for misery. Guaranteed Prices This was done not only for the worker. Equity and common sense demanded that the same should be done for farmers, so the guaranteed price was introduced to retrieve farmers from bankruptcy. Mr K. J. Holyoake had said guaranteed prices were the first step towards the nationalisation of the land. That was 10. years ago, and the land had not been nationalised. Talk' of nationalising the land was sheer nonsense. There might be some argument between the Government and the farmers about prices and marketing policy, Mr Sullivan said, but few farmers would ever vote against the retention of the guaranteed price. Labour’s election policy provided for more intimate association between the Government and the dairy industry. New Zealand was still predominantly an agricultural and pastoral country, and would remain so for a long petiod. Therefore, no government would be doing justice to the country as a whole if it aid not ensure ‘the prosperity of primary industries. The Government would work towards closer and more harmonious relations with the farmers. By improving the conditions of the mass of the people, Labour had lifted up the whole of the community, just as in reverse business people had gone down with the masses during the depression. This lifting up had to be kept within the rational limits fixed by production, which made production important to all sections. The richer section were not getting as much out of their enterprises as before, because of the heavier taxation needed to pay the costs of the war, rehabilitation, social security, and so on. However, they were in a much firmer and sounder position than they would have been under the policies of previous Governments. If there was one thing that was overwhelmingly important, it was the prevention of a recurrence of the last war. The matters discussed at the election were truly of importance to New Zealand; but all the advances that might be made in humanitarian progress would be as nothing if war came in the future. That was why it was overwhelmingly important that the United Nations should be made an efficient organisation, in which New Zealand had to play its part and had played its part. The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser) had made a noteworthy contribution. Sometimes the Opposition criticised the sending of Ministers overseas; but the Opposition was failing in its public duty in the attitude it adopted towards New Zealand’s representation

at these conferences, the object of which was to secure peace. “Freedom and Security”

“Some newspapers say that the principal election issue is freedom,” Mr Sullivan said. “I say the Labour Goverhment is more concerned about the freedom of the people than the National Party is. Every progressive measure that we have put on the Statute Book, measures that have put this country in the forefront of the world in social legislation and ideals, has been represented by the National Party as an attack on freedom. The freedom they stand for is the freedom of the jungle. We say the people cannot have freedom if they do not have security. The man out of work and the farmer held in the grip of a mortgagee, the aged, the sick, and the widows—how much freedom did they have 9 Every effort we have made to give security and freedom to the people has been resisted.” Asked the reason for the shortage of men’s clothing, Mr Sullivan said there were two difficulties. One was the quota on fabrics exported from the United Kingdom. No effort had been spared to get that quota increased, but the world was finding it more difficult to reconvert after the war than had been expected. Import control had nothing to do with it. The second difficulty was the shortage of labour in New Zealand factories. Mr Sullivan told another- questioner that he did not think a return to midweek racing would be popular. What was wanted was more production, not less. Asked about the Government’s attitude to the establishment of State lotteries, Mr Sullivan said the question had never been considered by the Government. He was inclined to think that if it were considered the Government would decide against it. “The answer Is that the Government is not in favour of disinheritance,” said Mr Sullivan in reply to another question.