ADDRESS BY MR O. G. MOODY

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25953, 5 November 1949, Page 8

ADDRESS BY MR O. G. MOODY

THE ELECTION

HOSTILE AUDIENCE IN SYDENHAM INCIDENCE OF TAXATION CRITICISED .Of a crowd of several hundred who gathered to hear Mr O. G. Moody, National candidate for Sydenham, address an open-air meeting last evening, at least 80 per cent, were actively hostile, and the whole of Mr Moody’s speech was punctuated by interjections, many of them more pungent than polite.

Mr Moody began by pointing out that someone—obviously, he said, no friend of his opponent. Miss M. B. Howard—had removed the street light from the corner where he was holding his meeting. “Progressively and insidiously the people of New Zealand are coming to the state described by Mrs Boswell, the wife of our former Minister to Russia,” said Mr Moody. Under both Socialism and Communism, the State became the master of the individual, he claimed, amidst a chorus of jeers from his audience.

Taxation per capita in New Zealand was up to more than £7l a head, Mr Moody claimed. The workers were paying it without knowing it. A voice: “And don’t we like it.”

The ordinary working people, Mr Moody said, paid far more in taxation than they realised. For instance, few workers knew how much they paid of company taxation. It was all passed on to the consumer, however.

The workers should realise, Mr Moody said, when they computed how well they were doing, that the £ was worth only Us Bd. The amount of taxation paid in New Zealand was the highest in the world. A voice: We’re not complaining. Mr Moody complained about the continuance of sales tax, which he said had been bitterly opposed by Labour members before they became the Government. He did not think that any articles normally used in a household should be subject to such a tax.

A voice: And no more they' are. The problem to be decided by the electors in the coming election, Mr Moody claimed, was whether the ordinary New Zealander should become a servant of the State or a free individual.

It was time now for the average voter to decide whether or not he could get a better Government, Mr Moody said, amid violent disagreement from his audience. “The Unseen Passenger”

“Every time you go out in your car Walter Nash is the unseen passenger,” said Mr Moody, discussing the incidence of taxation. He claimed that the Government had been drawing far more than it needed in taxation from the people. For instance, this year’s Budget had shown a surplus of £2,000.000. The Abstract of Statistics, however, which was prepared by the Government Statistician, showed a surplus for the same period of £14,300,000. The National Party, Mr Moody said, wanted to reduce taxation. Its members considered that taxation could be reduced and they thought that over the last three years Labour had taxed some £47.000,000 in excess of the money it needed. That surplus could be taken into account in plans for reducing taxation, he said. ‘Til convert you all to members of the National Party yet,” said Mr Moody in answer to a series of prolonged and persistent interjections about the National Party policy, which he read in part. Amid a babel of interjection and heckling, Mr Moody, with the advantage of speaking through a loudspeaker system, carried on for about an hour. After his address proper Mr Moody faced a number of questions, all of which he answered. He told his audience that he was bom in Sydenham and educated in Sydenham, and thoroughly understood the needs and feelings of a Sydenham audience. He was an admirer of the 40-hour week, said Mr Moody, and one who wanted to see it continued. Under present conditions, however, those who worked overtime —more than the 40 hours —paid a great deal of extra tax. He was in favour of overtime being free of taxation.

A voice: A fat lot of overtime we will get if you people go in. Mr Moody said that he was a wholehearted supporter of the principle of compulsory unionism. He also supported, with that, the principle of a secret ballot for strikes and for the election of union officers. Many of those working a 40-hour week, he said, also worked for themselves in their spare time, and some of them used their employers’ tools and equipment. Most of them were working more than a 40-hour week, but they would not admit it. . t No honest unionist doing a fair day s work had anything to fear frorn a National Government, Mr Mo° ay claimed. The only ones who should worry were the scroungers taking advantage of the 40-hour week. A number of his interjectors, said Mr Moodv, were following him round from meeting to someot them with a notebook full of , qu „ e „ tions. He had hopes, however of converting them to his way of thinking before the campaign was over. Voices: Good old Mabel. When Mr Moody s meeting concluded. the Minister of Health, Miss Mabel Howard, was still speaking at “ «Ai2 Yess than 100 yards awajn Her audience, although friendly, was much smaller than that attracted y her opponent.