COMMUNIST POLICY

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28447, 29 November 1957, Page 16

COMMUNIST POLICY

Mr Locke At Woolston

The Communist Party was standing to win in five electorates; in others it would support the Labour candidates and in Parliament it would support a Labour Government and act in no way which would endanger its existence, said Mr J. Locke, the Communist Party candidate for Christchurch Central in a lunch-hour address at Woolston Tanneries, Ltd., yesterday. About 15 persons were present. Mr Locke said he recognised that there had been a split between the Labour Party and his party ‘‘but it was on no part of ours. We have co-operated before and we hope we can again to build a united Labour Party,” he said. The main Communist criticism of the Labour Party was that it had ‘‘softpedalled in socialism” although today it had a more progressive policy. ‘‘We must keep it going. With more of its 1930 momentum there would be no danger of the Tories getting back into power in New Zealand.” £6OO Taxation Exemption One of the main points of the Communist Party policy was to raise the level of the personal income tax exemption to £6OO and increase the allowance for a wife to £2OO and for each child, £lOO. Its introduction Kvould take the average working class family out of the income tax bracket as was more or less the case about 30 years ago. This level of exemption would involve the loss of about £Bm which could be gained by a slight increase in the maximum rate payable on personal incomes of more than £2OOO and on company, incomes of more than £lO.OOO. Mr Locke said that at present very few workers were able to earn a living wage during a 40hour week. The average was about £lO a week. With overtime work the wage could be increased but this should not be necessary. On today’s conditions when some workers had two jobs and many wives were at work the minimum wage for a 40-hour week should be £l6 or more. Another aspect of the wages policy of the Communist Party was support of the introduction of equal pay for equal work. Only in this way could there be any real equality for women in industry and at present only 18 of the 600 awards recognised this equality. The Communist Party also advocated the control of prices and profits and called for the reimposition of price controls. In every case prices had been the first to rise, not wages. Nationalisation

To ensure that the profits of all big monopolies ‘‘go back to the people” the nationalisation policy begun by Labour should be completed and applied to such interests as shipping and freezing companies, trading banks, stock and station agents and insurance companies. There was an urgent need for more state rental houses in the country, said Mr Locke. When the Labour Government first introduced the scheme in 1936 the object was to make available at low rentals homes for working people and their families. In making State houses available for sale,, the present Government acted in a way which was entirely contrary to the original principles of the scheme. “The houses were not for speculators but the working people. We will urge a Labour Government to take stock of this question,” said Mr Locke. “We have always advocated that New Zealand should stand for a policy of peace by negotiation. Ten years of negotiation is far better than 10 minutes of war, this should be the policy of a New Zealand Government, particularly a Labour Government,” he said.