MR NASH AS LEADER

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29250, 7 July 1960, Page 14

MR NASH AS LEADER

Mr Watts Critical (New Ventana Press association) WELLINGTON, July 6. The Prime Minister (Mr Nash) was not providing New Zealand with the leadership it needed, Mr J T. Watts (Opposition. Fendalton) said in the House of Representatives tonight. He was speaking in the Address-in-Reply debate. “The Prime Minister is a remarkable man. He’s busy attending functions all over the country, making woolly speeches and misquoting figures. But that’s not leadership,” Mr Watts said. “One of the most important things this country needs is strong and vital leadership, and it’s not getting that from the present Government, whose main purpose seems to be to stay in Office.’’ Mr Watts called Mr Nash’s recent overseas trip a “diplomatic blunder of the first magnitude.” “Between the Prime Ministers’ conference and the S.EA.T.O. conference the Prime Minister was mostly looking for somewhere to go. asking for Invitations to go to any place as long as it wasn’t Wellington.

“He has been a comfort and support to the enemies and' opponents of democracy, and he has dismayed and upset all our friends.” Mr Watts said. The Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr Holloway) suggested that the references Mr Watts had made about the Prime Minister were the sort of statements that did more damage to New Zealand’s good name than anything else in that chamber. He thought the New Zealand Government had as much right to criticise and differ with its friends as to oppose violently its enemies.