NATIONAL PARTY POLICY

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29265, 25 July 1960, Page 16

NATIONAL PARTY POLICY

Earlier Release Welcomed (From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON. July 24 The National Party is pleased with the outcome of making public in the middle of this year most of the policy it will place before electors in the 1960 election campaign. “Unprecedented in New Zealand’s political history, at least in modern times, was the release by the leader (Mr Holyoake) of about four-fifths of the party’s election policy six or seven months before the likely date of the election,” says the annual report to be presented to the Dominion conference.

“The Dominion council was determined to win the election on a well thought-out policy of which electors could have plenty of notice,” the report says. Public reaction to the policy released is described as “most favourable,” and the report says that “undoubtedly many points of policy not only reveal fresh thinking, but are stated without any equivocation and should be clear to all electors.” Hie report alto says that the 1960 policy statements were briefer than formerly, and that this was done to achieve maximum clarity and public understanding.