Mr Holyoake Repeats Overseas Funds Claim

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29366, 19 November 1960, Page 12

Mr Holyoake Repeats Overseas Funds Claim

“My statements about overseas funds are proved to the hilt by official publications. The Prime Minister’s have been partial, garbled, and incorrect,” the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Holyoake) said in Christchurch yesterday.

He was taking up a challenge issued by the Prime Minister (Mr Nash) earlier this week to consult official documents covering overseas reserves in 1957-58. “Mr Nash is up to his old tactics again. While in Oamaru he accused his political opponents of conscious or unconscious misrepresentation,” Mr Holyoake said in a statement. “In an effort to make his point, he confused the dates relating to totals of overseas funds at specific times, and also confused overseas reserves with general Government reserves built up in New Zealand by the National Government.

“He. did this, though as a former Minister of Finance he well knew that separate consideration must be given each. Overseas funds and general Government reserves are certainly not one and the same thing, though Mr Nash implies they are.

“Mr Nash’s charges of misrepresentation can be disproved readily by the official documentary evidence.

“First, he has denied that the Labour Government raided the reserves built up by the National Government, and used them to pay for Labour’s irresponsible election promises; second, he challenges the accuracy of my figures on the level of overseas funds at the date of the last General Election.

“Chapter and Verse” “In both instances, I can cite chapter and verse in support of everything I have said. Unfortunately for Mr Nash, he either cannot or will not do the same.

"To deal first with overseas funds in 1957—it is simply not true that at the date of the General Election in November, 1957, net overseas assets totalled £45.474.000.

“Table 57 of the current Abstract of Statistics confirms what I have been saying, that this figure relates to net overseas assets of the banking system as at the end of December, 1957 a month after the general election. The same table in earlier Abstracts contains the information that at the end of November. 1957, the date of the election, net overseas assets of the banking system totalled £sB| million. “These figures alone do not tell the full story. If Mr Nash will refer to a further official publication associated with the Budget, and known as 8.l Part 1, he will find at page 32 of the 1959 issue that in respect of the financial year 1957-58. there were additional reserves invested by the National Government overseas, amounting in all to £2SJ million.

“These investments could have been realised upon were such a course deemed necessary. “Of these investments, the Defence Fund accounted for £19.2 million the Earthquake and War Damage Fund 3.1 million: and the Reserve Fund. £3.2 million. £B4m in Reserve “Adding the total of these funds to the net overseas assets of the banking system, it will be seen that at the date of the general election in 1957 New Zealand’s overseas reserves totalled £B4 million.

In addition, the gold holdings of the Reserve Bank, since unnecessarily pawned by the Labour Government to overseas lenders were valued at a figure in excess of £l2 million,” Mr Holyoake said. >

‘For Mr Nash to attempt now to deny this amounts to no more than playing with words. On the one hand he invites me to peruse official publications pertaining to the country’s finances —something which of course I have already done—yet for obvious political reasons he chooses to distort that very same information. “Mr Nash denies that the Labour Government has raided reserves built up by the National Government to pay for Labour's reckless 1957 election promises. ~ £ is al]e Batiop is correct, then the Government Accounts a . ud . I,ed by the Controller and Auditor-General, are false. I P rt *fer to take the word of the Auditor-General. •

The fact of the matter is that t , make ends meet, the present Labour Government has drawn heavily upon reserves. The Government could not have got cvJl™ no+ the previous National tor = t ..P™ den «y set aside. . , possible tony day, substantial reserves built up over the

eight years when National was in office. “Let me remind Mr Nash of what his Government has done

“Reference to this year’s Budget, at page 44, shows that in 1958, in order to cope with the loss of revenue amounting to £2l million, this being the cost of Labour’s notorious £lOO income tax rebate promises, the reserve of £17.1 million in the Social Security Fund, built by the National Government, was drawn upon by the Labour Government to the extent of £12.4 million. Defence Fund “Reference to Appendices to the Journals, 8.1. Part 1, 1959, at page 32 shows that the National Government had built up the Defence Fund to £28.700.000, as at March 31. 1958, this being the sum that the newly-elected Labour Government inherited.

“Reference to the same publication for 1960, at page 33, shows that the Labour Government drew upon that reserve to the extent of £9,600,000. “Mr Nordmeyer himself, in his 1959 Budget, at page 24. said ‘The adjustments in taxation to which I shall refer shortly are possible only because over £10,000.000 defence expenditure is being financed out of the Defence Fund instead of out of current taxation.

“He could well have added a word of thanks to the previous National Government for having built up this reserve and made possible the tax concessions which he so grudgingly gave on that occasion.

“During this current financial year, the Labour Government intends again to draw upon the reserve in the Defence Fund “Mr Nordmeyer’s intentions are expressed on page 22 of the Budget. where he says. ‘Approximately £9.600.000 is required for meeting overseas expenditure including payments on frigates, aircraft, equipment and stores, etc.’ Is it proposed again this year to charge this overseas cost to the Defence Fund?

Surely the information I have given, every word of it extracted from official publications, including Mr Nordmeyer’s own Budget, prove to the hilt that my statements concerning the country’s finances have been completed and correct, and that Mr Nash’s have bse " only partial statements, garbled and incorrect. “The facts are on record. They speak for themselves. When Mr Nash makes partial and garbled statements in an attempt to mislead the people once again, I “ am left with no option but to state full facts "The people can now judge for themselves w .at is the true position. I repeat that the total overseas funds on the date of the last election were £84,000 000’’