General Election MR NASH SPEAKS IN CHRISTCHURCH

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29366, 19 November 1960, Page 14

General Election MR NASH SPEAKS IN CHRISTCHURCH

Enthusiastic Audience In Civic Theatre

“There is no-one who is not better off today than ever before,” the Prime Minister, Mr Nash, told an almost-full'Civic Theatre at the end of an election address last evening.

His statement was received by an enthusiastic audience with loud cheers.

Mr Nash spoke for an hour and 35 minutes and was regularly interrupted with shouts, comments and questions interjected by, it appeared, four or five men scattered through the audience. He replied to most of the interjectors and scored just about every time.

Most of Mr Nash’s speech dwelt in the past and ranged from the names of the early Governments that had promised a railway to Nelson (right back to the time oh Grey) to the origins and objects of Social Security as applied by Labour in 1939, and the “crisis” of 1957-58. He made a few comments about his Government’s administration over the last three years and spoke briefly about future policy. In his survey of the last three years, he again traversed the P.A.Y.E.-remission-of-tax argument and commented on the National Minister of Finance at that time, Mr Watts, who had called Labour proposals wicked. “Mr Watts is a very fine map. He knows all there is to know about wickedness. I have a great respect for him, only I do not like sometimes what he says; that is another thing altogether,” Mr Nash said.

Discussing a dispute over overseas assets that he is in the midst of with the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Holyoake? Mr Nash said: “I cannot find anybody who can prove my figures are wrong.” He turned to the chairman (the Mayor of Christchurch (Mr George Manning) and pointed to a figure which he said was “underlined in red; that is because it is Labour.”

When he said that he could give “20 instances’’ of Mr Holyoake being wrong, a voice shouted: “Call him Kiwi!’’

“No,” said Mr Nash. “I won’t call him a Kiwi. A kiwi is a bird that walks quietly along. It has got a decent beak and can see things.”

“Ingenious” Mr Nordmeyer Mr Nash began speaking at 8.10 p.m. By 8.47 p.m. when he had discussed P.A.Y.E., the crisis, Mr Holyoake, the Australian trade agreement, 1958 borrowing, unemployment and primary produce prices and was reading a newspaper clipping to support a statement, a man yelled: “What about the future?”

“Never mind that. Who’ll win,” called someone else. Mr Nash, apparently oblivious, carried on and had his audience chuckling at his story of the “ingenious” Mr Nordmeyer. He told how he had wanted to pay back money borrowed from the United States, but Mr Nordmeyer had disagreed. As a result. Mr Nordmeyer “sent the money to the same finance house in New York he borrowed it from, and asked them to invest it for us and use the interest got on the money to pay the interest on the money they lent to us, and that meant we did not have to pay any interest at all because they collected more in interest than the interest was on the money they lent to us.” “Who are you kidding?” a man upstairs yelled. “I’ll take you to Kidderminister,” Mr Nash replied as a delighted audience roared with laughter. Overseas Borrowing Defending overseas borrowing, Mr Nash said his Government had been determined to stop unemployment. (Applause.) The peak unemployment registered in New Zealand was 1640 persons;'in America it was 4.430,000. in Britain, 292,000; and Canada, 566.000.

Passing briefly over his celebrated tax promise before the 1957 election, Mr Nash said that “they never tell you in full.”

He said that “about a minute after” he had promised to retain the tax rebate and not increase rates, he had said that the promise would be carried out “given normal circumstances.”

“No-one would agree there were normal circumstances after we came into office,” he said. Over the last three years, Mr Nash said, his Government had improved every social security benefit, “kept every promise made at the election,” and. among other things, built or helped to build 22,400 houses in one year (a record) and brought into being the family benefit home ownership scheme, for which there had been 22.000 applications. Mr Holyoake had described the scheme as “a wicked thing,” and had said that it was “a gift horse which should be very carefully looked at in the mouth.” “If he had worked it out he would have had to look into the mouth of 22.500 horses because that was the number of applicants,” Mr Nash said. He added that there were 38.700 children who would go into £3O 9 million worth of housing under the scheme. “I cannot imagine any better family benefit at any time. It is not new houses that make homes, but a mother cannot make a home if she has not got a house,” -he said. Education Quoting figures to show increased and increasing State expenditure on education, Mr Nash said that education should be given to everyone who had the capacity to absorb it He would like to see everyone go to university but did not know, whether that was possible. In the meantime, more than 90 per cent, of children were getting a secondary education. Ever-bigger sums of money were needed for the 50.000 more children starting school each year. To an interjection, “What about private schools? What about justice for them?” Mr Nash replied

that State aid to church schools was a difficult problem. It could not be solved until the report of the commission set up to consider religious and moral teaching in schools was available. When he commented that more knowledge had been uncovered by man in the last 50 years than in all time before then, he was interrupted by a member of the audience who asked: “Why not pay our scientists more?”

Mr Nash went on to say that the present Minister of Education (Mr Skoglund) hoped to bring the number of pupils per teacher down to 35 during the life of the next Parliament. He (Mr Nash) was not sure whether that could be done but that was the objective. On taxation, Mr Nash said that no-one earning up to £lOOO was paying as much tax under the Labour Government as he had under any year of National. Also, no-one earning up to £2OOO was paying more tax under Labour than he paid in any year under National except one. “What about indirect taxation then—beer, cigarettes?” a voice was heard to say. Mr Nash: Beer? I do not think anyone worries about that now. Repeating the Labour policy plank concerning proposed increased personal exemptions, Mr Nash said he would not say when it would be introduced but it would be during the life of the next Parliament. “Everybody ought to earn what they get and alongside that get what they earn,” he said.