“Alice In Wonderland” Aluminium Agreements

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29760, 1 March 1962, Page 12

“Alice In Wonderland” Aluminium Agreements

“If you accept the cotton mill story as convincing proof of the Labour Government’s ineptitude you should go on and study the Alice in Wonderland Alcan and Comalco agreements,” said the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Taiboys) at Fairlie last evening.

Speaking in support of the National Party’s Waitaki byelection campaign to an audience of more than 200, Mr Taiboys said: “The conflict between those two agreements is so great, one is so incompatible with the other as to make it unbelievable both were the creation of one Labour Government. “It could well be they were the creation of two Labour Governments the Nordmeyer Labour Government made the Alcan agreement; the Watt Labour Government made the Comalco agreement. The leader of the Labour Party was content for Mr Nordmeyer to promise exclusive trading privileges to Alcan, while the

Watt Labour Government promised Comalco it could engage in the same business. “With Alcan established we could have the farcical situation of a ship bringing aluminium ingots from Canada to Alcan in Auckland, and after unloading going to Bluff to pick up Comalco ingots to take to overseas markets,” said Mr Taiboys. Mr Nordmeyer did.not tell his colleagues what was in the agreement, alleged Mr Taiboys. He had not availed himself of normal departmental advice. Had he done so his colleague, Mr Watt, could not have promised Comalco it could fabricate aluminium products in New Zealand. “Every time Mr Watt speaks about the agreement he makes plainer the bungling and ineptitude of the Government of which he was a member,” said Mr Taiboys “In Waimate last night he told his audience that when he was discussing the establishment of an aluminium smelter in Southland with Consolidated Zinc the marketing of their product was not under consideration. “Yet when he had another audience in Auckland on February 9, Mr Watt said the agreement with Consolidated Zinc ’expressly permitted the company to sell its product both in New Zealand and abroad.’

“Why he should now want to suggest that the marketing of their products was not under consideration is best left for the people of Waitaki to decide,’’ said Mr Talboys.