Prime Minister Finds Little Wrong In Country

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30144, 30 May 1963, Page 15

Prime Minister Finds Little Wrong In Country

Although there was talk at times about politicians living in ivory towers and not knowing what was going on in the country, he could readily dispel that impression, the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) told the annual meeting of the CanterburyWestland division of the National Party yesterday. “Nobody knows what is going on better than I do,” he said. He received masses of correspondence, travelled round the country, attended a Cabinet meeting every Monday and a caucus meeting once a month. At both meetings his colleagues discussed what was happening. “Nine months ago we were not standing so high in the public’s mind,” he said. “Now I think we stand pretty well, and right throughout the country our party is in good heart. There are little problems, but they

are the* problems of a young, growing country.” In the last two years and a half the Government had achieved a great deal, Mr Holyoake said. First it had had to straighten up the mess left by the Labour Government. Then it had tackled a programme which included many controversial items whioh could have been dodged, but that was not the way with the party. Among the achievements he mentioned New Zealand membership of the International Monetary Fund, a reform of the' licensing laws, the Crimes Act revision, a streamlining of Parliamentary procedure and generally greater freedoms. There was now a confidence in the future of the country, a confidence he had never lost, and the country was “going places,” he said. The “steady does it” policy had ended with the last Budget, which gave incentives for progress for development, the Prime Minister said. The slogan from that time was “steadily forward with National.”