Election Addresses Labour Party’s Plans For Industry By 1970

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30288, 14 November 1963, Page 28

Election Addresses Labour Party’s Plans For Industry By 1970

(Neui Zealand Press Association) WHANGAREI, November 13. By 1970 New Zealand can be making light aircraft, bulldozers and synthetic rubber, and exporting canned tuna, fabricated houses and furniture, the Leader of the Labour Party (Mr Nordmeyer) said in Whangarei this morning.

He was amplifying remarks marie last night when he urged manufacturers and processors to “lift their sights and regard the world as their market.” Releasing the party’s industrial targets for 1970. he said the biggest gains would be made in processing a far greater variety of farm products inside New Zealand. But spectacular progress could also be made, said Mr Nordmeyer, in the woollen, forestry, chemical and engineering fields. ‘‘The accent,” he said, “will be on driving through new industries, based on New Zealand raw materials and skills.” He painted this picture of new products and industries under the first stage of Labour’s development plan, to be completed by 1970. Forest Industries New Zealand will be manufacturing special packaging papers, fine writing and printing papers, laminated papers, much more particle board and a much greater variety of wallpaper. It will be manufacturing and exporting tissue paper, fabricated houses and office and luxury furniture. Textiles Existing, modernised and new woollen mills will be manufacturing for export wool-tops, woollen yarn, fashion fabrics, high-quality fashion garments, and handknitting and machine-knit-ting yam. New Zealand will be exporting car safety belts and manufacturing synthetic cloths for upholstery and other covering. Cotton yarn, sheeting and denim cloth, moquettes and heavy cotton curtain and upholstery doth will also be processed here. Metals Tire steel industry, based on New Zealand ironsands, will be making heavy and light steel rod angles and other shapes, structural steel and steel pipes.

A copper industry based on imported ingot will be manufacturing copper tube, copper sheet copper strip and copper rod. An aluminium industry, apart from the Southland project will be rolling sheet strip and flat products, and producing all types of extrusions, including Light structural extrusions. Chemicals Pharmaceutical and biological products for the medical and veterinary professions will form a new export industry. Film for still and movie cameras, synthetic rubber and plastics will be new manufactured products. Clay And Sand More crockery and fine pottery will be exported and industry will be producing sheet glass, glazed clay tiles and special fire-clay products for furnaces. Fishing New Zealand by 1970 will be providing nearly all its own requirements of canned and preserved fish. It will also be exporting canned tuna and much more quick-frozen processed fish. Meat Heavy investment is needed in the freezing industry to provide overseas customers with pre-cut and packaged meat. Dairy Products The biggest expansion will come in special cheeses, in processed milk products for the East, particularly products with milk powder incorporated in them in manufacture. Processed Foods A wide new variety of packaged foods will be based on vegetables, fruit, meat and fish, with recipes tailored for individual markets. A sugar beet industry will be thriving. Engineering Cars and light trucks will be manufactured with 70 per cent New Zealand content,

including spark-plugs, hub caps, coil springs, steering wheels, pressings, all electrical work and precision components now made here but used only for replacements. New Zealand will be a major manufacturer, and a developing exporter, of farm machinery. Diesel locomotives, light aeroplanes, bulldozers, road graders, ditch-diggers and much more earth-moving equipment will be manufactured here. And other new products will include pneumatic and steel-tyred riad rollers, cranes, jacks, fork-lift trucks, air-conditioning equipment, all household appliances including cutlery: hand and machine tools, woodworking and metal working machinery, all types of pumping and hydraulic machinery and office machines. Electrical Industry will be manufacturing switch-gear, circuitbreakers, heat switches, flush switches, motor-starters, thermostats, fluorescent street light lanterns, special transformers, telephones, all loudspeakers. special cathode tubes and equipment for aerodromes, post offices and railways. ••And unlike Mr Holyoake’s guesswork on the cost of election programmes," said Mr Nordmeyer, "these prospects are not based on guesswork. They are industries and targets that are realisable —given an effective, stimulating lead from the Government. “And these are the industrial development plans only up to 1970.” Labour's second-stage industrial development planup to 1980—would be announced shortly.