Cost-Of-Living Increases

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30480, 30 June 1964, Page 3

Cost-Of-Living Increases

The consumers’ price index had risen 40 points or 3.3 per cent between the quarter ended September, 1962, when the last general wage order took effect, and the quarter ended last March, Mr Skinner said. The increase included: food 1.33 per cent (meat and fish .65. fruit, vegetables and eggs .27, other foods .95): housing 1.16 (rent .46. home ownership .7, household operation .16. fuel and light .05. home furnishing .05, domestic supplies and services .06); apparel .11 (clothing .09. footwear .02); transportation .24 (public transport .06, private transport .18); miscellaneous .3 (tobacco and

alcohol .01, other supplies .21, other services .08).

The greatest increases in prices in the index’s subgroups since 1955 had been rent 64.1 per cent, home ownership 48.8, miscellaneous services 48.5, and footwear 35.1, said Mr Skinner. Other increases during the nine-year period included those which were, to a large extent, due to increases in taxation—tobacco and alcohol (28.7 per cent), private transport (28.6) and public transport (26.3). Meat and fish prices had risen by 29.6 per cent at the end of 1963, a reflection of the higher prices being received for export meat, but declined temporarily in the early months of this year to 27.6 per cent. An appreciable part of '.he recent increase in food prices had been the result of higher sugar prices, which

began to rise in the middle of 1963, but it was also the result of higher prices of meat and of other factors such as increases in the prices of restaurant meals. The food index could be expected to rise further in the near future, both as a result of a further spread of increases caused by the higher sugar price and of the movement of both meat prices and prices of vegetables. •

Meat prices declined, as was usual at the beginning of this year, but the sustained demand in overseas markets was pushing local prices up again. Prices of vegetables were unusually stable in the latter half of 1963 and off-set other increases, but this could not be acceptable as a likely trend for any length of time, if previous experience was taken as a guide. Sugar Price

“The effect of sugar prices is not likely to be as shortlived as the public has been led to believe. It is probable the price of sugar will never return to the levels of early 1963. It may be several years before the present world shortage is overcome and this, in itself, is no guarantee that prices will fall to previous levels.” Even if there was a substantial reduction in the price of sugar here, it would be foolish to think manufacturers would be urged-to reduce the price of goods containing sugar.

Petrol had risen in price in 1958. The price was later reduced but the higher transport charges were not. “A good deal- of public feeling was aroused, if letters to the newspapers are any indication, against the idea that workers should apply for a general wage increase to meet the higher prices of sugar,” said Mr Skinner. “None of the people opposed to a wage increase seemed to realise that a reduction in the value of money, ino matter the cause of it. is. |in fact, a reduction in the ! value of the wages- being received by workers, and gives ■them a legitimate reason to . apply to the Court for rei dress.”