Protests At Bank Bill

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30578, 22 October 1964, Page 10

Protests At Bank Bill

(N.Z. Press Association; WELLINGTON, October 21. Two national bodies of traders today protested against the provision of the Reserve Bank Amendment Bill now before Parliament under which New Zealanders’ earnings overseas for work or services in the Dominion will have to be returned to this country through the banking system. For a period these have been available for use for non-remittance licensed imports. The new law will place such funds with New Zealand’s holdings of overseas currency, which are used to finance licensed imports. The president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce (Mr T. M. N. Rodgers) said in a prepared statement that the chambers viewed with concern the Government’s decision to take away the right of New Zealand citizens to deal with their overseas earnings in their own way.

“Another sector of private enterprise and of the working of our economy will be subject to bureaucratic governance and official supervision and direction," he said. “It is not as if the private handling of private earnings overseas is in any way antisocial or injurious to the economy,” he said. “What are the Government’s plans for progressively dismantling the present finance emergency controls which date back to 1939 and which continue to operate in the field of overseas exchange, export earnings, foreign payments and dispositions, overseas travel allowances and so on?” asked Mr Rodgers. “If the Government is casting about to Tope in overseas funds belonging to persons entirely outside the import field in order to play Santa Claus by redistributing those otherwise unobtainable funds within the import field, let them admit it, but any arguments about inequities or consistency for the purpose of adding to the present pyramid of official domination would only demonstrate failure to date to deal adequately with economic maladjustments,” said Mr Rodgers. The president of the United Kingdom Manufacturers’ and New Zealand Representatives’

Association (Mr H. S. Pettit) said the new exchange control regulations would mean hardship for many. Many businesses had been most appreciative of the advocacy of the Minister of Customs (Mr Shelton) for the commercial no-remittance scheme, which introduced a much-wanted measure of flexibility into importing and gave the consumer and importer alike opportunities of a wider choice. “The market place determined the shortages and supply, whereas now they are back in the hands of the State to decide. “Instead of tinkering, the Government should take bold steps to provide substantial incentives to produce more. This is the only way to improve the supply side of the picture. It will be necessary to restrain demand, and although this will be politically unpopular, the Government has had sufficient sound advice surely to accept that this must be done,” said Mr Pettit. “The bill may stop the farmers complaining, with some justification, that they cannot sell a few bales of wool and buy a car, but the constant whittling away of freedoms and the irksome stop-go policy which allows development one day and prevents it the next, are not the answer to the big questions,” said Mr Pettit.