Council Opposes Free Trade Area

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30880, 13 October 1965, Page 24

Council Opposes Free Trade Area

A free trade area with Australia could only lead to absorption of New Zealand by Australian and other international capital, said the Canterbury District Council of the Federation of Labour, in a statement yesterday.

A resolution adopted by the council said the council would like to have the Government’s assurance that it did not intend to extend the present trade pact to manufacturing industries. The council also wanted the Government’s assurance that it would desist from working for a free trade area with Australia.

A free trade area with Australia, said the resolution, would destroy all prospects of successful development of New Zealand industry. Investigations made by an economist of the New Zealand Institute for Economic Research showed that free trade between Australia and New Zealand would halve manufacturing in the North Island, and South Island manufacturing would be cut by a third.

“This council is, therefore, irrevocably opposed to the establishment of a free trade area with Australia which would destroy New Zealand industries,” said the statement. “There exists the danger that, by granting special preferences to Australia in

exchange for concessions'received, New Zealand may upset valued customers. “At the same time it is not desirable that New Zealand’s buying be channelled into the high-cost Australian market, irrespective of lowercost materials being available from established or new suppliers like Britain, the United States and Japan.” The statement said the council believed a soundlybased New Zealand industry was essential for the welfare of the working people of New Zealand. “Without such industry there could be neither full employment nor decent living standards,” the statement said. “Our need for imports has been exceeding our capacity to earn foreign exchange in the past, and there is no indication that this situation can be remedied without allowing a strong local industry to develop.”

Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves. William Lowndes, Secretary of Treasury under William 111.