Remits On Vietnam Conference Objects To Newspaper Report

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31121, 26 July 1966, Page 3

Remits On Vietnam Conference Objects To Newspaper Report

(Front Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, July 25.

Without dissent, the National Party conference today supported a motion confirming the last conference’s approval of the Government’s decision to send troops to Vietnam. With a brief, unscheduled discussion, this morning’s session opened on a lively note when the party’s retiring president (Mr J. S. Meadowcroft) deplored a newspaper comment on the absence of any remits on Vietnam.

After reading an article from the “Sunday Times” which had suggested the party might have suppressed such remits, by issuing a list of banned topics, Mr Meadowcroft said: “This is 1 a report I don’t like.”

“Can you tell me how I or anyone else can restrain a remit?” Mr Meadowcroft asked the conference; and was answered by a chorus, “No, no.”

planning over the shorter [term, and the frequency of ielections as a spur to a Goy-, I eminent. Most delegates did not seem to be in the mood to > hear that it was better just to talk about policies in election year than to enact them and the remit was rejected. A remit urging the Government to introduce legislation providing for the suppression of names of persons found not guilty of criminal charges and suppressing pretrial evidence in a lower court was rejected. The remit committee which dealt with the subject on Saturday had recommended adoption of the proposals. . . The conference also reject-] ed two amendments calling for the publication of abhorrent details from medical and pathological reports to be sup-, pressed and for the suppression of detailed evidence in divorce proceedings. Mr K. A. Gough, of the Dominion council, told the conference: “The only protec-] tion an accused person found not guilty can have is to have his name published. Otherwise he is perpetually condemned by rumour. If. also, newspapers are to be asked to hold publication until the verdict is known there is a danger that court reports will disappear from the newspapers. This would not be in the public interest “No prejudice is created by publication of preliminary hearings." They should be I published, otherwise an opportunity for bringing forj ward evidence would be irrevocably lost, said Mr Gough. All the evidence was heard again at the final trial and any prejudice in the minds of jurors resulting from earlier reports would be obliterated, be said.

“I wouldn’t like to try,” he added. “Woe betide any official who tries to stop one.”

Mr Meadowcroft said he understood the reason why there were no remits on Vietnam was that the subject had been fully debated at the last conference. “As far as I know there has been no change in the attitude of the party,” he said. The party was not trying to dodge the issue and he would accept any resolution from the floor. Coming forward with several others, apparently prepared with motions, Mr W. L. I Young (Miramar) told delegates: “I was disgusted when I read the article.” He restated a resolution carried at the last conference commending the courage of the Government in sending troops to Vietnam and commented that the party was loval to the Prime Minister. “There is no dagger at his back,” he said. Unlike the Labour Party, which did not know what to do with the troops in Vietnam, the National Party was right behind its soldiers there. The conference approved Mr Young’s resolution with a standing ovation.

After earlier argument on Saturday that the remit implied privilege for one section of the community an amendment proposing the extension of the scheme to all persons was debated. This was outvoted today. Junior members of the party argued that young persons needed an extra incentive to save instead of spending money in ways which were often wasteful and only added to pressures on the economy. This proposal would produce interest-free capital for Government expenditure, they said.

Opposing the remit, Mrs M. G. Rissman (Sydenham) said: “It is better to be conservative with incentives than indulgent. Only advice is needed on investment of the money of which we are told young people have so much.” Mr Martin (Miramar) said an older speaker opposing the motion had not had to pay the “crippling taxes” of today. “We would like to give this germ of an idea to the Government to see what they can do with it. We have proved without doubt the scheme is a practicable one,” said Mr I Martin.

Remits Endorsed The conference today endorsed in full session all but one of the recommendations on 44 remits debated in committee groups on Saturday. Only the committee recommendations for the suppression of the publication of names and evidence in court proceedings was reversed. The full conference debated three other remits today. It approved by a vote of 144 to 135 a proposal for a tax-free, non-interest-bearing savings plan for young persons; rejected a plan for a farm disaster fund and a remit urging the Government to integrate the treatment of mentally ill in general hospitals. The savings proposal was put up by Wellington members of the Junior National Party: “That the Government establish a capital savings fund into which young persons can deposit savings intended for the acquisition of certain approved capital assets, such as homes, such loan deposits to be deductible for income tax purposes.”

“One Year In Gear” ; The conference reversed! its decision of last year to seek a four-year term for Parliament. Mr A. S. Cowper (Fendalton) moved the remit for a four-year term after the committee which considered it on Saturday recommended its rejection.

Mr K. Lynch (New Lynn) said: “The efficiency of the Government is handicapped by the short term it operates under and 1 fear we are facing a situation in which the Government is having to softpedal its policy in election year.” He said the present Parliamentary term meant the Government could “only get into gear” in the middle year of the three. In the final year it was getting ready for an election.

Maori Seats In his report on the work- I ings of the Maori advisory I committee of the party, the Maori vice-president (Mr J. ' T. Grace) said that Maoris of ; all shades of political opinion i believed that the Maori seats in Parliament would eventu- i ally have to be abolished. i Their main objection to the i present system, he said, is i the poor calibre of some of i the Maori representatives at i present and the poor handling 1 of Maori matters.” Mr Grace forecast possible success for the National Party in the Eastern Maori ; electorate. In his summing up of the conference’s business today the Prime Minister asked the conference to consider extending its business sessions to three days in future. He asked the party to reconsider the committee system of debating remits. Mr Holyoake said that he would prefer to see all remits fully debated in the full conference. Confident Leader He repeated his election forecast, made first to the conference on Saturday evening, that he expected the party to hold all its present seats and win a “couple more seats from the Labour Party.” In January and February, he confessed, he had sensed that a tide of opinion might be turning against the Government, but he was now convinced this was not so. In the dying stages of the meeting Mr Meadowcroft strongly denied any suggestion that retiring National members of Parliament had decided not to stand because of pressure put on them by the party. There was no ves- ’ tige of truth in a suggestion ’ that one retiring member was offered his salary by the party for three years to decline nomination. Mr Meadowcroft's declara--1 tion recalled a similar state--1 ment by Mr Holyoake on Saturday in which he said all the retiring members voluntarily stood down because they felt younger men and better men could take over from them. In what he said was. an unusual reference to the Labour Party iby him at a conference, the 1 Prime Minister recalled the • Labour Party had retired one i member, “quite elderly” but I highly respected—Mr Mason ! of New Lynn.

The debate ranged over the absence of a second chamber and the need for frequent checks on a Government, the desirability of keeping public interest alive in politics, the difficulty of effecting economic

“They said the heads of the old gang would roll. Then one of the youngest retired—Mr Edwards apparently disappointed at the night of the long knives when his father-in-law disappeared. The new look has disappeared.”