Price Moves Wanted

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31321, 17 March 1967, Page 1

Price Moves Wanted

(N.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Mar. 16. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk) tonight called on the Government to arrest rising prices.

He said there had been a 5.7 per cent increase in food prices in the first two months of the year—with 3.6 per cent of the increase occurring in February. “This demonstrates just how sharply family purchasing power has deteriorated,” he said, “both as a consequence of the Government’s

policies and the ineffectiveness of the Minister of Industries and Commerce in dealing with rising prices. “It also shows that the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake), was misleading when he alleged that his Government’s economic measures would only increase prices by 11 per cent.”

Mr Kirk said it also showed the inadequacies of the 2s 6d promised to social security beneficiaries. “Married beneficiaries would need more than that to be able to cope with rising prices, as would the families of wage and salary earners,” he said. Rising prices and falling in-

comes were a far cry from the “exuberant election promises and claims” made by Mr Holyoake and his colleagues. “Unless there is a change in policy, prices will apparently continue to rise and the hardship that follows in their train will bear on a great many people. “The Government has an urgent duty to stop equivocating on this important issue,” he said. Mr Kirk said in the view of the Labour Party, the Government had a duty to ensure the prices of foods and other essential purchases were fixed at a fair, reasonable and stable level.