Plan To Reduce Dairy Deficit

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31412, 4 July 1967, Page 1

Plan To Reduce Dairy Deficit

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, July 3. The Cabinet today gave preliminary consideration to a proposal from the Dairy Board which, if accepted, would help to reduce the estimated £6 million deficit in the Dairy Industry Account.

The Dairy Board has proposed that the difference between the present price of butter and the price which would result from the cut in the butterfat price should be paid to the dairy industry to reduce the deficit.

A cut of 5 per cent in the basic butterfat price was announced on Friday by the chairman of the Dairy Board, Sir Andrew Linton. The Acting Prime Minister (Mr Marshall) told a press conference tonight that the Cabinet had given "preliminary consideration” to the proposal and reports on it were being obtained from the Trea-

sury and Department of Industries and Commerce.

Replying to questions, Mr Marshall said the Government had not anticipated this proposal from the board. He agreed that the Government would not wish to be seen to subsidise the price of New Zealand butter overseas.

“We have objected to that strongly when it had applied in other countries,” he said.