U.N.I.C.E.F. Card Campaign Opened

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31774, 3 September 1968, Page 16

U.N.I.C.E.F. Card Campaign Opened

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, September 2.

The Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) tonight opened the 1968 U.N.I.C.E.F. greeting card campaign, urging all New Zealanders to support the campaign as their personal gesture to bring hope to the children of the developing countries.

Mr Holyoake defended the Government's decision to cut aid payments in some fields. Aid over all was up by $1.3 million this year, he said. “From time to time, if a Government is to govern, it must make its decision on priorities, such as ‘where lies the greatest need?’” he said. The Government had this year cut its contribution to U.N.I.C.E.F. from the longstanding level of $150,000 a year to $120,000. Earlier, the president of the U.N.I.C.E.F. national eom-

mittee, Mr J. Belich, said bis organisation regretted the Government’s decision to reduce its contribution to U.N.1.C.E.F., although it realised the Government’s capacity to give was related to economic conditions.

The recent furore over New Zealand’s contributions to United Nations programmes and the subsequent decision by the Government to restore the level of one or two contributions, illustrated that public opinion favoured increasing support for United Nations aid, and that the Government was responsive to public opinion. U.N.I.C.E.F. is the United Nations agency concerned with the welfare of children in developing nations.