“N.Z. Cannot Boast About Foreign Aid”

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31942, 20 March 1969, Page 16

“N.Z. Cannot Boast About Foreign Aid”

The Government was trailing well behind public opinion on overseas aid and it was miles behind the feeling of many of the younger generation, said Sir Edmund Hillary when he addressed the annual dinner of the Riccarton-Hornby chapter of Jaycees in Christchurch last evening.

He said that foreign aid was one sphere New Zealanders could not boast about.

“We read that New Zealanders are in the top 10 as beer drinkers or meat eaters, as car owners or in deaths on the road. But you don’t hear anything about us being in the top 10 in foreign aid because we’re not,” he said.

External aid was one of the many responsibilities of the Prime Minister and Mr Holyoake was clearly well satisfied with what the Government was doing in this respect, said Sir Edmund Hillary.

“I doubt that we will see much change in the Government’s ‘go-slow’ policy on aid until we have a separate! Minister responsible for external aid, preferably an en-| thusiastic and dedicated | young man who is preparedto fight in the Cabinet for a greater share of our national! finance and who is ashamed | of the fact that we have the>

lowest percentage of our gross national product spent on aid activities of all the affluent countries,” he said. “Such a Minister could be a considerable inspiration to the young people of this country and could show the world that we mean to be a leader as far as helping other people is concerned and not an ‘also ran.’

“While we are going slow on aid, Asia is not going slow on illiteracy, malnutrition or disease. In Vietnam they are not going slow on suffering and despair,” he said. Earlier, Sir Edmund Hillary, in describing New Zealand as an affluent country, said the possession of wealth gave power over the lives of other people—power to help them and power to destroy them.

“It must go hand-in-hand with a sense of responsibility, understanding and real charity. Don’t let us be motivated entirely by self interest and self indulgence,” Sir Edmund Hillary said.