No Blanket Price Control, Says P.M.

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32126, 23 October 1969, Page 1

No Blanket Price Control, Says P.M.

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, October 22.

The National Party will not introduce blanket price control on items of food, clothing on housing if it is re-elected, said the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) in a letter to the Campaign Against Rising Prices.

He was replying to a number of questions which were addressed to the main political parties by the organisation.

Replies from the New Zealand Socialist Unity Party, the Country Party, the Labour Party and the Social Credit Political League have been already published in the C.A.R.P. newsletter. “The Government believes that competition is the best regulator of prices, and in fact statistical evidence clearly supports the validity of this belief,” said Mr Holyoake.

“Extensive price control, because of the large amount of clerical and costing work this would involve, would raise traders’ overhead costs, and increases of this kind would have to be passed on

in the price,” he continued. Mr Holyoake said that the Government would continue to use all the means at its disposal, including the Trade Practices Act, to promote and expand healthy competition. “In those fields where competition does not operate effectively because of the presence of monopoly or other factors, price control will be retained as a matter of policy.” In reply to the question whether the National Party would control mark-ups and profit margins at manufacturing levels, Mr Holyoake said that competition itself would ensure that a fair proportion of any savings in costs resulting from improved manufacturing techniques and methods were passed on to the consumers in the form of lower prices.