W.D.F.F. URGED TO PRESS GOVERNMENT

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32219, 11 February 1970, Page 2

W.D.F.F. URGED TO PRESS GOVERNMENT

It was tlie duty of members of the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers to tell the Government what they wanted and to keep on telling it, the chairman of the Amuri County Council (Mr A. A. Macfarlane) said yesterday when opening the inter-provincial conference of the W.D.F.F. in Christchurch.

Mr Macfarlane said the W.D.F.F. was a strong pressure group but did not make enough of its strength as represensative of the women and children of country districts. The organisation should insist on having a member on any committees set up by the

Government to look into medical services in the country “You should not let the Prime Minister and Ministers get jway with a few platitudes at some point and then ignore you for the rest of the year,” he said. Also speaking at the opening of the conference, the Associate Minister of Finance (Mr Pickering), who is the member of Parliament for Rangiora, said the Govern-

ment wanted to remain aware at all times of the present-day problems of country people. “NOT TRUE” “It has been said that my Government is really a farmer’s party or a country government but, if by this it is implied that we favour country people at the expense of the others in New Zealand, this is not true. “We take great pains to represent every cross-section of New Zealand but it is true that we understand your problems,” Mr Pickering said. A special guest at the conference was the president of the Christchurch branch ofi the National Council of Women (Mrs G. M. Samson). She said the W.D.F.F. had made a great impact on N.C.W. meetings which it had attended in the past, and asked that it continue to concern itself with matters related to women and children in New Zealand. The photograph shows (from left), Mrs D. 11. Atkinson, chairman of the conference, Mr Macfarlane, and Mrs Samson.