Mr Muldoon Hits Back At Opposition Criticism

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32352, 18 July 1970, Page 44

Mr Muldoon Hits Back At Opposition Criticism

(New Zealand Pres) Association) WELLINGTON, July 17. Scathing attacks against several leading members of the Opposition were launched in Parliament today by the Minister of Finance (Mr Muldoon) when he wound up the three-week Budget debate.

Instead of attempting a constructive debate—for which the four-fold aims of the Budget could have been the basis—the Opposition had launched a series of attempts at character assassination, Mr Muldoon said.

Labour speaker after Labour speaker had attacked him and it was obvious they had been instructed to do so, he said. “The people of New Zealand don't like- this sort of thing, and have written and told me so,” he said. Mr Muldoon criticised the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk) for refusing a face-to-face confrontation at the last election.

“He took his courage in one hand—he could have got it under his little fingernail—and stomped around the country night after night, accusing the Minister of Finance,” Mr Muldoon said. This comment drew angry mutters from members of the Opposition, but no-one rose to protest under a point of order. Throughout almost all of Mr Muldoon’s 50-minute speech they sat quieUy, appearing to ignore him. Referring to the new member for St Albans (Mr R. P. D. Drayton), who made one of the wittiest Budget speeches, Mr Muldoon said he had received a letter which referred to “Drayton’s drivel.” The speech of the member for Avon (Mr J. Mathison) was the best Budget speech, “having regard to what he

was told to do by the Leader of the Opposition,” Mr Muldoon said. “It was a masterly display of old-time Socialist invective which went out about the time the member was elected,” be said. Mr Mathison was “a political dinosaur,” said Mr Muldoon. “People don’t want that kind of politician, which he found out when he tried to become Mayor of Christchurch.” Mr Muldoon sat down to loud applause from his colleagues. A division on the second reading of the Appropriation Bill was carried by 34 votes to 33. Parliament would soon be asked to pass legislation on the payroll tax when even Treasury officials had not made a detailed study of it, the Senior Opposition Whip (Mr H. L. J. May) said. It was nothing more than a guess that the new tax, introduced on June 25, would cost $33 million in a full year, he said. He criticised the Government’s policy of restricting State Advances loans for house building. The total number of loans had been 12,000 in the last year the Labour Government had been in office, but the number had gone “down and down and down” under the National Government. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk) said Government members in the debate had boasted of the Government’s popularity with farmers—“but they have not been talking to the farmers who get up at 4 a.m., put on their gumboots, and go to work.” A hard awakening awaited the Government if it went back to the rural areas in a by-election or a General Election in the near future. Farmers were struggling against high mortgage levels and high interest rates—and what was the Government’s "sympathetic” response? “We heard it the other night—sell your farms to others,” said Mr Kirk. He said that when he had taken up with the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Carter) the case of a hard-working young farming couple, the Minister’s first advice had been that they should sell their farm. Turning to housing, Mr Kirk said people who wanted to capitalise the family benefit to buy their own homes had to wait for at least two to three months for

a decision. Those who worked hardest, doing overtime, were invariably refused because their incomes were above the limit. ’This capitalisation scheme was not introduced as a privilege—it was established as a right, to allow people to get houses at prices they could afford,” he said. After berating the Minister of Finance for introducing the payroll tax after having told electors last year that “no new form of taxation" was likely to be introduced in the immediate future, Mr Kirk challenged the Government to deny that there would be an increase in petrol tax soon. The payroll tax would be permanently built into the cost structure of the country. The $33 million it would produce the revenue was being used to purchase tax relief for selected wealthy sections of the community, Mr Kirk said. Mr Muldoon said in his speech that the payroll tax had not been under consideration at the time of the election.