Regional development reports compared

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33051, 19 October 1972, Page 4

Regional development reports compared

Since the publication of the 1969 report of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research on regional development, no new evidence has been produced to warrant Government interference to influence regional development, according to Mr T. K. McDonald, the author of the 1969 report. Mr McDonald has produced a “discussion paper,” published by the institute, in which he deals with the 1971 report of a regional development sub-committee of the National Development Council. “While the sub-committee made a number of favourable

' general comments on my report, the comments in the ‘summary of submissions received’ were uniformly critical and gave no hint that any : of the submissions saw any merit in it at all,” says Mr ( McDonald in his later report "Consequently, it is sur- • prising to find elsewhere in . the N.D.C. report that ‘sev . eral submissions reflected views similar to those of the 1 Agricultural Production . Council—that the N.Z.I.E.R. i made a valid case within the terms of reference of its re- . port — and to those of the , Department of Labour (manpower planning unit), which accepted that the Govern- > ment not intervene directly J at the present time.’ “The Transport Advisory Council ‘agreed with the general conclusions and recommendations’ of the N.Z. I.E.R. report. “However, despite the somewhat critical tone of the sub-committee’s report, care must be taken not to attribute to it a contra view on regional development to my earlier report. Once the reports qualifications have been taken into account it emerges as a rather tentative, non-committal, and limited approach to regional developirnent policy.”