PROMISE BY SOCRED

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33060, 30 October 1972, Page 3

PROMISE BY SOCRED

Waitangi Day holiday

(N.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Oct. 29.

A Social Credit Government would make Waitangi Day a national holiday, the leader of the league (Mr B. C. Beetham) said in a statement on his race relations policy today. Mr Beetham said Waitangi Day would commemorate the birth of a New Zealand nation, in which all people had equal rights. The league would enact non-retrospective ratification of the land and citizenship provisions of the Treaty of Waitangi, with the exemption of the Crown preemption clause. The number of Maori seats in Parliament would be increased from four to seven.

The league would establish a university-based race relations research and study centre. Courses would be provided urgently for those willing to teach the Maori language and culture in schools, and a basic course in Polynesian studies would be provided for all trainee teachers.

Special local body regulations would be formulated to enable the Department of Maori and Island Affairs to experiment with new architectural housing and settlement designs in tune with traditional Maori and Polynesian kinship and cultural patterns.