New housing policy "badly needed”

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33062, 1 November 1972, Page 18

New housing policy "badly needed”

As a nation, New Zealand was today depressed in spirit and needed the revitalising influence of a Labour Government, said the Labour Party candidate for Papanui (Mrs M. McG. Clark) in the first of three street-comer meetings in her electorate last night. There were the problems of day-to-day living; money bought less; doctors were overworked and too few; hard work was penalised; and taxes were too high. Yet the National Government boasted of how prosperous the country was. But. said Mrs Clark, the fact of the matter was quite different. Of 26.000 hospital beds in New Zealand, more than 10,000 were in mental institutions; criminal offences were increasing at three times the rate of the population increase; children in trouble with the law increased by 17 per cent on 1970, and the number dealt with by the courts was up by 20 per cent. She said about 30 per cent of New Zealand's unemployed involved people under the age of 30. In Christchurch, more than 1000 elderly people awaited proper institutional accommodation and, of these, at any given time 50 to 60 were “in orbit,’ moving from one place of accommodation to another.

What was badly needed was an improved housing policy, said Mrs Clark. Because many people were well housed there was sometimes a tendency to be unaware of the plight of those less fortunate. She mentioned the problems of the young family—the difficulties of getting the necessary finance for a home and the probability of having Ito obtain several mortages. There was the problem of the (elderly living in homes too 'large for them to maintain, I yet often the sale would (realise insufficient to pay for an ownership flat—so fast had been the pace of galloping inflation. Mrs Clark said one could not have happy families and a stable society without a better housing policy. A nation was only as strong as its families. PENSIONERS’ LOT Of pensioners, she said a better deal was necessary. iOId age should be years of (reward—not a time of loneliness, fear and dread. Only Labour could implement a policy of change for all sections of the community. “A vote for Labour will be a vote for the kind of life we all want. A vote 'for any other party is a vote (for what we already have I got.”