Unstartling National remits

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33539, 21 May 1974, Page 14

Unstartling National remits

Little new thinking is evident in the remits which will be discussed at the annual conference of the National Party’s Canterbury-Westland division in Christchurch this week-end. Those remits ivhich are new’ to National Party conference papers are in the main either adaptations of policy proposed by other parties at the last General Election or repetitions of the Opposition view' of Government schemes already announced.

More emphasis seems to have been placed on population controls—both by immigration and contraception policies—than in the past and one remit calls for the acceptance of the need for zero population growth, a concept which gained favour as a political platform with the emergence of the Values Party. Another remit calls for the abandonment of the assisted immigrant scheme and three others seek to further the use of contraceptives and sterilisation as a means of population control with Government financial support. A further remit seeks to revoke legislation which at present makes it an offence to supply contraceptives to children under the age of 16. Two remits .oppose the scheme for a satellite city at Rolleston, and three oppose the Superannuation Bill. One calls for the repeal of the Im-port-Export Corporation Bill as soon as the National Party returns to the Government benches, and one opposes the spending of taxpayers’ money on kibbutz-type settlements.

A standard number of remits seek more control over Unions, and in particular the withdrawal of labour and sympathy strikes. One goes as far as to call for the dissolution of the Federation of Labour and its replacement by an Industrial Relations Board, the members of which would come from “sub-unions” within a body made up from all the existing unions amalgamating into a large, non-profit-mak-ing union.

Another remit calls for the standardisation of wages based on trade certification, so that the holders of one grade of certification—whether they be carpenters,

plumbers or butchers—all receive the same pay, dirt or danger money being paid on special jobs. Opposition to nuclear power is expressed in two remits, and another calls for cheaper rates for electric power in the South Island (as an inducement to industry). A fourth seeks early transmission of natural gas to the South Island for both industrial and domestic users. Commercial rabbit farming is sought under the terms of one remit, and the party is asked to support the establishment of such farms in New Zealand. One remit which will be discussed in committee with later reference to the full

conference is the suggestion of paying the equivalent of the average weekiv earnings in New Zealand to persons over the age of 65. This would, in effect, put pensioners on a weekly wage, but the remit also calls for the abolition og existing wage; benefits including telephone rental concessions and other “senior citizen" concessions 1 Almost directly opposed to: (this is a remit calling for a (Government subsidy on rates; paid by pensioners. Such a scheme is proposed also for handicapped persons. Pollution has taken very much a back seat, one remit on noise pollution being the sole contribution. Perhaps the most striking (

1! feature in an otherwise f imaginative collection , >remits from 14 section- ; the division membership , ; the high number of them . which come from the one , electorate —Lyttelton. Almost ■ a third of the remits have • I been sponsored by the I yttel>'ton electorate, the seat for • which the party made a c nJcerted, but unsuccessful bid Jin the last General Election.