COMMENT FROM THE CAPITAL LESS FORMALITY AND MORE FIRE IN BUDGET DEBATE

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33568, 24 June 1974, Page 12

COMMENT FROM THE CAPITAL LESS FORMALITY AND MORE FIRE IN BUDGET DEBATE

(By (

CEDRIC MENTIPLAY

WELLINGTON, June 23.—1 s a fortnight (meaning eight Parliamentary working days) sufficient time for the completion of the second-reading debate on the Appropriation Bill (commonly known as the Budget debate)?

Both sides of the House appear to accept that two weeks of Parliament’s time is enough, or even more than enough, for this set debate. This year, to most of us, it was struggling in its second week, and was certainly terminated, as far as the Opposition was concerned, when the former Minister of Finance and present Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Muldoon) spoke on Friday, June 14.

Government members had virtually given the debate away as early as the previous Wednesday night, and it seemed likely that many were prepared to forfeit their traditional right to < speak for half an hour in the Budget debate on almost any subject they chose. Instead, the debate was extended, if not refreshed, by the lodging by Mr E. S. F. Holland (Nat. Riccarton) of a massive amendment requiring that the bill be not read a second time until the Government had completed (presumably without financial support) a 12-point task i equivalent to the Labours of Hercules. Beyond giving the 32 National members the tight to speak again, for another < half-hour each, it is difficult to see what this could ac- ' complish. The strengths and weaknesses of the Budget have been well exposed by all media, and there are ’ other things to be'discussed, and still other things to be passed into law. As well as “fighting on the beaches” with the Bud- ; get, the Opposition is prepared to do likewise a< all stages of the New Zealand Superannuation Corpoiation ; Bill. So, last Tuesday, it took much of the afternoon ; and all of the evening, plus the requisite two divisions, to get the amended bill back into the House. ' < Another view However long the tail might wag, the Budget debate was really finished when Mr Muldoon spoke In a speech which was 1 masterly, but which was 1 largely lost by its midday , timing, he set out the Bud- 1 get faults as he saw them, and then (with a coy apo- ' logy that his policy could not be complete, as no member of the Opposition knew ‘ the exact figures and statistics in the possession of the Government), he .laid out what he would have ! done in similar circumstances.

This action has considerable significance, in that few former ex-Ministers of Finance have taken it. In Opposition, Labour has usually declined to give the Government a lead. The reason for Labour not producing a “shadow Cabinet” or a “shadow Budget” while in opposition was once explained to me by a senior Labour Minister in these terms: “If we put up a shadow Budget the Government would be happy to discuss ours to take the heat off theirs. We must .remember it is their Budget we are debating.” If this was true once, times have changed. No Government member has siiown marked eagerness to discuss Mr Muldoon’s shadow anti-inflation policy. There has been a Government tendency to go whistling past it, as if encountered late at night on hallowed ground. Mr Muldoon accused Mr Rowling of “getting the squeeze on” while clamiing to be going the other way. Speaking soon after the disastrous stock-market day. he claimed that importers had been encouraged to ordei, and now could not get the money to release their goods. Reminding the House that Mr Rowling had called nim a “knocker”, Mr Muldoon suggested he was in gooi company with knowledgao’.e and worried people. One of them, he said, was Mr J. G. Russell of the Security Bank: “I do not know if the Minister would call him a knocker. I would call him a realist who criticised me as Minister of Finance, but who has said within the last 24 hours that the continuation of the Minister’s policies will, within a few months, put the country into a major depression.” Muldoon policy Mr Muldoon set out a short-term policy as follows: (1) Credit should be eased. (2) Cash should be got out

quickly by lowering the public sector security ratios the financial institutions. “The most rapid way of doing this is by Treasury buying back securities from these agencies.” (3) The Minister should control tightly all incomes and prices “and forget this silly nonsensical wage increase the Deputy Prime Minister announced for July 1."

(4) The Minister should replace the July 1 increase by tax reductions. “The reason for this is that the same dollar paid in tax reductions as would be paid in wage increases adds nothing to prices.” (5) The New Zealand dollar should be devalued back to last year’s level. “It should never have been valued upwards . . . The effect of the devaluation would be that money which flowed out of New Zealand at the time of revaluation (as I predicted it would) would flow back.” (6) There should be worthwhile incentives for saving. “The extra one-half percent given in the Budget will not cause anyone to save more. A proposal which would have helped, but which the Minister was not prepared to accept, was that of index bonds of the type suggested by the member for Piako (Mr J. F. Luxton, Nat.).” (7) As a measure to help restore confidence, the Government should discard its superannuation scheme. "Nothing could be more calculated to undermine public confidence than a scheme such as this, which will build up a massive fund that will loom over all investment processes and at the same time take people’s money away from them and lock it up for as long as 43 years.” (8) The Prime Minister should resign. “That would be the most effective of all because he has proved, as has the Minister of Finance, that not only are they incapable of governing, but they are not prepared to try.” Mr Muldoon appealed to Messrs Rowling and Kirk not to let the situation drift. He predicted that, just as the Government was being forced back to the restrictions of orthodox finance, they would have to face the facts.

After Mr Muldoon’s speech, what life remained in the Budget debate appeared to leave it. Last week the Superannuation Bill made its reappearance, and claimed Tuesday night from the Budget debate. The long break between the Friday rising and the resumption of the debate last Wednesday night was not calculated to revive interest in Budget matters. Apart from the Superannuation Bill, other matters such as the Wool Marketing Corporation Amendment Bill, the Housing Corporation Bill and the Agricultural Workers Amendment Bill demand attention.

It could be that the days of the big, fixed debate are numbered, and the members’ rights may soon, be where they find them — in open debate on germane subjects.