Strong support for aid to farmers

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33739, 11 January 1975, Page 2

Strong support for aid to farmers

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, January 10. Support for Government financial aid to farmers has come from the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Muldoon), the Employers’ Federation, and manufacturers. Ten senior members of the Association of Economists in an open letter have suggested that the Government should inject between sloom and slsom into farming. Mr Muldoon wholeheartedly supported the recommendations.

“The statement by these highly-qualified men is most important,” he said. “It is probably the most damning indictment of any Government’s policy for many years.” He said he was certain the economists’ analysis of the problems facing farming was soundly based and that the remedies they recommended were correct.

"Unless we have a prosperous farming industry we cannot have a prosperous New Zealand," he said. “This is something the Labour Government obviously hasn’t realised.”

A spokesman for the Employers’ Federation said the business community fully realised the importance of the farming community to the country’s prosperity, and the fact that the pastoral industry was suffering a "trough” at present. Anything that could be done to instil confidence in farmers in the short term, and improve pastoral productivity in the long term, must be in the best interests of New Zealanders, he said. The president of the Auckland Manufacturers’ Association (Mr K. G. Fraser) said that although the manufacturers had not studied the

economists’ proposals in detail they agreed in principle with financial help for farmers. “Deteriorating world trading conditions will eventually hit the whole of the economy,” he said. “Manufacturers are well aware that many types of fanners have been hit first, and urgently need help and encouragement.” If financial problems caused postponement of essential development and use of fertilisers on farms even greater problems for New Zealand could be created when world markets began to improve, as he was sure they would, said Mr Fraser.