The Press TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1975. The election issues

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34009, 25 November 1975, Page 18

The Press TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1975. The election issues

The General Election in 1972 brought into power, with a huge majority, a Labour Government pledged to make many sweeping changes in New Zealand’s economic and social institutions. For various reasons, not all these pledges have been redeemed in Labour’s first term of office — but a second term would give Labour the opportunity and the encouragement to press on with its schemes. The 1975 election is, therefore, likely to have a more profound and permanent effect on the electorate than the last election. As in every election, the cost of living will be an important factor in determining the outcome. A New Zealand family which lived on SlOO a week three years ago now needs 5139 a week to maintain the same standard of living. The cost of living has risen 111 per cent per annum over the last three

years — the highest annual increase ever recorded In New Zealand, and one of the highest recorded in the Western world in the last three years. In the same period the country’s official reserves have fallen 8240 million, and overseas borrowing — as measured by the balance of payments deficit — has risen to the unprecedented level of 51430 million in the last year. Unemployment (corrected for seasonal change) has been held below 4000 since June this year only by the creation of more than 5000 special jobs in Government departments and in subsidised work for local bodies.

Low export prices and rising import prices have contributed greatly to New Zealand’s economic woes. These trends in world markets beyond the influence of any New Zealand government have provided a searching test of the calibre of the present administration; and the Government’s performance Inspires no confidence in its ability to set the economy to rights in the next three years. In maintaining domestic employment the Government has done all that could be expected of it: but lavish expenditure on social welfare schemes and other projects dear to this Government’s heart — in addition to weak control over wages in both the public and private sectors — has been disastrous. Higher wages have been eroded by taxation and price increases, so that the wage-earner is no better off; higher costs have hit farmers and other exporters especially hard because their gross receipts have fallen.

The New Zealand Superannuation Scheme which fame into effect on April 1 this year promises — with the modifications devised since the National Party innounced its alternative proposals — apparently generous retirement allowances to the younger members of today’s work force. The present scheme is administratively cumbersome and offers little to ‘he older workers of the present labour force, but it will grow to such a size that it will dominate the Investment market in a decade or two. The National Party has promised to wind up the scheme if a National Government is elected this year—a promise which should be carefuly considered by any voter who fears socialism by stealth, even if the National lltemative of higher pensions must be financed from higher taxation.

The White Paper on health services brought flown by the Labour Government is still causing great anease amongst hospital administrators and private practitioners of medicine. Suspicions that a Labour Government, given a second term, would introduce political appointment of administrators at a regional as well as national level have not been lulled: nor have fears that private practice — in hospitals as veil as in the homes of patients and the surgeries jf practitioners — will be superseded by an impersonal, salaried bureaucracy whose servants are answerable to the State instead of to the patient. Similar misgivings are held by supporters of private ichools: will another Labour Government make the renditions for private education so difficult that only the most opulent of private schools can remain Jidependent?

Of particular interest in the South Island is the Labour Government’s proposed new town at Rolleston. Alternatives to this scheme — like the alternatives offered to the superannuation scheme — tvere brushed aside by the Labour Government. The Rolleston project has been criticised by local landowners, by spokesmen for other South Island centres. and by social scientists. A vote for National Fill help to abort this project before posteritv is saddled with a multi-million dollar white elephant ar a second-best citv.

The election campaign has. regrettably, emphasised leadership and personalities at the expense of the main issues. Many of today’s critics of “Muldoon confrontation politics” are too young to remember the last major “confrontation” in New Zealand politics, when the Government of the day was confronted, in 1951, by militant unions on the waterfront. Many of today’s voters might feel that the time had arrived for a similar confrontation, or at least firmness in response to militancy. A more genuine cause for concern about Mr Muldoon’s ability to govern the country might be the loss of experienced Parliamentarians from National’s ranks in the last three years. If National wins the minimum 45 seats needed to give it a majority in this week’s General Election probablv only about 30 members of the National Government will have had previous Parliamentary experience, and only about a dozen Cabinet experience. Even so. a 1975-78 National Government would have more experience than the 1972-75 Labour Government; it would certainly have more faith in private enterprise and less svmpathy with bureaucratic socialism.