‘Frightened N.Z.' elects ‘frightening leader’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34022, 11 December 1975, Page 9

‘Frightened N.Z.' elects ‘frightening leader’

(U.S PA. Staff Crtpdu LONDON. “In Robert Muldoon, a somewhat frightened New Zealand has chosen a somewhat frightening leader,” the British weekly newspaper, the “Economist” says in a review of the New Zealand General Election. “In general, New Zealand-1 ers can expect that life with] Mr Muldoon will be a jolting! and jarring affair, but they: have presumably voted fori it because they felt that I their country’s economic | position was already so; frightening that the prospect' of rule by a toughie held'

fewer fears,” the paper says. “And they may all enjoy the sight of Mr Muldoon fulfilling his promise to get tough about the sadly unbalanced state of transTasman trade with whomever may be in charge in Canberra after next week’s Australian election.” The “Economist” says that many of Mr Muldoon’s party colleagues were more surprised than their opponents by the voters’ eager response to his Churchillian growlings. “Those quiet, soft-spoken New Zealanders, whose activities seldom claim much international attention, have surprised themselves as well as other people by making a dramatic political shift towards toughness,” the “Economist” says.

A separate article in the same issue, from the paper’s Wellington correspondent, was headed: “Beware, the day of Muldoon is come.” It says that the National Party owed its come-back to the world recession and to the controversial Mr Muldoon, whom the correspondent described as “an accountant by training and a hustler by nature.” Mr Muldoon had skilfully exploited the public’s unease at the mortgaging of the nation’s future by the previous Labour Government’s extensive overseas borrowing. Leadership became the issue of the campaign, the correspondent said, “and Mr Muldoon was offering what a drifting nation wanted.”