Labour considering change in selection

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34128, 14 April 1976, Page 2

Labour considering change in selection

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 13. The Labour Party caucus has been asked ;to give its Leader and Deputy Leader the power to select a Cabinet in the event of its being elected to govern.

The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Rowling) told a National Press Club luncheon today that this move — in line with a remit to the Labour Party Conference next month — was being con-

sidered by the caucus and would be decided after Labour M.P.s had had a chance to discuss the issue with their electorates.

Facing questioners after a hard-hitting speech to the press club. Mr Rowling would not give his own opinion on the move, which, if accepted, would change the longstanding Labour Party practice of having the Cabinet selected by the whole caucus, and giving the party leader only the power to allocate portfolios to those M.P.s elected to the Cabinet by the full caucus. The National Party, on the

other hand, allows its leader and deputy leader to select a Cabinet.

Criticised by a questioner for letting the Government have its way with little opposition since the General Election last year, Mr Rowling said the Labour Party had considered the Government was entitled to a settling-in period after its landslide victory in November.

However, events in the last five months had changed that opinion, and the Opposition would be embarking on a speaking tour “up and down the country’’ to express the Labour Party’s viewpoint in the next few months.

On the subject of remits to the Labour Party Conference in May, Mr Rowling said he was not “wildly enthusiastic” about the remit calling for greater control by the party executive over the Parliamentary party. It was a question of getting effective liaison between the two rather than control from one to the other, he said.