‘Muldoon miracle’ in three short years

Press, 31 May 1977, Page 10

‘Muldoon miracle’ in three short years

PA Wellington The first three-year term of the third National Government will be labelled the period of the “Muldoon economic miracle,” says the chairman of the National Party (Mr G. A. Chapman). “With most of the western world still gripped with the problem of recession, inflation and high unemployment, New Zealand has moved back from the brink,’ 1 he told the annual conference of the Wellington division of the party. During the last 18 months, New Zealand had moved back from the possibility of economic disaster, said Mr Chapman. National could have reduced imports to speed up the recovery but the result would have’ been extensive unemployment. Instead it had chosen a “careful and steady course.”

“All indications now show a steadily improving position,” said Mr Chapman. “The control of inflation

is crucial to every individual in the country but is particularly important to the farming and all other exporting industries,” he said. Mr Chapman emphasised that at the half-way point in National’s term of office it would not be correct to claim it had won the economic battle — “but it is fair to say that our National Government is winning the fight.” The economy was now poised on a “knife edge’’ with rising unemployment on one hand and rising inflation on the other. “A further period of restraint wil be required to protect for all New Zealanders, the recovery made in the last 18 months,” he said. There was no way the "Socialist Labour Party” could win the next election. That party’s recent conference had shown it was in “philosophical disarray,” Mr Chapman said. The president of the Labour Party (Mr A. J. Faulkner) said New Zea-

landers would react with amusement and disbelief at the labelling of the first three years of the National Government as the “Muldoon economic miracle.” Commenting on Mr Chapman’s address, Mr Faulkner said the statement was “about as credible as the National Party’s 1975 glossy manifesto.” He pointed to: A record level of inflation for the March year of 16 per cent. A record level of interest rates paid by home buyers. An all-time record increase in taxation — half of it “collected by mistake.” Higher import volumes. A record level of outward migration. A 23 per cent rise in food costs since the General Election. A drop of 5000 houses being completed compared with Labour More than 4000 unemployed. “Is all that an economic miracle?” Mr Faulkner asked.