Call for curb on officials

Press, 28 December 1977, Page 2

Call for curb on officials

PA Auckland Labour Party branches in Mangere and Grey Lynn want head office officials to play a minority role in future selections of Parliamentary candidates. Their recommendations will be considered at the party’s Auckland regional conference in mid-February. They reflect concern in party circles over the widespread publicity about some recent selections.

The 321 remits represent the practical, the dream, and the local hobby-horse. Housing and cheap mortgages—from 3 per cent to 7| per cent—are the subjects of many remits, as is education, which takes up four pages. The Hauraki Gulf branch must take the prize for submitting the series of remits most likely to fail. It wants to legalise the cultivation and possession of marijuana for personal use.

Hauraki Gulf also wants Labour members of Parliament and party officials not to rent houses or property to others, not to hold shares or directorships in private companies, and not to receive two or more salaries. Also, it wants all statutes to expire automatically after 15 years. The Springleigh branch wants a national football pool. South Papakura wants honours in the next Labour Honours List to go “mainly to manual workers,” and the Takapuna-Milford branch advocates the establishment of a national stud. The Papakura East branch strikes a blow for “men’s lib,” suggesting that working women of a broken marriage pay maintenance to the hus, band if he is caring for the child. Te Atatu South moves “that the party, in particular the youth branches, drop any outward signs that we hold Socialist principles.”