'Industrial strife must affect security of N.Z.’

Press, 14 June 1978, Page 2

'Industrial strife must affect security of N.Z.’

PA Wellington The Government should step up its efforts to check subversive and disloyal activities, said the president of the Returned Services’ Association (Mr W. D. Leuchars) at the annual meeting of the association’s Dominion council.

“The present industrial strife, largely brought on by subversive and disloyal activities, is very serious, and if it continues unchecked, it must affect the security of New Zealand,” Mr Leuchars said. “It also affects the livelihood of many of our members and their families, who are caught up in these struggles,” he told the meeting.

The struggles were not of members’ own making but were “too often caused by the selfish interests of some miiltant trade unionists or by members of the Communist parties who also hold positions of influence within trade unions.

“There has been ample evidence in recent times of attempts by various Communist Party members seeking to disrupt the country

both in economic and political terms, as they endeavour to impose their revolutionary brand of socialism on New Zealand,” Mr Leuchars said. “Some examples of these attempts include the crippling strikes late last year which spread through ” the pulp and paper industry in the Bay of Plenty area.

“In the recent Bastion Point issue we have clearly seen a classic example of the use by Communists for their own political ends of a legitimate protest activity,” said Mr Leuchars.

“The Bastion Point protest movement presented such an ideal opportunity for Communist interference that we saw all shades of Communist activity in New Zealand becoming involved, with each side attempting to justify its involvement in terms of its own political viewpoint.

“Both with this issue and with the visit of the American nuclear submarine Pintado earlier this year we have seen Communist Party members, as well as giving direct support to legitimate protest issues, trying unsuccessfully to draw in support through the wider trade-union movement,” Mr Leuchars said.