More of same — P.M.

Press, 17 August 1978, Page 3

More of same — P.M.

PA Wellington Next year would be “somewhat like this one but on the upstream,” the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) told the Manufacturers’ Federation Council in Wellington yesterday. “Even though our balance-of-payments position may be as much as SIOOM better by June next year with the impact of Maui gas, we will be unable to take the brakes off completely and we will still face difficulties while this 40 per cent drop in our terms of trade remains,” he said. Mr Muldoon said a problem that faced New Zealand in its recovery phase was the big reduction in labour turnover and absenteeism. The conseauent increase in productivity meant that, to employ the same number of people, there had to be even greater production. “While this anomaly can be welcomed in terms of productivity, it makes the employment problem more acute. I believe that it will be a long time before we get back to the employment situation that we were accustomed to several years ago,” Mr Muldoon said. He told the manfacturers that, although export incentive were due for a fullscale review, no final and acceptable form for contin-

uing incentives had yet been reached. In the last 10 years the growing and accelerating export performance of manufacturers had largely silenced critics who had said that New Zealand could never be competitive internationally, said Mr Muldoon.

“I sense that, inside the federation, however, there is today a difference of opinion between those who still cling to the old attitudes and demand for total protection and those who see the future in export support by a firm foundation in the domestic market,” he said.