Petrol figures challenged

Press, 11 October 1979, Page 18

Petrol figures challenged

PA Wellington i Assertions that earless days were saving 8.2 per cent 7 in petrol consumption were. 1 ! “nonsense,” Labour members h of Parliament have said. 11 In a joint statement, Mrj< R. K. Maxwell (Waitakere) I: and Mr F. L. Rogers (One- i hunga) rejected a statement ] reportedly made by the j Under-Secretary of Energy i (Mr Brill) that the regula- . tions restricting motorists to using their vehicles for a maximum of six days a week were saving more than 8 per cent on petrol consumption, compared with last year.

The statement was “not right,” they said. “We challenge Mr Brill to prove it.” The earless days scheme was “ineffectual and unfair and should be abandoned,” they said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Maxwell asked Parliament to recognise that there was no world shortage of petrol. T na motion, he urged that the scheme be dropped “because the whole justification of its introduction has ceased to exist.” Mr Birch later rejected the assertion that there was no real oil shortage. There was both a price and supply crisis, he said.

The most recent figures showed that petrol savings of 8.2 per cent, had been achieved in the first two months of earless days.

Mr Birch did not attribute the entire savings figure to the scheme. He said the reduced consumption “as measured by port offtakes of motor spirits, are borne out by other observations, including increased public passenger transport patronage, a reduced demand for city parking space and greater participation by motorists in ad hoc car-pooling.”