Energy crisis prop for Govt-Mr Beetham

Press, 16 February 1980, Page 7

Energy crisis prop for Govt-Mr Beetham

PA Hamilton The National Government had used the energy crisis to prop up its own faulty financial system; and the prices of all types of energy, including indigenous fuels, were being constantly raised largely to meet the rapidly increasing internal deficit. The leader of the Social Credit League (Mr Beetham) said this when he addressed the annual meeting of the league’s Waipa branch. The “so-called” energy crisis had been engendered by internal political circumstances rather than an international supply problem.

“There is not a true energy shortfall,” he said. “But it has provided the National Government with a magnificent opportunity to make a faulty system work.” Mr Beetham alleged that energy price rises were the only way the Government could fulfil its election promises every three years, and the National Party had used subtle tactics in 1978 by “fulfilling its hand-outs in advance of the election.” “It delivered the goods |by creating a huge deficit, [and now it has to pay for it somehow,” he said. "But I doubt whether the pepple of New Zealand will fall for these tactics again.”