Beyond all talk

Press, 4 March 1980, Page 16

Beyond all talk

By

A. K. GRANT

The increase .in housekeeping allowance, recently negotiated by Mrs Betty McLurgy of 14 Avon Loop, Christchurch Coil, South Island Diaphragm, has been reduced by the Government, using its powers under the 1 i 111 e-known Domestic Emoluments Act 1911. Mrs McLurgy had achieved an increase of eight dollars in the housekeeping allowance paid to her by her husband, Cedric McLurgy, a stationary, (though volatile), enginedriver.

Negotiations had dragged on for several months, and during their course Mrs McLurgy had returned to her mother three times. There had also been several compulsory conferences in the public bar of the Colonial Hotel, that being the only place where Mrs McLurgy coud track down her husband when he was in a mood to talk.

Eventually Mr McLurgy, goaded beyond endurance into a spirit of reconciliation, offered his wife the extra eight dollars per week. “It’s less than I had hoped for,’’ Mrs McLurgy told reporters. “I had made out an excellent case for a nori-tax-able medium sweet sherry allowance. However, for the sake of domestic harmony, and because I am aware that other housekeeping settle-

ments will quickly follow this one, I have decided to settle for the eight bucks, plus a demarcation line right down '■ the middle of the bed.”. No sooner had the nation heaved a sigh of relief at the disappearance of this domestic running sore than it was plunged into chaos again by the Government’s intervention. At his weekly “Hector the Press” conference, the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, explained the reasons behind the Government’s action. “If there is one thing more than another which fuels inflation it is house keeping allowances,” he said. “It is the women of the country who determine how the money is spent within the consumer sector. Consequently the flow-on effects of a national increase in housekeeping allowances could be catastrophic, or at any event, that is the line I am taking at the mordent. What is more, it emerges quite clearly that the Socialist Unity Party is using the McLurgy dispute to foment domestic discord right across the breadboard. That, as my mother used to say, is as plain as a pikelet.” Both the McLurgys profess to be bewildered by the Prime Minister’s reference to the Socialist Unity Party. “I’m a Social Crediter myself,” Cedric McLurgy told reporters, “and Betty has

always said she won’t vote unless the Countrywomen’s Institute puts up a candidate. The only party we have ever belonged to was a tramping party which went to Arthur’s Pass in 1947. Anyway what about the Joneses ” Mr McLurgy’s reference was to the increase of ten dollars recently achieved in respect of her housekeeping allowance by Mrs Brunhilde Jones, of 8 Nibelungen Crescent, Valkyrieburn, NorthWest Christchurch. When the matter of the Jones award was put to the Prime Minister, he said that there' were very substantial differences between the Jones and McLurgy situation. “In the first place I do like the Joneses,” he said. “In the second place I don’t like the McLurgys. In the third place there is no reason why a Government’s actions should be consistent with each other. That would take half the fun out of it.” Asked whether his Government’s intervention to limit the McLurgy housekeeping allowance would not plunge the nation’s households into a state of uncertainty, Mr Muldoon said: “Undoubtedly it will. But plunging the nation’s households into a state of uncertainty is a small price to pay for being able to blame the condition of the country on the Socialist UnityParty.”