P.M. critical of ‘the lily-livered editor’

Press, 26 March 1980, Page 2

P.M. critical of ‘the lily-livered editor’

PA Wellington ; The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) was yesterday critical of some newspapers for declining to publish the list of 32 trade-union officials whom he said were members of the Socialist Unity Party. “I have nothing but . contempt for the lily-livered newspaper editor who says ‘Yes, these people are paid

by Moscow to try to ..destroy the economic and social system of this country, and are succeeding in causing millions of dollars of direct economic damage each year, but no, we must not commit the heinous crime of publishing their names,’ ” Mr Muldoon told a general council meeting of the Employers’ Federation.

“I take it that he expects international human -rights organisations, even Amnesty International, to blacklist New Zealand as a country which commits the horrible offence of publicly naming people whose stated policy is to destroy its economic and social system,” he said.

Mr Muldoon said the great majority ’of countries, including many democratic countries, considered subversion a crime warranting imprisonment or worse.

; Later, during questions : ’from his audience, Mr Muldoon made it clear that he ;was referring to the editor of the “Auckland Star,” | The reference led to an ex- ! change between Mr Muldoon and the president of the Newspaper Publishers’ Association (Mr Neville Webber), who said he was not going to . have the editor of the “Auckland Star” called “lilylivered” when he had shown courage’in-the Arthur Allan Thomas case and in investigating the drug underworld. Mr Muldoon said, “Alongside what the ‘Auckland Star’ says about me from daj' to day, one little comment a year I think is not out of place.”