P.M. again lashes ‘Left wing elements’

Press, 31 March 1980, Page 1

P.M. again lashes ‘Left wing elements’

PA Wellington The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) told a National Party electorate dinner in Heretaunga last evening that the tirade of abuse from “Left-wing elements” since he named members of the Socialist Unity Party was to him like water off a duck’s back. He said industrial pacifists, including certain newspaper editors, who had attacked him for campaigning against the S.U.P.* were foolish if they believed the S.U.P. had any other purpose than to destroy the social and economic system of New Zealand and in its place construct a Communist State* “Neither I, nor my colleagues, will be diverted from our implacable opposition to the Socialist Unity Party, the paid servants of Russian communism, or any of the fringe Communist elements such as that adhered to by the president of the New Zealand University Students’ Association and some of his friends,” Mr Muldoon said. He said he had been particularly heartened by letters and messages of support from ordinary trade unionists who said they were intimidated in jtheir own unions and that they backed the Government in its fight against the Communist. Left.

The one place they could not be intimidated was in the polling booths on General Election Day.

The president of the New Zealand University Students’ Association (Mr S.E. Wilson) said he found Mr • Muldoon’s statement amusing. “The matter was raised at a special meeting of the N.Z.U.S.A. on March 22, and a unanimous vote supported me as president and condemned the Prime Minister’s diversionary tactics,” said Mr Wilson. “My- position is that I refuse to encourage this sort of activity by confirming or denying the claim,” he said. “To take any action on the claim would only give it credibility. The Prime Minister is clutching at straws,” said Mr Wilson.

Mr Muldoon said thaf because .of comments he made about the S.U.P. in an address to the Employers’ Federation augmented

council on wage fixing last Tuesday* remarks he had made about wages were largely ignored by the press. One of several concessions made by the unions in the Kinleith settlement was an agreement by the Federation of Labour to engage in tripartite talks with the employers and the Government on the future of wage-fixing. Mr Muldoon said the Kinleith dispute had been futile and it would be many years before any employee gained from his pay increase after tax what he lost in pay during the strike.

“I am hopeful, however, that some lessons have been learned and that we will now be able to. negotiate with the Federation of Labour pay fixing proposals for the future that will-see less of this kind of destructive disruption.”-