Values dithers over contesting election

Press, 7 April 1980, Page 4

Values dithers over contesting election

PA Auckland Delegates at the Values Party conference at Auckland yesterday spent a lot of time discussing whether to contest the 1981 General Election, Jut made no decision. . . The matter will be' discussed again today, but it seems likely that a decision will be delayed until next year’s conference. < ... A paper prepared by the party leadership . contends that electoral strategy is not in the best interests of the party and must, therefore, be of low priority. However, sections of the party favour putting up candidates. The Taranaki branch has criticised the leaders for their stand. “Values does not lack faith in the leadership, but the leadership seems to lack faith in Values,” the branch said. “We are gravely concerned

about the signs of despondency and lack of purpose appearing within the hierarchy of the Values Party and, particularly, about the. prevailing accent on failure. “We believe Values priorities for the 1980 s to be much the same as those which have motivated the party since 1972.”

The Taranaki branch said that if the party did not offer candidates iri local body and national elections and failed to take an active part in political activity it would cease to exist. • •..

“People Who believe in Values, and who wish to vote for Values, should have a candidate to vote for,” it said. Both the leader of the party (Mrs Margaret Crozier) and the deputy leader (Mr R. J. Thomson) have told delegates'that, they do not wish to be candidates at the General. Election next year. They said that, in the

economic and political climate pf the 1980 s, Values was unlikely to succeed at the polls,

“We'want you to re-elect .us as leaders because of the political campaign and work we want to do in the next year or two,” Mrs Crozier told the conference yesterday.

She said that the party ought to reserve its decision on its-election plans for the time being. In opening the Values Conference, the party president (Mr Frank March) said that New Zealand was no longer drifting, as Values had alleged in 1978. “It is being led by the nose into a development programme which it neither wants nor needs," he said. New Zealand was being prepared for a take-over by foreign investors so that a huge energy-development programme could occur.