Restructuring industry

Press, 27 August 1980, Page 20

Restructuring industry

Sir, — Government policy of restructuring private enterprise is very interesting and possibly invigorating if you are a Government or quasi-Government employee. It must be comforting to be a member of the elite class having a job for life and receiving continual back-pay increases while two-thirds of the country’s employees are sweating on their future in private enterprise. We now know that the Air New Zealand rationalisation with N.A.C. was a sham, that the New Zealand Railways’ loss is a joke and the New Zealand Post Office’s increases defy comprehension. These enterprises are nothing but monopolistic cost-plus industries enjoying survival despite constant inept bungling. At what stage is the Government in its restructuring of its own departments? Mosgiel cannot fund its deficit like the Railways or Air New Zealand can out of the never-ending ’ resources of taxpayers’ money. Would the Prime Minister comment on how he sees the restructuring occurring in both Government and private sectors?—Yours, etc.,

DAVID N. BAINBRIDGE. August 12, 1980. [The Prime Minister Mr Muldoon, replies: “This type of contentious letter demonstrates -that the writer has not the slightest knowledge of the enterprises that he criticises. My .experience of both private and public enterprises tells me that the degree of ability and expertise of those who manage each is at the same general level.”]