‘Think Big’ projects may be abandoned under Labour

Press, 13 May 1981, Page 1

‘Think Big’ projects may be abandoned under Labour

PA Welling ton The Government’s Think big’ strategy had to go, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Rowling. told 600 delegates at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Wellington, last

evening. c

He said that while the drive for energy self-suffi-ciency would continue under a Labour government, projects such as the ammonia urea plant, the Mobil gas-to-petrol iplant, and the second aluminium smelter might well be delayed, or even abandoned, in favour of job-creating projects based more fully on our own skills.

Labour’s programme would involve a boost to farm investment in return for a job and growth target, a commitment to the small business sector, and development of joint pub-lic-private sector projects in such industries as carpet manufacturing, timber products, and aqua-culture.

It would also embrace a public works programme providing jobs and developing the nation through irrigation, improving the railway system, ar. I forestry development. Some initial changes wcJd be radical, he said. “The dole must go: noone able and willing to work should be paid to do, or learn nothing.” Mr Rowling said. “As to the other side of the coin, we must guarantee the opportunity for one or the other and we have already committed $l4O million in the first year J get on with the job. A “Tories will bleat ‘where’s the money coming from?’ Some of that $ll5O million the member for Manawatu said taxdodgers evaded last year will help, and costs can be saved — the cost of 9 million working days lost last year, the cost of lost

skills, the cost of broken families and the cost of law and order.”

The single biggest' disincentive to production and effort was the present state of New Zealand’s tax system. There was a tax trap for the majority and a tax refuge for those who could afford to buy the services of some expert on beating the system —

“almost a prestige sport.” “We can pretty confidently predict that the 1981 Budget will produce an Election-year round of so-called tax-cuts — giving back to the workers a couple of dollars in place of every $5 robbed off them by inflation. “But I’ll bet the rip-off merchants are still unscathed. Look, tax reform — that is real tax reform — is years overdue in this country.

“The first Budget of our new Government will provide ' real relief for the lower income families and put real dollars in their pockets. “There- will be dramatic moves to clamp down on tax-dodgers who constantly bleed the system, and a shift in company tax and incentives to provide relief for smaller operators and incentive for those who provide additional job opportunities for our workers. “A full outline of our taxation proposals, and the sources of revenue to allow relief, will be announced after the 1981 Budget. “Central to our development programme is a recognition that the heart of New Zealand’s econ® omic vitality lies in the

small business community.. “It is this sector that can provide the innovation an ' drive that offers some of the finest sophisticated sh :t-run manufacturing in the world.” Mr Rowling said.

“No candidate, no member of the party, should go into this campaign with any misunderstanding about the nature, purpose, and timing of our economic rebuilding programme. There’ll be no lolly scramble from us. "Our economic policies are designed to i nterlock to achieve those ends. Other matters are secondary and will be dealt with as resources become available.

Earlier Mr Rowling had called for an unequivocal mandate for change from the electorate. “A Labour Government will be elected at the end of this year. But just to be elected is not enough. We cannot govern or take the dramatic and farreaching moves necessary ■•o restore this country, if we go in as a minority government, hamstrung by a clutch of conservative economic gnomes.

“We must have a positive, unequivocal mandate for change, and that means we must offer the clearest direction on the roundest base. We have to make it clear that we speak for every New Zealander prepared to work, prepared to accept responsibility, prepared to look beyond our own self-inter-est.”

Further reports, Eage 3.

A Labour programme would Offer jobs for people to return to full employment — ‘‘that is the key priority in our economic policy.” : “Our party was founded on .the belief that all New Zealanders have the right to work and build in their own country, and a party of the people , must be a party of full employment.

"So. if there is one message, one warning, you. must take to the voters, it is that only a dramatic shift away from the Government’s obsession with the big, the foreign, the alien, will ensure any chance at all that their

kias will enjoy one of the most basic individual rights a country like ours should protect. The task ahead is monumental — up to 400.000 jobs in a decade.” Mr Rowling said that a fraction of the so-called “Think Big” investment, properly spread through agriculture, horticulture, processing industries, and the small business sector, would produce 10 times the jobs in half the time, and would create the grpwth on which the strength of 'future development must be based. Mr Rowling called for restrained demonstrations during the Springbok tour.

“We must show the world that though we do not have a Government prepared - ? to

govern, our concern as people is both deep and disciplined.” he said.

Mr Rowling said that never had a National Government been so exposed as weak and opportunist.

“From the Cabinet down it has been split asunder. Their leader has dithered and wriggled, climbing from one side of the fence to the other — sheltering, first behind the Rugby Union, and more recently behind the police. “The responsibility that the Government has run away from is now back ,to the New Zealand people — for a show of dignity and restraint in order to ensure that New Zealand is not torn apart with a winter of bitterness and strife,” Mr Rowling said.