‘Govt pays lip service to real issues’

Press, 30 May 1981, Page 2

‘Govt pays lip service to real issues’

PA Wellington The Government paid “lip service” to family life and : “turned its back on the real : issues, such as jobs, housing, and controlling costs,” said . the Leader of the Opposition I (Mr Rowling) in Parliament yesterday. Opening the first big money debate of the year, Mr Rowling said that cheap family housing had been “deliberately and systematically destroyed by this National Government.” He said unemployment was a “festering sore” in society, and the numbers of jobless were continuing to rise “dramatically and dangerously.” “No previous Government in the history of this country has doubled consumer costs in the course of its office,” said Mr Rowling. Labour believed it was a fundamental right of people to be housed properly. But under the Government the re-emergence of the speculator in the housing field had meant that opportunity for thousands of young people to own their own homes had been killed. The Government obviously had no intention of doing anything about it because the Minister of Housing (Mr Quigley) believed there was no housing problem in New Zealand. “If you live in a Ministerial house. I guess there is'no housing problem,” said Mr Rowling. He suggested Mr Quigley should “get out there among the real people in the

real world,” and find out what was happening. When the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) replied he attacked Mr Rowlings failure to detail costings of the housing projects he had talked about. Mr Muldoon asked Labour to provide the careful costings on its housing policy, and other policies talked about by the party. Mr Rowling had the “temerity to talk about law and order,” said Mr Muldoon. In government, Labour had always been soft on law and order. Labour was “going to take the bikes away from the bikies in 1974 — it never did.” The Minister of Labour (Mr Bolger) said that the only sensible and rational response to unemployment was through the growth policies that the Government had adopted.“ There are no jobs for anyone unless the employers want to employ people, and they will only employ people if there is growth in the economy.” Mr Bolger said that through the Government’s growth policies, 410,000 jobs would be created. Mr T. K. Burke (Lab.. West Coast) said the National Research Advisory Council had prepared a report on unemployment months ago, but the people involved in preparing it had been bound not to release- its details. “The Minister has got it in his office. He won’t release it,” said Mr Burke. The Minister, he said, had commissioned Link Consultants to “cover up” what had been revealed by the Advisory Council. The Link report — com* missioned as a “snow job”— had been rewritten 27 times and still had not been released by the Government. Mr Burke said that if the Advisory Council report was released, the Government would be destroyed. Mr Quigley said New Zealanders were better housed than in many other countries. Since 1976 the Government had put in place an extra 100,000 houses, at a time when the population - had increased by only 30,000.