Nelson M.P. affirms his independence

Press, 22 June 1981, Page 10

Nelson M.P. affirms his independence

PA , . Wellington The member of Parliament for Nelson (Mr M. F. Courtney) has made it clear in the House that he stands as ah Independent, vowing that he is not “a servant of the Labour movement.” . During the Address-in-Reply Debate Mr Courtney, ■who has-been criticised by the Labour Party for his independent * stand, said a former colleague had received a letter from a Labour Party supporter in which the writer said all Labour Party members were servants of the Labour movement and answerable to it, and that they were next

answerable to the New Zea-land-public. “I dissociate myself from that statement,” Mr Courtney said. C Mr Courtney said that he was still, firmly committed to the Nelson electorate, and addressed himself in his speech to the problems concerning Nelson. “In my one-man caucus last Thursday it was unanimously decided that the two areas I should touch on were transport and water for irrigation in Nelson. “I put the idea up and I voted for myself and I got it through,” said Mr Courtney. Nelson was falling far behind in its irrigation programme, he said.

“We seem to be getting our irrigation on the dripfeed system.” He said that availability of water was all-important to Nelson, terming it “liquid gold” Mr Courtney also discussed the problem* of transport. He said Nelson was still recovering from the “battering” of October, 1979, when the $2 million annual national rail funding was withdrawn from the district. He attacked the road-user chargers scheme as inflationary, and said that the Railways Department should become a corporation. However he warned that it would have to be independent and not a “featherbed” with “dogmatic management and a monopolistic hold” on the transport industry. There needed to be a complete inquiry into the Railways’ freight charges, he said. There were people in New Zealand who wanted to say the same sort of things as he about the Railways but they feared the consequences. Mr Courtney said that it cost more to send goods to the North Island from the South Island than it did to send them overseas. Charges in the rail ferries had to be investigated and changed, he said.