Electioneering alleged

Press, 29 October 1981, Page 6

Electioneering alleged

A publicity statement by the Justice Department, listing its achievements in the last three years, is the third example in less than a week of blatant electioneering by the Government, according, to the deputy leader of the Labour Party (Mr Lange). The Justice ' Department has sent out a statement by the Minister of Justice (Mr McLay) — a summary of the department's achievements in the last three years, and a long list of activities, aimed at showing that the Government has implemented its 1978 manifesto on justice. The contents of the three statements are embargoed until Saturday. “The Minister of Justice is not the first to havesdone this: It is the third example since the House rose on Friday of publicly funded Government politicking,” Mr Lange,. said from Auckland yesterday. ■

< "I expect there will be a few more of these party political advertisements, too,” he said. “I would not be surprised if the Ministry of Agriculture put out something similar, but I doubt very much if the Railays Department or Air New Zealand will bother."

Mr Lange said the first two examples of publicfunded politicking by the Government were the 115page. soft-covered “Growth in the Regions” booklet released by the Minister of National Development (Mr Birch) on October 23 to explain the Government's growth strategy; and the fullpage newspaper advertisements the Labour Department published this week.

Both have been criticised by the Labour Party as “blatant electioneering at the public expense.” , “Now we have this third

example of publicly funded trumpet-blowing since the House rose. The Government has deliberately left it until the House has risen to do such things because Labour has no chance now to question the Government about the costs - involved or the policy statements made,” Mr Lange said.

“The Government is immune to probing now and can blissfully use public money to produce this sort of material,” he said.

Mr; McLay's • statement about the Justice Department was more blatant than the other two because it referred to the 1978 National manifesto, and did not pretend to be anything but a political statement, he said. “Changes in the judicial system in . the last three years are now self-evident. If people want to see it for themselves they have only to

ask at their local courthouses what the delays are for de-

fended hearings now — they are much worse than they used to be,” Mr Lange said.

“Some people have been wailing as long as six months for depositions hearings. and there are big delays in some court centres. The Patent Office is about two years behind." he said.

“There have been beneficial changes in the law, sure, and good luck to them, but let us not pretend that we now’ have a switched-on judicial system that is rearing to go.”

Mr Lange said that a notable failure of the Government's justice policy was the legal aid system. “In spite of a lot of promises and a great deal of money spent on research into legal aid, we still have the same, out-dated system,” Mr Lange said.