General election

Press, 18 November 1981, Page 16

General election

Sir,—The long police batons favoured by Mr Muldoon are collectively like the Roman bundle of sticks, or fasces, from which the word fascist is derived. His method of controlling minority groups should be compared with the non-violent method introduced under Labour in 1973, when police accompanied the vacationing bikie gangs. This reduced the public’s fears, but Mr Muldoon himself still uses fear, mixed with humour, as a powerful political style. The fears are easily dispelled by facts; for instance, the fear of an inexperienced new government.

With 12 years of inexperience, the last Labour government opened our current trade with Iran and China, started the successful Rural Bank and Shipping Corporation, created the Christchurch Arts Centre, and coped with the first oil shock better than National did with the second. Fears of the S.U.P..and bureaucratic control are just as easily dispelled and, in fact, rebound against Mr Muldoon.—Yours, etc., R. HARMAN. November 16, 1981. Sir,—As your correspondent, R. A. Brown (November 13), who incidentally is a Labour Party activist, knows, I was in the North Island on the evening of the Oxford combined meeting. The fact that I would not be (as Mr Brown puts it) “turning up” at the meeting was. known by the organisers for over two months. Unlike Mr Brown, who has plenty of time on his hands, I have my Ministerial and constituency work to do, and am conducting a vigorous local campaign in my own electorate as well as visiting as many as possible of the 18 outside electorates I have been asked to speak in. Even super-efficient M.P.s can only squeeze 24 hours out of a day. — Yours, etc., DEREK QUIGLEY, M.P., Rangiora. November 14, 1981. Sir,—May I be permitted to point out to Mrs E. Anderson (November 16) that no matter how caring Mr Brian Keeley may be, as a National Party M.P. he would be subject to the dictatorial instructions of the Muldoon administration. Should Mrs Anderson require proof of the foregoing, she will find it in respect of another caring National M.P. Miss Marilyn Waring, who, to quote her own words, — “was forced to vote against her conscience until she was sick in her soul,” — over the tour issue. Dictators do not give a damn about caring M.P.s who will do as they are ordered — or else.— Yours, etc., ARTHUR MAY. November 16, 1981.