Socred focuses on unemployment

Press, 23 November 1981, Page 23

Socred focuses on unemployment

MR P. N. DAVEY

Because of its anti-social effects on society, unemployment is the key issue facing New Zealand, according to Social Credit Political Leagues' candidate. Mr Norm Davey. He said. "There can be no greater psychological shock than to be told by society that the skills someone has to offer are not wanted." He said that excessive interest rates and taxation were "two of man's evil inventions." They discouraged individual initiative, native ingenuity. and resulted in an unwillingness to work harder or longer.

If the small-business sector which usually employed three-quarters of the workforce. was stimulated by reducing interest rates and

taxation, widely diversified employment opportunities would open up. He was concerned about the "injustices” of the first-past-the-post election system, which resulted in 60 per cent of eligible voters having no representation in Parliament. Social Credit supported proportional representation. Locally, he would like to see older people integrated into the community rather than being isolated in blocks of flats. He favoured a youth club in Hornby “rather like a junior working men’s club, run bv themselves and

organised on a strict membership basis." Heavy traffic problems in residential areas would be looked at and owner-driver mini buses should be given a trial. Mr Davey said that several small, licensed social centres should be built and administered by local trustees.' Mr Davies is a retired engineer. He is married and has two children. He has worked and lived in the electorate for 28 years. He is a member of the regional development committee of the Canterbury Promotion Council.