Bid to change Labour Party name fails

Press, 15 March 1982, Page 2

Bid to change Labour Party name fails

PA Auckland Moves to change the name of the labour Party took a hammering from delegates at Saturday’s session of the party’s Auckland regional conference. Delegates voted about four to one against a move to have the party “evaluate” its name and research the effects of a new title on its over-all image. But supporters of a name-change made it clear their fight was not over as the debate dragged on for more than an hour.

. The member of Parliament for Waitakere. Mr R. K. Maxwell, who first suggested a switch early this year, told the conference that the party needed a new image if it wanted to become the governemnt. He pointed to the success of parties using the name, “Social Democrats,” particularly in Europe. “I believe we could have the best of both worlds with the name, ‘Social Democratic labour party’,” he said.

Other suggestions from the floor included United Democratic Party and Social Democratic Party. When it came to a vote, delegates poured cold water on the moves. Speakers against any change of name insisted that the Labour Party would always be exactly that.

The debate over ties with the trade : union movement is unlikely to be settled at the party’s May conference as was hoped by the leader (Mr Rowling). The party’s president, Mr J. P. Anderton, told the regional conference there was not enough time for an indepth report to be prepared and circulated to Labour branches, before the annual conference. Labour's National Council will decide, when it meets on march 26 and 27, whether to go ahead with a proposal from the Auckland conference to set up a working party to study ways of making the party’s ties with the union movement “more effective."