Mr Muldoon declines to visit Clyde dam site

Press, 8 July 1982, Page 2

Mr Muldoon declines to visit Clyde dam site

PA Wellington The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) has declined to visit the Clyde dam site. Mr Muldoon yesterday sent a telegram to a Cromwell resident. Mrs P. M. McKenzie, rejecting her invitation and blaming the Labour Party- “and certain others” for the dam impasse.

If Labour allowed the member of Parliament for Dunedin Central. Mr B. P. MacDonell, to abstain in a vote, as National allowed the member for Hamilton West, Mr M. J. Minogue to, "no worker would need to be put off.” “I do not intend to come all the way to Cromwell to tell you that simple fact,”. Mr Muldoon said.

Mr Muldoon suggested that Mrs McKenzie had been

“conned" by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Rowling). The Cromwell Businessmen’s Association yesterday criticised Mr Muldoon’s decision not to visit Cromwell. “The association has noted that the Prime Minister last visited the area during the 1975 General Election, when the National Party was seeking support,” says the association’s secretary, Mr J. A. Bracegirdle.

“Now that the issue is on the other foot, the Government’s support for the people of the area is starting to be found wanting,” it said, Mr Bracegirdle said the association had also ' made efforts to have Mr Minogue, who has said he will not vote for impending legislation, visit the area, but they had been “totally ignored” by Mr Minogue.