Govt’s programme criticised

Press, 27 April 1983, Page 31

Govt’s programme criticised

PA Wellington The Government’s industry restructuring programme was attacked yesterday by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Lange. In an address to the Labour Party’s central North Island regional conference in Napier, Mr Lange said a curious word had been coined to describe much of what the Government was doing. “In Britain they call it Thatcherism, in the United States they call it Reaganomics. In New Zealand it’s called restructuring,” Mr Lange told delegates. He said that manufacturing provided more than a quarter of New Zealand’s exports by value and employed about 25 per cent of the workforce. “Yet this important sector is being carved up in the name of ‘free enterprise’ and ‘efficiency’ and other pseudonyms. “Restructuring has come to mean businesses closing, and that means redundancies,” Mr Lange said. Full-time jobs in manufacturing industries had fallen by nearly 6500 since the beginning of 1982, he said. However, the Prime Minister had asserted in 1980 that restructuring industry was wned at securing an

improved rate of growth and more jobs, Mr Lange said. 'He said it was fundamentally wrong to restructure during an economic recession. The Labour Party would formulate an over-all economic plan that “will be concensus by nature and provide the framework for New Zealand’s economic recovery,” Mr Lange said.