THE PRESS SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1983. Parliament’s opportunity

Press, 28 May 1983, Page 14

THE PRESS SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1983. Parliament’s opportunity

when Parliament meets in special session on Tuesday, the occasion should be used to do than amend the motor vehicle relicensing charges. Even if the Government has no new legislation to put before the House, the special session is an opportunity to debate matters of great concern to the community. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Lange, said this week that he had “about 14” topics he would like to have debated. Mr Lange would do better to concentrate on one or two of the most pressing and serious matters, rather than dissipate time and the energy of members on scattered sniping at the Government. In the midst of what was expected to be a fairly long recess, many members of Parliament have other commitments, including travel abroad and the work of Parliamentary committees. Protracted talk on a variety of matters would serve little purpose. A sharp, well focused debate in the next few days could help to clarify party attitudes towards the country’s unhappy economic condition. The extension of the freeze on incomes and prices may be seen as a recognition that the freeze is a successful way to reduce the rate of inflation; or it may be taken as an admission that the Government still has no idea what policy to follow when the freeze ends. Closely related to the freeze are the vexed questions of New Zealand’s continuing high level of unemployment, and the failure of Government, employers and trade unions to agree on a new system of wage fixing. On all these matters, Opposition speakers might be expected to harass and embarrass the Government in Parliamentary debate. Their criticisms will lose much of their force unless Labour members can also demonstrate that they have effective and practical alternatives to offer. As a temporary means to restrain increases in prices and incomes, and therefore in inflation, the freeze has worked better than

expected. As a means to provide a breathing space while effective long-term economic arrangements are devised, the freeze has so far been a failure. It will have been a pointless exercise if, when it ends, high inflation resumes. Among the principal causes of New Zealand’s inflation, higher prices for the country’s essential imports have begun to stabilise.

Competition within New Zealand can be expected to restrain local price increases, even without the freeze regulations. The key to economic stability after the freeze — and probably the key to more employment and to improved export sales — is going to be a new system of wage fixing. Such a system is going to have to take account of changes in productivity, and of the ability of employers to pay wage increases. The system will need to restrain the power of some trade unions to win unreasonable wage increases through industrial action in critical areas of the economy. No new system will be effective, or will last long, unless it has the support of all sectors of the economy. Here the Labour Party, with its links to the industrial labour movement, is in a position to influence events beyond the normal ability of an Opposition to determine policy. It is the mood of industrial relations, not the law, that needs to be rejuvenated. Cynics among Labour politicians may be tempted to enjoy watching the Government flounder in its search for a wage-fixing agreement, in the belief that the protracted stalemate can only work to Labour’s advantage in the next election, whether the election is called early or is held in November next year. The party might well find it can earn more credit with the electorate by being seen to play a prominent part in an agreement that will make possible an end to the freeze. A debate on'the extended freeze, in the next few days, would be an opportunity for the Government to attempt to justify the extension, and to explain more fully what it hopes to achieve in the next nine months. The debate will be even more valuable if the Opposition can show they are ready to work towards removing the impasse on industrial relations, instead of being content to score what are, at the moment, rather easy partisan points.

Mr Lange has had time to consolidate his position as party leader. If the Government has the courage to permit a debate on the freeze extension in Parliament next week, the Labour Party will be able to show what.it can — or cannot — do. The country is surely in the mood for clear and vigorous statements of intent from both the main parties.