‘Messianic’ party will not last, says Mr Lange

Press, 16 February 1984, Page 24

‘Messianic’ party will not last, says Mr Lange

NZPA staff correspondent Hong Kong

The New Zealand Party led by Mr Bob Jones was a “messianic movement” attracting a considerable level of support which would begin to decline once it became a fully fledged party, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr David Lange, said in Hong Kong on Monday. Addressing a luncheon business gathering and later at a press conference, Mr Lange said that the new party was a movement of the Right and an alternative to the National Government, and that it had been careful not to be too specific about issues.

“At the moment it is a political movement, not a party,” he said. “But by June it will become a party. It will be

choosing candidates and having a leadership struggle, and it will become another mainstream party.” By the end of the year, New Zealand politics, which was going through a volatile stage, would again become a two-party club, he said. “People are seeking solutions to our economic problems which do not require the pain that other countries have gone through,” he said. The Prime Minister had successfully convinced the nation that New Zealand’s economic problems were “some sort of appendage” of other countries’ troubles.

But by election time, the Government would have a legacy of looking passe, he said.

Mr Lange told Hong Kong audiences that there was a new range of tolerance and awareness in New Zealand for ethnic diversity and

creativity. “When I grew up I could not handle a marae,” he said. “But my children are perfectly comfortable on one.” At his children’s school, he said, 31 out of a class of 34 were from different cultural backgrounds. “We are at the forefront in a whole new change in society,” said Mr Lange. In answer to a question from the floor, Mr Lange said that New Zealand had had nothing like the industrial activity that might have been expected in a country where wages had not risen for 21 months. He said he believed in the constitutional approach to industrial issues. “I don’t believe the country should be run by either the Rugby Union or the watersiders’ union,” he said.