Minister ‘not doing his job’

Press, 13 April 1984, Page 1

Minister ‘not doing his job’

Parliamentary reporter

The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Lange, yesterday called for the dismissal of the Minister of Customs, Mr Allen, from the Cabinet. Mr Lange said Mr Allen should be dismissed because he “was not doing his job.”

Mr Allen had not denied reports that he had asked the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, to be relieved of his Cabinet duties, said Mr Lange. “The Prime Minister is the one who ought to make the human response to that plea from a person for whom the whole job has grown just absolutely impossible,” he said. However, Sir Robert later denied that Mr Allen had asked to be relieved of his Cabinet post. “He did not ask me to be relieved as a Minister. He certainly told me that he wished to retire as a member and we agreed on that several days before this incident happened. “But whatever his recollection may have been, the question of his retirement from the Cabinet has not been discussed,” Sir Robert said. He said that he wanted to keep Mr Allen in the Cabinet if he was fit enough to continue in it. Sir Robert said he did not want to lose Mr Alien’s experience in the customs field, which was “quite im-

portant,” because of changes in protection which he has been discussing with manufacturers.

Mr Lange also said that the row over rents being charged on Parliamentary Press Gallery offices was a diversion from the issue concerning Mr Allen. “The basic issue is a very simple one: how much longer can a Prime Minister keep in a job of Cabinet Minister someone who is either offshore or out of town and who apparently can issue press statements but not run his department?” Mr Lange said.

“It seems to the Labour Party perfectly obvious that the very lowest form of responsibility which a Prime Minister has is to dismiss him.”

However, Sir Robert had brought the “storm” over Press Gallery rentals on himself in the hope that everyone would chase away on that issue. “The issue is the Allen affair, not Parliamentary building rents,” Mr Lange said.

Sir Robert’s references early this week to the Moyle affair were “irrelevant,” he said. He was also opposed to the release of any police files on Mr Alien’s allegations that he was attacked, saying it would be an “appalling day for New Zealand” when such details could be selectively and

politically distributed for sensation.

Mr Lange said the Labour Party would tackle Sir Robert in Parliament on the issue, and said that Mr Allen, if he was still ill then, would get a voting pair from Labour if a medical certificate was produced showing he was ill. Earlier, Sir Robert told a press conference that he was not going to press Mr Allen to be present at a Cabinet meeting on Monday. “It is up to him,” Sir Robert said. He believed Mr Allen was doing some work at home in Tauranga.

Sir Robert said he was getting feedback from the public that was “quite critical” of members of the Press Gallery. “The public have the impression that you are persecuting a man who is ill. I tend to agree with that,” he said. Sir Robert said he had last spoken to Mr Allen when he returned from Australia. “He rang me when he came back from Australia. “He said he was feeling a bit better than when he went away but not 100 per cent, so I said, ‘Take your time’.” Sir Robert said yesterday that he did not want to “get on to the Allen thing.”

“We will come back to it when he comes back to Wellington,” he said.