Communist accusations outdated—Mr Lange

Press, 16 May 1984, Page 22

Communist accusations outdated—Mr Lange

PA Auckland The Leader of the Labour Party, Mr Lange, says the Minister of Labour, Mr Bolger, is 65 years behind the times in making accusations that Communists will have greater influence with the Labour Party because of closer links with the trade union movement.

Mr Bolger had claimed that Communist and Leftwing socialist politics would have a much greater influence on Government policy if Labour was elected in November.

Mr Bolger said the Labour Party’s pledges to return to free wage bargaining and scrap voluntary unionism were evidence of growing Left-wing influence

in the party’s policy. Labour’s leaders had admitted that they were working hand-in-glove with the trade unions through the Joint Council of Labour, he said.

“It was all played out last week (at the F.O.L. conference).”

Mr Lange said Mr Bolger had been dragging out the old accusations since he lost the youth rates vote last year. The Joint Council of Labour had met more often than ever in the last two years. “The tax system knocked the tripe out of their people. The $8 rise was insulting, but they sense the importance of not asking their

people to bang their heads against a brick wall when they can’t afford to lose pay,” said Mr lange. “They have said they will’ see that we honour our promises in government. We will have an accord, an understanding with the. trade union movement. "We are not allied with them for some temporary electoral advantage but as a long-term strategy,” he said.

The spokesman on labour, Mr E. E. Isbey, said Mr Bolger was “Red baiting.” The public. was too sophisticated to fall for the “desperate scare tactics and despicable scapegoating that Mr Bolger has resorted to,” Mr Isbey sai<L