MURRAY MACDONALD Economic policies the key

Press, 26 June 1984, Page 29

MURRAY MACDONALD Economic policies the key

The New Zealand Party candidate for Selwyn is Mr Murray Macdonald, who is a third-generation farmer, and a director of a Christchurch engineering company. He is married with a son and a daughter. Mr Macdonald says that the New Zealand Party sees its economic policies as the key to rebuilding the economy. “It is now obvious to all thinking people that our 50-odd-year experiment with Socialism has been disastrous. Thirty of those years have been the most prosperous in our history, but not that trading has become more competitive we find that we have priced our-

selves off the market,” he says. “We are borrowing large sums to prop up an ailing economy, and now that our automatic drawing rights from the International Monetary Fund are exhausted, we will be dictated to by the money-lenders of the world. World Bank figures show that 30 countries now have a higher gross national product than

New Zealand. Thirty years ago we were in the top three.” The New Zealand Party’s economic policy is designed to rectify these problems, he says. Floating the exchange rate will directly benefit export industries, and its taxation proposals will leave industries with the capital for expansion to provide the extra 50,000 jobs a year needed to provide work for people. “For too long government departments have provided the unemployed and the unemployable with work. This has now been recognised and the sinking lid policy instituted,” he says. A New Zealand Party

fulfil their purposes at minimum cost to the taxpayer. “Our only hope of regaining our living standards and prosperity is with a freemarket economy. We have priced ourselves off the market and to recover, all petty and unnecessary restrictions and regulations must go. This will give all New Zealanders the opportunity to get on with the job and fulfil their ambitions,” he says. The New Zealand Party will draw up a written constitution to define the functions and limitations of the State and its relationship to its citizens. It will be put to a referendum. It will also give priority to education.