Retirement suggestion just a joke, says P.M.

Press, 13 July 1984, Page 3

Retirement suggestion just a joke, says P.M.

Election briefs

The Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, has dismissed as a joke a suggestion that he would step down after the General Election.

The New Zealand Party leader, Mr Bob Jones, had predicted that Sir Robert would soon announce his intention to stand down from the Finance portfolio and probably the leadership of the National Party. Denying this, Sir Robert said: “The whole Jones thing is just a joke. There is no foundation in most of what Mr Jones says. Mock papers

The distribution of a mock ballot paper in the Kapiti electorate is being investigated by the police. The Kapiti returning officer, Mr Jim Haugh, has received complaints about a pamphlet showing a ballot paper with all but the name of the Labour candidate, Mrs Margaret Sheilds, crossed out. Section 127 of the Electoral Act, dealing with interferring with or influencing voters, makes it an offence for anyone to distribute an imitation of a ballot with a direction of how they should vote either on election day or any of the three preceding days. The pamphlets and the advertisements carry the Labour Party logo. Mr Haugh has also received a complaint about an advertising hoarding for the National candidate, Mrs June Oakley. P.M. predicts The Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, believes

the election is going to be won or lost in the provincial electorates. He said that unless Labour could win provincial seats there was no way it could become the Government. “I really don’t see us losing those South Island provincial seats,” he said. Sir Robert urged people not to vote for third parties. It was important that they voted for one of the two main parties, he said. Extra police

Extra police were on duty at an election meeting of the Minister of Police, Mr Couch, in Greytown, after an earlier incident ’at a National Party campaign caravan.

A man who appeared to be under the influence of drugs, entered the caravan at Greytown and said he was going to “get the Minister of Police and his underlings,” according to a party spokesman. Two party supporters in the caravan, alarmed at the man’s appearance and attitude, had called the police. There were no incidents at the meeting. Devaluation The New Zealand dollar should be devalued on Monday, according to a sharebroker and merchant banker, Mr Frank Renouf. Devaluation would stop a flight of capital or movement of funds, such as profits, abroad and would encourage investment, Mr Renouf said.

Hated Television and radio “hated his guts” said the retiring Minister of Customs, Mr Allen, of the Prime Minister. Radio and television were trying to “persuade” voters to remove Sir Robert Muldoon’s National Government, Mr Allen said. The election, he said, came down to Sir Robert. “You like him or you don’t,” Mr Allen said. “But he is the only Prime Minister who has fought the bankers, the finance companies, the brewers, and is the only Minister of finance who has lowered tax rates in my time.” Cemented The Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, has made his mark in Auckland’s Victoria Park Market. 'Hie hands that have guided the nation for nine years were firmly pressed in wet cement. Sir Robert, as he became the first famous person to make an impression on the market’s new Hollywoodstyle celebrity pavement, entertained lunchtime onlookers with a string of oneliners. As he knelt on a blue knee-pad, he said, “I don’t often get down in this position.”

Waslung his hands in a bucket of warm water: “I’m

always getting into hot water. “Well, that’s another crisis passed . . .” Sir Robert also laughed good-naturedly at hecklers who suggested he should “stick your face in it” and "hold him down till it sets.” Dictatorship The New Zealand Prime Minister used the “political style of dictatorship” to implement his policies of economic expansion, Japan’s mass-circulation national daily newspaper, “Asahi Shimbun,” has said. In what appeared more an epitaph to Sir Robert Muldoon than an assessment of the pre-election strengths of New Zealand political parties, it contrasted Sir Robert’s style of leadership with the Labour leader, Mr Lange’s promise to seek a national consensus in tackling unemployment, reports Bruce Roscoe in Tokyo. Opinion polls suggested the Labour Party would score an “overwhelming victory,” the newspaper said. Japan’s top financial daily newspaper, “Nihon Keizai Shimbun,” also reported that victory was imminent for Labour. “Nihon Keizai” said the election issues were economic. There were strong fears of a recurrence of high inflation, and New Zealand’s overseas debt was estimated at $l7 billion as at the end of March.