Financial disclosure seen as ‘habitual hypocrisy’

Press, 31 August 1984, Page 3

Financial disclosure seen as ‘habitual hypocrisy’

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington

The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, had engaged in his “habitual hypocrisy” when “opening the books” yesterday, said the Leader of the Opposition, Sir Robert Muldoon.

Sir Robert was provoked by Mr Lange’s statement that he had been careful in his speech not to utter one word of criticism of his political opponents.

The time for recrimination was past. The time for co-operation had come.

Mr Lange said that he would invite the National Party to “play a useful and honourable role in the ongoing economic debate.” However, this did not go down well with Sir Robert. He said that the fact was that his colleagues had not been invited to the Economic Summit Conference and that they had been denied the forum from which they might make a contribution through the adjournment of Parliament. He also dismissed the brochures published to ac-

company the “opening of the books” as Labour Party propaganda paid for by the taxpayer. They had extracted those parts of the documents which most favoured the Government’s point of view and had added “blatantly political texts” written by the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, said Sir Robert. Read in full, the factual material in the reports was “generally consistent with the policies” the National Administration had adopted, Sir Robert said. The second Treasury document is, however, obliquely critical of Sir Robert’s economic management.

It begins, “The New Zealand economy continued to display one of the most lack-lustre performances among countries in the developed world.” Sir Robert described the content of the report as extraordinary and said that it must have been drafted at a very junior level by officials not long out of university. “Their analysis and recommendations have no

place in the real world and not even this Labour Government, which has already accepted too much bad advice, is likely to implement their proposals,” he said. Most of the recommendations it contained, had been “wheeled out over the years and rejected for obvious reasons.” The Treasury would have known better than to give it to him had he been Prime Minister.

The report was “visionary and impractical,” he said. It proposed, among other things, the taxing of fringe benefits such as the company car. Sir Robert said this surprised him as the Secre- ■ tary to the Treasury, Mr Bernard Galvin, knew all the problems attached. He had been “deeply involved” in National’s decision not to do it.

Mr Lange was asked after his “opening the books” address how much responsibility he attributed to Sir Robert for the poor state of the New Zealand economy. “I attribute none of it to him,” he said. “He claims it for himself. As late as 12

o’clock today (Thursday) I understand he was acknowledging paternity.” Mr Lange was referring to a press statement released by Sir Robert at noon.

It said, “My Government tackled the problem of a 10year recession caused by low terms of trade by maintaining living standards, gradually adjusting the structure of industry through the Industrial Development Commission, putting in place the new major projects and other export operations which will turn our current export account around, and holding a balance between all of our people.”

Attached to it was an eight-page Treasury report, dated July 11, which recorded an upturn in the economy from early in 1983 after a growth is non-agri-cultural export demand and “expansionary fiscal and monetary policies.”

However, it forecast another downturn reflecting “the underlying weakness in the forces driving the recovery.”