Plea made for Govt to be even-handed

Press, 24 October 1984, Page 20

Plea made for Govt to be even-handed

An even-handed approach by the Government in its economic-recovery plan has been called for by the president of Federated Farmers, Mr Peter Elworthy, in an address to South Canterbury farmers at Timaru. Mr Elworthy said the main philosophy that was emerging from the Economic Summit Conference was a move away from the old concepts of fortressing New Zealand with an artificial protection against international reality. He said the conference had endorsed fiscal monetary and exchange rate policies which allowed investment to flow into the industries where it would be used most effectively. “Mpre importantly, evenhanofedness was endorsed.

For agriculture, this means even-handedness within our own industry and evenhandedness between our industry and others,” he said. “It is important that we move away from internal support, but until we do, the level of Government assistance for such sectors as the agriculture industry in dairying, arable, and new land uses must be broadly even-handed,” said Mr Elworthy.. “Moves have already been taken by the arable industry to achieve equity through a package of measures recently presented to the Government, including enhanced appreciation rates. The dairy industry’s relative earnnings depend upon their pay-out,” • said.