Beer, tobacco up in Sir Robert’s Budget

Press, 2 November 1984, Page 2

Beer, tobacco up in Sir Robert’s Budget

Wellington reporter

Alcohol and cigarettes would how be 4 per cent dearer had the former National Government presented its 1984 Budget. The Leader of the Opposition, Sir Robert Muldoon, said yesterday that a four per cent price rise was one of the measures he had planned. The Treasury had advised him to put on a 5 per cent increase in line with the consumers price index of 4.7 per cent, he said, but the advice had been rejected.

Sir Robert also outlined the relief he would have given low-income families in the Budget. The assistance would not have been great, he sail

It would have meant about an extra $7 a week after tax for the recipients and would have cost “something in the order of $l3O million a year.” “but that was when, the rate of inflation was down about 5 per cent,” he said. “We are heading now towards 15 per cent in the next calendar year so what they get will have to be a good deal more than that.” . .

He said he would have got the deficit down to $2.5 billion in the Budget with the prospect of further reducing it to $l.B billion or $1.9 billion next year. The Budget had been all but complete, Sir Robert said. The only decision outstanding had been what to

do about incentives for manufacturing. He is now impatient for the coming Budget debate — “I am an old war-horse and once the scent of gunpowder is around, my nostrils start to twitch,” he said.

“I am looking forward to demolishing this Government regardless of what Budget it brings forward.” But Sir Robert was reluctant to discuss the leadership battle raging in his party, saying that it was not an occasion for happiness. “Our target is the people on the other side of the House and they are. a mighty big target and getting bigger every day,” he said. “That is what National should be aiming at.”