Price freeze likened to butter in Sahara

Press, 17 December 1984, Page 2

Price freeze likened to butter in Sahara

What the M.P.s were saying

Parliamentary. Reporter Far from a price freeze under the National Government, prices were about as frozen as a pound of butter on a hot day in the Sahara Desert, said Mr Jim Anderton (Lab. Sydenham) The price of butter had risen from 36c for 500 g to $1.16 in eight years — 222 per cent, he said. Milk had been 4c a pint in 1975 when National took office and 30c a pint when it left — an increase of 605 per cent. Bread had risen from 20c a loaf to 83c, up 315 per cent; eggs had gone from 80c a dozen to $l.BO, up 125 per cent; and fish had gone up by 300 per cent. Mr Anderton said that had been National’s record while' it had been presiding over the highest annual rate of inflation in the country’s history — 18.4 per cent.

‘Jobs for boys’ The Government was strengthening the Local Government Commission to provide “jobs for the boys,” said Mr Rob Talbot (Nat. Ashburton). A huge restructuring of local government was being ordered, not according to the terms and conditions of the people who lived, in the regions, but according to what the socialists ington wanted. He asked what this socalled “consensus” by the Labour Government was all about. Fencing A thoroughly disreputable aspect of Railways Corporation stewardship was its •policy on fencing farm land that was dissected by railways, said Miss Ruth Richardson (Nat. Selwyn). The Railways had always adopted a policy of sharing

on the fencing of stock, but now people who lived beside railway lines were getting legal letters from the corporation asking them to pay the full costs of fencing their land. She said that the Government was sheltering behind the escape clauses in the Fencing Act. S.I. issues Mr Philip Burdon (Nat., Feridalton) asked what the Government planned to do about South Island regional development. It had already abolished the South Island freight subsidy, and he asked if the Government planned to close the Dunedin-Invercar-gill railway line.

The southern half of the South Island was also waiting to hear what the Government planned to do about the Stewart Island ferry service, and whether it would be maintained.