Mr McLay pleased with state of National Party

Press, 26 December 1984, Page 4

Mr McLay pleased with state of National Party

PA Auckland The Leader of the Opposition, Mr McLay, is pleased with the state of the National Party’s revival since its election defeat. He said that opinion polls showed the gap in public support between Labour and National was not far apart and the Opposition had done as much in five months as it did in two years after the Kirk landslide of 1972. “Anyone who had suggested in July that we would have been in this position by the end of this year would simply not have

been believed,” said Mr McLay. ”We should not assume we will automatically win the next election, but I cannot recall a situation where a Government, five months after an election, has shed so much support.” Speaking before he flew to Hawaii to spend Christmas with his parents-in-law, Mr McLay said that early next year he would announce a new front bench and allocate new ’’shadow portfolios.” Of the new lineup, all he would say was that he would not take the justice

■ role he has held since becoming a Minister in 1978, ! and that the former Leader, i Sir Robert Muldoon, would not be finance spokesman. i Mr McLay said the Oppoi sition would concentrate its , attack on Government moves which arouse public ' annoyance, even those which could be seen as , traditionally “free market” ’ or “less bureaucracy” ones, such as the tax on national i superannuation. j The Budget, which he said was the watershed which > ended Labour’s honeymoon, j had been the subject of an > extensive “snow job” which

led to economists and others giving it their applause. Mr McLay said an analysis of the Budget showed, for example, that it left a deficit $241 million more than he said National’s would have left; it did not provide sustained economic growth in the short to medium term, and it contained no social equity. In spite of the Opposition’s attacks on the Budget’s superannuation tax surcharge for those on higher extra incomes, Mr McLay declined to say whether National will promise to repeal it.