P.M. champions families, workers

Press, 29 May 1985, Page 8

P.M. champions families, workers

The Labour Government is committed to the families and working people who put it into office, said the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, in Timaru last evening.

Opening his party’s campaign for the Timaru byelection, Mr Lange said that under the National Government, working people had carried the burden and got nothing for their trouble.

Labour was facing up to New Zealand’s economic difficulties; National had run away from them, he said.

Thirty years ago, New Zealand had the third highest standard of living in the world. It was now ranked thirty-second. Of the 156 countries surveyed by the World Bank, only 30 had an economic growth rate slower than New Zealand’s. “Australia has a standard of living 40 per cent higher than ours. If we do not

change, by the end of this century Australia will be 80 per cent ahead.”

New Zealand’s economic decline was not inevitable, he said. Countries far less richly endowed with resources had done better.

Mr Lange blamed the decline on the National Government, which he said had locked the basic structure of the economy into the pattern of the past. National had pretended that the signs of deep trouble could be told to go away. It had tried to regulate them out of existence, he said.

The previous Government had let New Zealand live beyond its means. The legacy of the National Government was reflected in every basket of groceries purchased, every extra point added to the interest on mortgages, and every petrol price rise, he said.

National’s arrangement

with the oil companies established a regime in which New Zealanders would be paying for it until the end of the century. Mr Lange said the Labour Government had brought New Zealand face to face with economic reality. It aimed to create a stable economic environment so that people could plan ahead, and to let people put their money where it would get the best return.

No more money would be borrowed overseas this year. The Government’s deficit was falling, and 40,000 jobs had been created in ten months.

The present tax system destroyed the incentive to work and was unfair, said Mr Lange. Wage and salary earners received 60 per cent of the national income but paid 75 per cent of the income tax.

The fringe benefits tax

and goods and services tax would make people pay their share. Wage and salary earners would be compensated by a radical change to income tax.

The most vocal opponents of GST were those who were scared of entering into the tax net for the first time, he said.

Labour’s candidate, Miss Jan Walker, said the Government would build more State houses in Timaru this year than were built by National in the last three years.

Unemployment in Timaru had dropped 43 per cent since Labour took office. During the same period Timaru industries benefited from regional development grants of nearly $500,000.

“That’s what Labour means by regional development, not just social welfare payments to sheep,” she said.