Pamphlet wrangle

Press, 31 May 1985, Page 4

Pamphlet wrangle

Parliamentary reporter The National Party pamphlet for the Timaru byelection features a pointed revolver on the front and a revolver being loaded on the back. It was described as “a tough pamphlet,” by the Leader of the National Party, Mr McLay, yesterday. “There are people in the Labour Party who will not be happy with it, and I don’t blame them,” he said. "It tells the truth and we want people to read it and get the message.” N.Z. Party man ill The director general of the New Zealand Party, Mr Charles Begg, was admitted to Timaru Hospital yesterday with suspected gallstones.

Mr Begg, aged 36, of Wellington, had been in Timaru since Monday coordinating the party’s campaign for the Timaru byelection. Party officials did not expert to know until today how long Mr Begg would be out of action.

|. Timaru | by-election

The four-page pamphlet is headed, “How long can you go on gambling with Labour?” Underneath this is a hand pointing a revolver, with the words, “You can’t trust Labour anymore" on the bottom. On the back is a picture of a hand loading a bullet into a revolver chamber with the words, “Stop gambling with your future.” Inside, National has a drawing of 13 empty cartridge cases with the words, “Look what they have fired at you already — and there’s more to come.” The empties are associated with captions such as A.N.Z.U.S. dead, 19 per cent mortgages, 20 per cent devaluation, 22 per cent on electricity, prescription charges, crippling interest, farms dying, 16 per cent inflation, surtax on national superannuation, milk subsidy gone, 40 per cent on petrol, 16 per cent on food, and electricity concession gone. r The pamphlet ends with the words, “Soon they will bring their big guns to bear on you with GST.”

Mr McLay said the pahmphlet had been planned some time ago and had not been intended specifically for use in the Timaru by-election. The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, said the pamphlet showed National was actually “in the political pits and I would urge them not to use it on themselves." "Any political party that comes out and has a revolver as its key message in a by-election just has to be bad," he said. Mr Lange described the pamphlet as scurrilous, with an overtone of violence. The Leader of the New Zealand Party, Mr Bob Jones, said the use of an image of political Russian roulette was shallow and silly. Labour had done some astoundingly brave things with the economy, he said, yet all the National Party could do was hurl emotive abuse without having any principles or arguments to advance instead. Such a pamphlet reemphasised that National was interested only in political power and not in principles, said Mr Jones. The Leader of the Social Credit ptfrty, Mr Beetham, could not be reached for comment last evening.