Sir Robert predicts economic disaster

Press, 13 July 1985, Page 13

Sir Robert predicts economic disaster

PA Wellington The former Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon (Nat., Tamaki) has predicted economic disaster for New Zealand as a result of the Labour Government’s policies. “In the financial sector we will have crisis after crisis, and the responsibility of a totally inexperienced Government accepting bad advice and reaping the whirlwind,” he said during the Budget debate in Parliament. The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, and the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, had in one year brought the New Zealand economy to the point of disaster “and day by day the detail of that disaster is unfolding. “We have for our Minister of Finance an economic imcompetent; we have for our Prime Minister an economic ignoramus,” Sir Robert told the House. “I was sitting here and thinking that last year we used to say, ‘I wonder who is the worst and most useless member of the new Cabinet’.”

He said it was initially a “toss up” between the Minister of Social Welfare, Mrs Hercus, and the Minister of Defence, Mr O’Flynn. Sir Robert was hardest on the Minister of Health, Dr Bassett, who preceded him in the speaking order. “I don’t think there is any section of the health portfolio that is not in a state of chaos,” he said. “I don’t think there is anything in the health portfolio that is going right.” Earlier, Dr Bassett criticised Sir Robert’s Government for the “mess” left for the incoming Government. Over a period of six years, the total health budget had fallen from 15.3 per cent of Government expenditure to 12.7 per cent. “At the same time as the rest of the world was pumping more of its resources into health, the National Party was stripping it away from the health systems in this country,” Dr Bassett said. “I inherited a hospital system that was on tight pay and rations — there was nothing for real growth

despite the ageing component of the population, and the increasing need by many for hospitalisation. “I inherited a primary health care system that had become an absolute scandal. They used to spend 31 per cent of the total health budget on primary health care in this country,” he said. This had dropped to 16 per cent by the time he became Minister, with no increase in the general medical services benefit for children and no increase for 13 years for adults. Misb Ruth Richardson (Nat., Selwyn) said the Government had been sensible to adopt acceptable market means but these had been highly selective. She also had a fundamental quarrel with the political goals of those economic policies. The Government was adopting a highly selective approach in its market policies, particularly towards agriculture, where the policies were being applied to the income side but not the cost side.