Legal action against M.P.s considered

Press, 19 August 1985, Page 1

Legal action against M.P.s considered

PA Wellington A legal action similar to the one that stopped the All Black tour could be one way to make the Government honour Labour Party principles, says the president of the Wellington Trades Council, Mr Pat Kelly. Legal advice he had been given suggested that a case could be brought against members of the party who were also members of Parliament for breaching the party’s constitution, he said.

“My position is that I want Labour returned in the 1987 election and beyond,” Mr Kelly said.

“But I believe the course they have chosen to travel will not bring that about.” “We have got laissez-faire

capitalism,” said Mr Kelly. “Even if they scrape through in 1987 they are plaiting the rope with which they will hang themselves.”

The free market economic policies the Government was following were sufficiently alien to principles laid down in the Labour Party constitution that party members carrying out those policies could be said not to be honouring the commitments they made when they joined the party, Mr Kelly. He referred in particular to Labour Party doctrine which said that co-operation rather than competition was part of the spirit of the Labour movement.

Mr Kelly said the case brought against the Rugby

Union was a precedent for the kind of court action which could be brought, but he emphasised that he was not considering taking such action as yet.

“I have made no commitment to issue a constitutional challenge to the party,” he said. Much would hinge on the outcome of discussion of economic policy at the party’s annual conference at the end of the month.

The Labour Party president, Ms Margaret Wilson, said she was “fairly relaxed” about Mr Kelly’s comments.

“This is an issue about which many party members do feel quite strongly,” she said. But the door was by no means closed for consultation between the party and the Government.

Even though the main tax and welfare benefit changes would be announced before the annual conference, there was still room for the party to bring about changes, she said. But neither Ms Wilson nor the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, could comment on Mr Kelly’s belief that he could mount a constitutional challenge to the party through the courts. The Under-Secretary of Finance, Mr de Cleene, said he did not take the suggestion seriously.

“He is welcome to take legal advice, but I have grave doubts about whether any lawyer in the country would tell him he would be able to bring an action,” he said.