THE PRESS FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1985. Labour’s conference

Press, 30 August 1985, Page 16

THE PRESS FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1985. Labour’s conference

The Labour Government was barely a few weeks old when the last Labour Party conference was held. The conference which begins in Christchurch today is the first during the term of an experienced Labour Government since 1975. Labour Party conferences in the past have not been characterised by the party faithful giving unreserved admiration to their Parliamentarians and it would be beyond the wildest dreams of any in the Government that the conference would give them wholehearted and undivided support on all matters. Differences of views at National a Party conferences are generally subdued; at Labour Party conference the views are aired openly and sometimes with vehemence.

This is partly because a Labour Party conference is a gathering of people, many of whom are idealists of various persuasions. Some are Labour Party activists; some are single-issue people who hope that the Labour Party will bring about a particular change. Such a grouping is more comfortable in Opposition than when the party is in Government because the possibilities for change seem all the greater. In office, a party has to make choices and the Labour Government has made some of the most difficult choices that any New Zealand Government has made for many years. The paths it has chosen, particularly over economics, have hurt a lot of people who are traditional Labour supporters. The senior members of the Government will not only be reminded of opposition within the ranks of the Labour Party, but are likely to face direct challenges to the policies they have followed.

One remit will seek to have the Government abandon the goods and services tax. It would be seriously destabilising for the Government if this remit were adopted by the conference, even if the Government persevered with the tax. A great deal of discussion may well concentrate on the moves to deregulate the economy. As has been remarked many times before, it was a National Party Government which imposed rigid controls on the economy and a Labour Party Government which freed the economy and removed subsidies when it might have been expected that the roles would have been reversed.

There may be an attempt to argue that the Labour Government has betrayed the interests and principles of the Labour Party, just as it has been alleged that the National Government betrayed the principles of the

National Party. Yet there is a difference. Much of what occurred under the National Party was because of the forceful ways of the then Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Sir Robert Muldoon, and eventually the party at large claimed the National Party back. It will be more difficult to sustain the view that the Labour Party has been hijacked because the economic leadership is formally shared among three Ministers, appears to have the full backing of the Cabinet, and only a lone voice or two have been raised against it in the Parliamentary party’s ranks. Even a close defeat over the goods and services tax or the direction of the economy would bode ill for the Government. After all, if the Government’s closest supporters do not accept what the Government is doing, it may be assumed that a lot of people in the community will show a reluctance to support the Government at the polls. Doubtless, the senior members of the Government will repeat the assurances that they have been making publicly that the party’s objects are being served in the long run, and the pace of economic change will be slower from now on. In the face of this assurance that what had to be done has been done, and that nothing more is envisaged for a while, the conference may accept the economic direction. Over foreign affairs, many of those attending the conference may be pleased with what the Government has done, but fear what it is likely to do. The ban on visits by nucleararmed or nuclear-powered warships to New Zealand ports has widespread support within the Labour Party. Anti-nuclear groups in particular will be watching the Government closely to see whether there is an intention to alter the ban. The visit of the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, to Washington, the appeal by the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, for people to trust a group of Ministers on the question of whether a ship carries nuclear arms, and the comments by the Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, that he believed a solution was in sight over the A.N.Z.U.S. issue have set alarm bells ringing among the anti-nuclear groups. The issue remains the most delicate in New Zealand’s foreign relations. The Government’s position has been that the policy is anti-nuclear, not anti-American. The extent to which the Labour Party conference also conveys this view will be observed with interest in many parts of the world.