P.M. scathing on ‘broad Left’

Press, 24 February 1987, Page 6

P.M. scathing on ‘broad Left’

' ->■ ?? - ''' ’l' PA Wellington The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, likened a Labour Lett group to “economic Neanderthals.” yesterday saying its members’ views bore an extraordinary similarity to “MuldoonJsta.” ■ ■ The Economic Policy Network, which met at the week-end. sprang from the “broad Left grouping of Labour Party members dissatisfied with the Government’s economic direction. The steering committee chairman, Peter Cullen, and the member of Parliament for Sydenham, Jim Anderton, said the meeting had endorsed a call for a more controlled economy while renouncing free-market policies. When asked about the meeting yesterday, Mr Lange noted that the gath-

ering had attracted about 75 people and seen Mr Cullen in the role of the American economist, J. K. Galbraith, and “someone else in the role of Kennedy” — an apparent reference to Mr Anderton. “I formed the view that they were better to be occupied together for a week-end in one place rather than anywhere else,” Mr Lange told a post-Cabtoet press conference. Mr Lange said it was possible to have an "abso-lutely-insulated, fortresslike” New Zealand economy. But to get the network’s scheme into gear, “you’d need to go back to the days of the British Empire, you’d have to dismantle the Common Market and it would require certain major economic intervention.”