Mr Bolger fears radicals youth appeal

Press, 8 October 1987, Page 4

Mr Bolger fears radicals youth appeal

NIGEL MALTHUS

The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bolger, has warned against “radical leadership** finding a ready audience among the disadvantaged and disillusioned young.

Commenting on the allegations of the National member of Parliament for Hobson, Mr Ross Meurant, that a Maori terrorist group was planning to overthrow the Government, Mr Bolger said that radical leadership was not new.

There would always be those of radical views, but that normally meant very little.

However, it was worrying when there were large numbers of people with few prospects who could easily be persuaded that radical and even violent solutions were the only way they could progress, Mr Bolger said.

“You can't dismiss the coming together of radical leadership and disadvantaged groups, particularly in cities,” he said. Mr Bolger quoted Mr Rex Jones, the secretary of the Engineers’ Union "and the front-runner to be the next president of the Labour Party,” who said on Monday that another decade of Rogernomics would create a rich elite living in walled palaces with guns mounted on the parapets to keep out hordes of disadvantaged people. “Scary scenario, isn’t it?” said Mr Bolger.

He said that the Government as now saying that unemployment would not get better but would worsen.

Mr Bolger was addressing a meeting of Young Nationals in Christchurch, at which he told them to develop a social conscience and give more than “lip service” to equal opportunity if New Zealand was to avoid Mr Jones’ scenario.

Questioned later, Mr Bolger was careful not to give undue weight to Mr Meurant’s claims.

Speaking under Parliamentary privilege, the new member for Hobson had named several Maoris whom he claimed sought the overthrow of the Government and had sought backing from the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Mr Bolger said that Mr Meurant’s views did not represent National Party policy at all, but it was a case of a member recording events that were already public knowledge.

A real concern, however, was the “very substantial pool of disadvantaged young people," he said.

Asked about Mr Meurant’s claim that the Security. Intelligence Ser-

vice had been told specifically not to investigate the “radicals,” Mr Bolger said that he knew of “no grounds to support that claim.”

In his speech, Mr Bolger said that one of the big challenges for National over the next three years would be to "get out and meet with, and attract in, the young Maori and the young Islander.”

He saw great disparities developing between various groups, giving rise to “tensions that won’t go away.” He was not advocating socialism, but "human concern for fellow New Zealanders.”

Mr Bolger said that it was simplistic to say that because education was available to all there was equal opportunity in education.

There were social subgroups which either could not afford education, or did not encourage education because of attitudes at home.

“Finally we are going to determine the future of New Zealand by whether we have an education system that gives equal opportunity,” he said. Further reports, page 3