Cabinet to show unity

Press, 10 February 1988, Page 1

Cabinet to show unity

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

A special Cabinet meeting will be held today to clear the air for the Government’s caucus meetings due to begin at Ashburton later in the day. The meeting is to show unity and to resolve problems the Government has had since its ill-fated December 17 economic package, not to make dramatic announcements. The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, confirmed last evening that a special Cabinet meeting would be held at noon. This would be followed by a caucus meeting at Parliament and a press conference. He said the two-day caucus at Ashburton would then go ahead as planned. The Cabinet meeting will be held to advise other Cabinet Ministers of the agreement reached on the future of the December 17 economic package and the timing of its elements. Sources in the Beehive yesterday discounted any suggestion of dramatic announcements such as the resignation of the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas. It is more probable that the special Cabinet and caucus meetings are intended to announce the deals struck over the package. The press conference will then try to allay fears in the business and financial community about future economic direction, and show that Rogernomics has survived the recent flap over the package. Caucus members want to have these doubts resolved in a way that does not pre-empt the report of the Royal Commission on Social Policy. The commission is due to provide reports on taxation and income maintenance in the next three weeks and to produce its final report by early April. Caucus members want to focus their attention at Ashburton, and subsequently" in their electorates, on unemployment and not on doubts over economic dicsction. The Country Coalition has organised a prof jest march to be held tomorrow, beginning at 4 p.m. at *the Ashburton Domain, and at the ’ Hotel' AshhiErton.

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