'Prod’ blossoms in Wellington rain

Press, 24 May 1988, Page 36

'Prod’ blossoms in Wellington rain

PA Wellington Beneath the statue of Dick Seddon on a drizzly Wellington morning, two men launched a new pressure group which aims to rein in the Government with people power. Prod (People for the Restoration of Democracy) was set up by a group of North Wairarapa and Manawatu people, but its chairman, Mr Pat Fouhy, said it had supporters “numbering in the hundreds” throughout the country. To force the Government to realise that people were serious about their dissatisfaction with political parties, Prod was planning a national halfday shutdown. "What we’re faced with is a completely demoralised nation,” the Prod

national co-ordinator, Dr Bob Moodie, told reporters.

“We have parliamentarians who are buoyed with enthusiasm for their own obsessions about how this country should be run.”

Farmers, State servants, manufacturers and superannuitants all told the Government of their concerns — but were ignored.

“What we are saying to the people, through Prod, is that the power in a political democracy rests with the people,” he said.

Prod was not associated with any political party. It was set up to co-ordinate people’s dissatisfaction with the Government and help “restore a bit of morale with the community at large,” Dr Moodie saidjf