Finance job comes first, says Douglas

Press, 10 November 1988, Page 2

Finance job comes first, says Douglas

By

OLIVER RIDDELL,

in Wellington

Finishing the job comes first, according to the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, in his first personal statement on the Prebble sacking.

He was commenting on suggestions that he should have resigned out of sympathy with his friend and closest political ally, the former Minister for StateOwned Enterprises, Mr Richard Prebble. Mr Prebble was sacked by the Prime Minister last week-end for what Mr Lange called “irreconcilable differences” over the process of State asset sales. “No-one regrets Richard’s absence from Cabinet more than I do,” Mr Douglas said. He had been an able Minister, was a personal friend, and would remain a strength within the Parliamentary Labour Party. “But my job, my personal commitment to the nation, is to recommend courses of action to the Cabinet to achieve the economic recovery that all New Zealanders want, and to achieve it without avoidable delay,” he said.

It was his responsibility and duty to develop the proposals needed, and to recommend them to and advocate them in the Cabinet, so that all the consequences of their adoption or rejection were understood by all. "I give my commitment that I intend to serve those objectives, the

Labour Party and this

country to the very best of my ability,” Mr Douglas said. “Richard has said of

himself that he is not a quitter; that is the last thing he would want me to be. Neither of us is in Parliament for personal power; we are here because there is a job to do. “There are very import-

ant tasks ahead for the Government to secure

economic and social recovery,” he said. People wanted that job tackled with all the skill and professionalism the Government could command. Mr Prebble had committed himself to a Labour victory in 1990 and Mr Douglas would too. Labour could win in 1990, he said, if it delivered on the pledges it had made to the electors in 1987. It had said it would finish the job and finish it well, to the satisfaction of the voting public.