Leadership needed, says Prebble

Press, 8 December 1988, Page 6

Leadership needed, says Prebble

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

New Zealand needs leadership, says the sacked Cabinet Minister, Mr Richard Prebble.

He told the Mount Victoria Rotary Club in Wellington last evening that to achieve growth the country needed real leadership. In its first three years the Labour Government had given New Zealand real leadership — with David Lange as chairman of the board and Roger Douglas as managing director. The Government had opened the books, and at its summit conference it had negotiated a goal and plan for achieving it, Mr Prebble said.

Later, it had considered and rejected a second conference. “I think we made a mistake.

“We have no negotiated social goals and no consensus on tough new challenges like race relations. “While the Government’s economic goals have been clear up until about a month ago, the social goals are very vague and confusing. “The Government needs to re-establish real negotiated leadership.”

A compact with the unions would be a good start but a narrow pact with a single pressure group would be a retrograde step. The Government rejected the second conference be-

cause it thought it would be captured by pressure groups. The Government had to represent ail New Zealand yet the community was deeply divided on what to do. Mr Prebble said there was general agreement that social services were in need of reform — hospital waiting lists were too long, too many young people left school without job skills, the challenge of national superannuation was still to be resolved, and there were many other issues. “We need to set clear and agreed goals and an agreed action plan,” Mr Prebble said. “To raise income tax rates just to throw money at social issues is not giving leadership.