P.M. has 2:1 cushion in leadership

Press, 16 December 1988, Page 1

P.M. has 2:1 cushion in leadership

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Parliament

The Prime Minister has the numbers to win the approaching leadership vote in his caucus handsomely, but that will not be the end of his embarrassments with his former Minister of Finance, Mr Roger Douglas.

At today’s caucus meeting the formal machinery will be agreed to permit the scheduled leadership vote set for next February to be brought forward to next week.

So next week will see a threeday Cabinet meeting to discuss economic policy options and issues, to be held without Mr Douglas. That will be followed, on either Thursday or Friday, by a caucus meeting at which Mr Lange’s leadership will be put to the vote. Now it seems as if Mr Douglas may be the only other contender and the way the numbers stack up so far he is heading for overwhelming defeat. A head count of Labour members of Parliament yesterday put Mr Lange more than two to one in front.

But already Mr Douglas and his allies are looking beyond next week’s vote.

At a second press conference within 24 hours, Mr Douglas renewed his attacks on Mr Lange’s performance, as Prime Minister during the last year. He also announced the appointment of his former chief press officer, Mr Bevan Burgess, as a private employee to continue to

help him outside the taxpayerfunded services to members of Parliament.

That appointment cocks a snook at Mr Lange, who was responsible for the vote on renewing Mr Burgess’s contract of employment, which Mr Douglas said was “the last straw” in his decision not to serve under Mr

Lange’s leadership as Minister of Finance.

Mr Douglas chortled at the thought of sitting at the back of Parliament with his “mates,” Mr Richard Prebble and Mr Trevor de Cleene. “You could take all this as a commitment by me to be quite active in the next few months,” he said.

Mr Burgess has already given a radio interview in which he said he expected the achievements of Rogernpmics to •be undone with the transfer of the finance portfolio from Mr Douglas to Mr David Caygill. He said that he expected the Cabinet to become the prisoner of pressure groups. “The brain doesn’t stop just because you’re not in the Government,” Mr Douglas said. “Backbenchers have much more freedom and I’ll be able to speak my mind more than I could in Cabinet.

“My decision is in many ways a great relief for me, although I have a lot of regret too, and there is no way I intend to resign from Parliament,” he said.

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