A GOOD HEARING

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 66, 15 September 1943, Page 7

A GOOD HEARING

MR. FRASER IN SOUTHLAND

INVERCARGILL, September 14.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Fraser) received an attentive hearing from an audience of about 800 in the Civic Theatre tonight. He spoke for two and a half hours without any interruption except occasional bursts of applause. A motion of confidence in the Labour Government was carried with only a handful of dissentients.

"When you see some of the advertisements that are appearing in the newspapers just now, you should know they were used in Australia just recently against Mr. Curtin and you know the result," said Mr. Fraser. "Some of them have what Sha"kespeare called 'an ancient and fish-like smell.'" One advertisement showed him as Prime Minister being moved on a chessboard by Messrs. Walsh and Roberts. The public would not believe the propaganda that was being used against Labour and they would have the same result as in Australia. "Though some™ats are inevitable in some of our cities, I hope New Zealanders will never become a nation of flat-livers," said the Prime Minister. He was speaking of the Government's housing programme, and said the most spectacular achievement had been the erection of 16,000 State rental houses. During the six years before Labour took office 13,000 building permits for private dwellings had been taken out, and in six years under Labour 38,000 permits had been issued. The National Party's manifesto advocated lending 95 per cent, of the cost of homes by the State Advances Corporation. Labour had already done that. : "The National Party manifesto is largely similar to our own," Mr. Fraser said. "They look the same externally. They are the same from the lips outward, but from the heart to the lips they are very different."