TAXATION INCREASES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20624, 27 November 1941, Page 4

TAXATION INCREASES

HIGHER LIVING COSTS GOVERNMENT ASSAILED MR. SULLIVAN’S REVIEW (Special to tho Herald.) TOKOMARU BAY, this day. Continuing his campaign on the East Coast, Mr. W. Sullivan, National candidate in the Bay of Plenty by-election, addressed a well-attended meeting at Tokomaru Bay last night. Mr. A. B. Williams, Puketiti, presided. Mr. Sullivan made particular reference to the increases in taxation and the cost of living, under both of which headings, he contended, Labour had failed to carry out its election pledges. Taxation in New Zealand in 1935, he said, was £ls 18s 4d a head of population, while to-day it was £2B Is 3d a head, exclusive of war taxation, which raised the total to £37 13s lOd a head. Dealing with the cost of living, Mr. Sullivan referred to a list published by his namesake, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, in 1935, when the latter undertook that if Labour were elected a saving of 5s in the £ would be effected in the housewife’s domestic expenses. Not one of those promises had materialised. Instead, costs had gone up in every direction long before the war, and had continued to go up since. Showing how the cost of living had advanced even before the start of the war, Mr. Sullivan cited sugar and flour, where the Government had since kept down further price rises by means of large subsidies, which were, however, merely a means of disguising the true position, as nothing could be given out by the Government in the form of subsidies which had net been first taken from the pockets of the taxpayers. Mr. Sullivan quoted some figures regarding the pronounced rise in the price of men’s working shoes, children’s shoes, and a line of women’s shoes to show how heavily the rise in living costs was bearing upon the wage-earners, and finally compared New Zealand prices to-day with those ruling in Australia, where ham was Is 6d a pound, against the New Zealand price of 2s 4d a pound, rice was 31d a pound, against the New Zealand price of 4d a pound, and jam was about 7d a pound, against the New Zealand price of Is to Is 6d a pound.

A vote of thanks to Mr. Sullivan was. carried by acclamation on the motion of Mr. W. S. Thompson, seconded by Mr. G. Glenn.

At Tikitiki, where Mr. Sullivan addressed a meeting in the afternoon, the chairman was Mr. M. Q. Gudgeon, and the vote of thanks was carried on the motion of Mr. J. Ormundsen, seconded by Mr. J. Murphy. Mr. Sullivan also addressed a meeting at Hicks Bay during his tour of the East Coast.