THE UNITED LABOUR PARTY—National Platform

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8182, 25 July 1912, Page 14

THE UNITED LABOUR PARTY —National Platform

OBJECTIVE. 1. To promote the organisation of all the workers of New Zealand in all forms of necessary service; . 2. To protect their interests in the matter of regular, rational, and remunerative employment; . . 3.. To promote their good icitzenslnp and to increase their*efficiency; 4". To consolidate the political power of the workers in their own behalf, and to use their whole power (both political and economic) in negotiations 'with employers, in the Courts, in municipal, county,. and Parliamentary bodies, in international relations, and (if need be) in industrial revolt; 5 To use the fruits of every partial victory to strengthen and continue this work until the power to oppress and exploit any of the workers, either by private monopolies controlling the Government, or through the private monopoly, ownership and control of industry, shall utterly disappear, and there shall be secured for all the people power to purchase with their income the total products of their labor —until, in short, the means of production, distribution, and exchange (in so far as they constitute m private hands instruments of oppression and exploitation) shall be socially owned and operated without profit and for the common good of all. PLATFORM. EDUCATION REFORM. Free and secular State education, with compulsory attendance up to the age of fifteen years, and with the necessary books and stationery supplied free by the Department. All boys and girls beyond that age, not receiving full-time instruction at secondary or other schools to attend continuation classes for not less than fifteen hours per week until they reach the age of seventeen. No employer to employ boys or girls under seventeen years of age for more than thirty hours per week. Provision to be made so that up to the age of twenty-one years systematic physical exercise shall be substituted for military drill.

ELECTORAL; Proportional representation on single transferable vote. The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall on proper petition and by bare majority. The abolition of the country quota in determining Parliamentary representation. The Parliamentary Franchise to apply to the electiqn of all local bodies and to all local polls. The restoration of full political rights to all public employees. The right of the people to* decide all questions submitted on a bare majority vote. LAND: A land system which shall bring into the most productive use, either by ' individual undertakings or by public enterprise, all natural resources; shall make absentee ownership and private monopoly in land impossible; shall secure to the land-holder all the values created by him and those only (all such values to be exempt from all taxation) ; and shall secure to the public in an annual tax all values created by the public.' No further sale of Crown lands. BANKING: - The establishment of a State Bank, with the sole right of note issue. INDUSTRIAL: Legislation to prevent the application - of the Osborne judgment in New Zealand. The passing of a Right to Work Act, which will guarantee employment to every citizen. Establishment by law of a national minimum wage.

Legislation to secure a weekly day of rest, compulsory Saturday halfholiday in six-day-wcek industries, and 44-hour week. The settlement of industrial disputes on the lines of legally established agreements and awards, by methods of conciliation and arbitration. Statutory preference to unionists. 1 SOCIAL; Endowment of motherhood; pensions for widows, orphans, the blind, and the incurably helpless; State medical aid and hospital care in all cases of illness. TAXATION. Increased taxation of land values, the revenue so raised to be used to reduce the cost.ot living by the reduction of Custom taxes on the necessaries of life not produced in New Zealand and by the reduction of railway freights and fares. A Graduated Income Tax based on scientific principles, with a super-tax on unearned incomes. MERCANTILE; The establishment of State Ferry Services and State Collieries; and cooperation of the Dominion Government with the Federal Government of Australia in the establishment of an inter-State Shipping Service. Establishment of competitive State factories, works, and services. State life, accident, and unemployment insurance. GENERAL. Abolition of the Legislative Council. Grand juries to be abolished. Provision to be made for public defenders as well as public prosecutors.