IMPORTANT TO LOWER LIVING COSTS IN N.Z.

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 35, 7 September 1949, Page 5

IMPORTANT TO LOWER LIVING COSTS IN N.Z.

(Special to Beacon) Wellington, Tuesday,

“The Budget contained nothing but a lot of fine phrases and beautiful sentences; it offered no relief to the people struggling under hardship conditions today. It offered no incentive for increased production in our country, and that is where the Government is falling down,” declared Mr W. Sullivan (National, Bay of Plenty), speaking in the Financial debate in the House of Representatives. Every Budget - the Minister of Finance had brought down since the Government came into office had been full of annual hand-outs, he said. Now the Government had reached the stage when it could make hand-outs no further.

The most important thing was to get living costs down, and the next was to get production costs down. Those were the first jobs of any sensible government. The third job was to stop the reckless Government extravagance and expenditure that was going on.

Greater Production Taxation today was equivalent to 50 per cent of the taxable income, and took about 10s in the £ of the total taxable income of the country. In 1947 the Minister of Finance in his Budget said that he was going to galvanise the people into greater production. “What a beautiful sentence, but just idle words,” remarked Mr Sullivan. “The whole truth is that we cannot have socialism and lower taxes, too. Total departmental expenditure is £8.3 millions more than last year. Why? Not because we are going to get any more work done, but to cover the point made by the Minister of Education that we had to geta more money to pay for the same quantity of goods and services at a higher rate.”

Increase Exports Dealing with the food situation, Mr Sullivan said New Zealand could increase considerably the exports of butter and cheese if we had a Gov 1 - ernment which got closer to the, primary producer, and in which the primary producer would have some confidence.

“The Minister of Finance has made no provision in the Budget to assist Britain or New Zealand,” he added. “There is only one way to achieve increased production, and that is by encouraging the farmer, working with him and not against him, creating new farms, providing more labour and machinery, and more homes in the rural area, and making available greater quantities of cheaper fertiliser.”