Mr Kirk Criticises Building Policy

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31113, 16 July 1966, Page 16

Mr Kirk Criticises Building Policy

The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk) last evening criticised the “lack of a sensible system of priorities” in the Government’s restrictions on building.

He was addressing a large audience of the Student Christian Movement of the University of Canterbury. Mr Kirk said that two bank buildings were going up in Christchurch, while the Christchurch Hospital was being rebuilt and the Princess Margaret Hospital was not finished. Yet many citizens were urgently waiting medical attention. Many such anomalies could be found throughout the country. The Government, said Mr Kirk, had felt that the New Zealand building industry was over-committed. A programme or controller was necessarily introduced in the Government’s view, to limit the resources being put into this form of building. “This did nothing to change the order of priorities,” said Mr Kirk. Armed Forces Mr Kirk said that it had become fashionable to talk about integrating the armed forces of New Zealand with those of Australia. When one talked about integrating with Australia, he said, it was in much the same way “that a cat integrates a mouse.” “I believe we can cooperate where there is any mutual interest to do so," said Mr Kirk. "I’d be strongly against integration of armed forces. It would mean that what happened to be Australian Army policy would be

ours. I believe we should be independent. “What the Australian Government sees as its duty is its business. What is our duty is our business.” Mr Kirk said that he felt that the provision of aid to under-developed countries and developing nations was one way in which New Zealand could help to ensure its own national security. The only pledge of a withdrawal that a Labour government was committed to, he said, was the withdrawal of combatant troops from Vietnam. Mr Kirk said he thought that major affluent nations of the world would spend their money much more wisely if they turned some of their efforts from space research and creating instruments of destruction to the real problem of overcoming poverty and hunger in the lesserdeveloped nations.