Drinking Changes Without Poll

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31120, 25 July 1966, Page 1

Drinking Changes Without Poll

(From Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, July 24.

The National Party conference yesterday sought a reversal of Government policy when it overwhelmingly voted in favour of legislating on hours for the sale of liquor without a referendum.

A remit from the Waikato division seeking the inclusion of a referendum in the party’s 1966 election manifesto was one of the 10 remits submitted directly to the conference without prior consideration in a conference committee.

Immediately after the remit’s submission an amendment proposed by Mrs J. C. Garrett (Fendalton) for the deletion of its reference to a referendum evoked loud applause from the conference of 400 delegates and 100 observers. Mrs K. Beamish-White (Rotorua) moved the original remit claiming that the public was in the mood for a change in drinking hours, that the six o’clock swill must end. and i that evidence in Victoria, iwhere hours for the sale of I liquor had been altered, showled that drinking had become quieter and more orderly. Supporting the Amendment, other speakers said the party’s policy committee should be given a free hand and the Government should make the decision. The party's 1963 election manifesto said that as the six o’clock closing of public bars had been decided by referen-

dum no change would be made unless a further referendum favoured an alteration.