P.M. denies crib from newspaper

Press, 12 April 1979, Page 2

P.M. denies crib from newspaper

The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) yesterday described as “rubbish” an assertion by the “National Business Review” that he had “cribbed” from it for one of his recent speeches. The weekly newspaper said that a speech Mr Muldoon had given at the Associated British Cables factory in Christchurch on April 3 contained phrases that sounded “uncannily familiar.” It added: “And so they should have. They were cribbed almost verbatim from an article that appeared in this very paper on March 21, just two weeks before the Prime Minister made his speech.” Mr Muldoon said that the Minister of Trade and Industry (Mr Adams-Schneider) had used the material in question “for weeks.” “It came from the Trade and Industry Department,” he said. “The 'National Business Review’ is the ‘Sunday

News’ of the financial world. I don’t take too much notice of it,” he said. The “National Business Review” gave what it described as a random selection of quotes from its article, headed: “South Island’s economic base subtly ebbs away with a drift north — or is it in great shape?” and from Mr Muldoon’s speech. It then said: “The Prime Minister is fond of claiming that we journalists are irresponsible, biased cads and bounders, not only not proGovernment but, as he suggested in a recent issue of ‘Truth,’ anti-New Zealand to boot. Yet it seems that for all this, he is not averse to a bit of unabashed plagiarisation of the press and its findings when it suits him.” “We don’t want to sound pernickety, but it doesn't seem exactly cricket to box us over the ears with one hand and pick our pocket with the other,” the “Review” said.