National Party policy

Press, 12 April 1979, Page 16

National Party policy

Sir, — “Free enterprise,” individualism, masculine values of profit, power and violence ... no wonder young people are switching off. No wonder we have social problems galore and growing structural unemployment. No wonder 210 people are leaving New Zealand every day. Those countries with economic and social stability are those which shape industry, business and social policies to the needs of human beings. Society should be tailored to benefit people — not companies or computers. If the major New Zealand political parties cannot come up with practical philosophies oriented towards the needs of people, towards healthy human relationships, towards creativity and spontaneity, towards cooperation and caring, then it is the politicians who are out of step, not the idealists and stirrers. — Yours, etc., JACQUELINE STEINCAMP. April 10. 1979. Sir, —Alan Wilkinson (April 6) challenges the National Party to spell out just what it is offering the young people of today. Could I ask what the Labour Party offered the young people in 1972-75 when in the cause of equality the academic socialists started to phase in equal pav? It was just another socialist theory which has proved to be an economic disaster and caused massive unemployment. Add to this the crippling redundancy payments plus Socialist Unity Party blackmail then the Communist cause is indeed being sponsored. Alan Wilkinson should remember that the economic plight is grave for the Drivers’ Union has had it decreed that even water-based paint is nowclassified in the list of dangerous goods. Could this explain why I have waited for two months for water-based paint to arrive from Wellington as I did intend to paint my house before winter. — Yours, etc., L. J. STEVENS. Oamaru. April 7, 1979. Sir, — As I expected, the National Party does not respond when asked what it offers the young people of today. Instead, we have your editorial and the reports by Cedric Mentiplay skirting delicately around the cracks

in National’s facade. This is my view of what National offers our children: the chance to watch their elders squander the last of the world’s fossil fuels with no thought for conservation; the last glimpses of many of New Zealand’s plant and animal species; the philosophy that individuals and companies should be allowed to destroy what they can never replace; a country where ultimately all decisions are unilateral — produced by a Government which makes the compromises to suit its own political ends, instead of reflecting a fair give and take between individuals; a couni try where readiness to compromise is a sign of weakness, and where co-operation is unproductive and unrewarded. — Yours, etc., ALAN WILKINSON. April 10, 1979.