LABOUR IN WAITEMATA

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 363, 25 May 1928, Page 13

LABOUR IN WAITEMATA

CAMPAIGN OPENED GOVERNMENT TAKEN TO TASK Claiming to have the honour of firing the first shot in the political campaign in Waitemata, Mr. A. G. Osborne, Labour candidate, outlined his policy at a rally in the Masonic Hall, Devonport, last evening. Messrs. M. J. Savage and J. A. Lee, members of Parliament, also spoke. The hall was well filled. Nobody had any questions to ask, nor was there a single interruption. Mr. C. Bailey, secretary of the Devonport Labour Party, presided. He considered that history would repeat itself. Just as the crisis following the Conservative debacle in the nineties found the man in Seddon, so would the man now be found in Mr. H. E. Holland. Mr. Osborne informed the audience that his father had been an officer of the old Liberal-Labour Federation in Devonport, and traced his political leanings to his father’s example. He declared that the Coates Government had failed to grapple with the problem of health; had raised interest on the money loaned to workers to build homes; had “monkeyed” with the :interest paid on Post Office Savings Bank accounts, thereby losing much lowpriced financial assistance. It had flooded the country with people from outside who would be welcome if there was work for them, and at the last election it had stolen the Labour plank of motherhood endowment, but in Parliament had reduced the proposed benefits from 10s a week for each child after two, to 2s for each child after the fourth. Mr. M. J. Savage said the Reform Party once had a solid block in the House, but never had the confidence of the electorates as a whole. In his 21 years in "Auckland he had never seen the country in a worse plight. The Government, having created an unemployment problem, was passing its liabilities on to the local bodies; the Hospital Board had to bear the brunt of the whole business. A universal insurance against unemployment would not cure the evil, but would be a better way of handling the results of it. Superannuation for public servants which was partly paid by all citizens, was not derogatory, and superannuation for every citizen would not be derogatory either. Commenting on the United Party, which he said had not leader, policy, or even a place where people could go to join up. Mr. Savage characterised the method of forming a pirtv . candidates as a reversal of everything democratic; but no matter how constituted the United Party would vote with the Coates Government on a noconfidence division. “UNREDEEMED PROMISES” Mr. J. A. Lee, with the aid of newspaper clippings of the Reform Party advertising at last election, entertained the /audience on “unfulfilled promises.” Dealing with finance, he said the interest on the National Debt, which had been greatly increased by the Government elected on a non-borrowing policy was never paid; the Government simply borrowed more money to pay the interest and as much more as it could. Within three years £76,000,000 of debt would fall due. In its three years of office the Government had driven 14,000 people oft the land, he said, and attempted to steal the Is 6d meal allowance from boys and girls working in the shops; that, and the increase in interest on workers’ loans, constituted Mr. Coates’s statesmanship.