POLITICAL OUTLOOK

Taupo Times, Volume XIV, Issue 37, 13 May 1965, Page 3

POLITICAL OUTLOOK

A firm challenge to the Government's policy of keeping immigration down is being prepared by a fiveman committee representing 17 of New Zealand's major employers1 organisations. The aim is to attack the economists1 claim that "immigration adds to inflation11 by proving that this immediate danger must be accepted if the long-term developmental plans for New Zealand are to be realised. When the employers, who have ample evidence that the development of their own businesses is being hamstrung for lack of staff, invited the chief executive officer of the Monetary and Economic Council (Dr. H. Brian Low) ,to address them, they found that, after all, the views of business people and economists did not really diverge. "All the economists say is that safeguards should be prepared before any scheme of increased immigration is embarked upon/' Dr Low said at the conclusion of the meeting. 'Tndustry should be kept at a rate of steady growth. In- . dividual and separate efforts cannot bring this about — only action by the Government can do this.1' So — the employers con- | sider they are half-way i there in proving to the | Government that the pres|ent rate of Government- | sponsored immigration, 1 3500 a year, is far too low. * * * An explanation that the economists did not want to cut down building and development in New Zealand, but merely to "remove some i of the froth at the top" was made by the chief executive officer of the Monetary and Economic Council (Dr. H. Brian Low) to a meeting of employers1 organisations. "ThaPs all very well," a I questioner remarked, "but how do the economists say we should do that?11 A voice: "We don't have to worry. There's a Lake | at the top draining off the j froth all the time.11 * * * A mammoth Waters j Conservation Bill — or j whatever it may be call- ! ed when ftnally it takes shape — is proving so j difficnlt to compile that it may miss Parliament this coming session. The object of the Bill will be to bring all water conservation and rivers eontrol legislation under one heading. At present it is scattered about through a mass of Acts and ordinjances, so that any concerted effort is made difficult. Two interdepartmental committees and an American expert have had a cut at the problem, and their reports are now being studied, cross-indexed and pronounced upon by a threeman Cabinet committee. What the committee recommends will determine this year's course of action.

The American view (and American experts have had some strong things to say about the amount of erosion and soil-wastage still going on) is that the present Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council should be blown up into a full Government Department, ^that there should be a Minister of Conservation at its head, and that it should have much more j money and power at its j disposal. | Some local bodies may j have sharply-differing views j about this — which is one of the reasons why any strengthening legislation is likely to have a rough passage, even in its formative stages. * * * Continental and Japanese cars may get better ' treatment from the New Zealand Government soon — if the countries concerned are kinder towards New Zealand primary produce. Today Western Germany and Italy are keenly interested in some of our big machinery and electrical contracts also — and New Zealand authorities may just be discovering the bipartite trade agreement. In other words, New Zealand may be prepared to take German and Italian cars on a "favoured nation11 basis, and to make some allowances when allocating contracts — if in exchange there is a place for New Zealand butter, cheese and meat in countries of the European Common Market.

— N.Z.C.N.A. News Service