Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 6. 1966.
Labour shifts away from ideology
Labour shifts away from ideology
By Patricia Caughley
A Shift even further awy from manifest Ideology W a noticeable feature of Labour Party conferene.
Mr Kirk'S address president of the Labour P contained no references at to traditional socialist a It was a pragmatic appra of New Zealand in a rapi changing world. An appra that realistically demonstrate how inept this country is become in the atomic age.
In science, techno medicine and education. N Zealand is regressing rela to the progress of na formerly equal or behind Mr. Kirk has dealt with serious problem in such a as to leave no doubts as the progress of nations fo erly behind her. Kirk has dealt with a seri problem in such a way as leave no doubts as to direction in which labour thought has consolidated.
Doctrinaire socialism dead. In its place is the good planning vying for the eminence is the tend hearted socialist man, ar the demi-god expert d pendent upon a computer.
"Make no mistake about our country's development lagging because the co
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• Protest — Victoria students demand "No Maoris, No Tour," in 1959. An attempt to block this demonstration failed because some students knew their civil rights.
[ unclear: vative] Government does [ unclear: t] understand the principle effective planning. Instead [ unclear: co-ordinated] effective [ unclear: long-] planning we have a pro-leration of councils, [ unclear: comttees], advisory bodies and bards, all hiving off in diff-lent directions many of [ unclear: em] doing little except talk," [ unclear: id] Mr. Jim Bateman. [ unclear: conuing] the presidential dress.
Here at last we have a [ unclear: tent] ideological issue that [ unclear: n] be utilised in the [ unclear: forthning] elections. After the [ unclear: lapse] of Labour's planning [ unclear: nisation] during the [ unclear: cond] World War. it is only the last year that Labour [ unclear: kesmen] have put forward [ unclear: ecific] proposals for an [ unclear: in rated] planning agency.
National still repudiates [ unclear: nning] in ideological terms, inconsistent with [ unclear: demo-cy]. Nevertheless its [ unclear: admin-ation] does set up targets [ unclear: riculture] is the best [ unclear: mple]) and constantly [ unclear: kes] financial decisions on basis of future project-
However it is doubtful [ unclear: ether] planning is an [ unclear: ionally] attractive enough e to form the basis of vage between the parties, hermore because of the voce planing under the [ unclear: diction] of a National Government, the line of demarcation is blurred.
The emphatic emergence of a Vietnam policy by the Joint Council of Labour could well precipitate a further cleavage between the parties. The decision to withdraw New Zealand combatant troops was a logical development of traditional Labour views on foreign policy. Prevention of war has always been a well articulated subject in the party.
"Peace must be sought as something positive and not merely as an absence of war" said Arnold Nordmeyer in his presidential address to the Labour Party conference in 1951. "The Labour movement knows . . . that war is a confession of failure, that it furnishes and destroys the innocent with the guilty, that it creates forces which themselves tend to make another war inevitable" he continued.
At the conference in 1953 Nordmeyer declared ''Labour has a programme for peace. Only a Labour Government can be trusted to promote a programme for peace, to plan the use of resources of all nations, for the purpose of raising the standards of people everywhere."
At the beginning of this year Kirk refused to be nailed down' on Labour policy in Vietnam. He said ''when we are the Government such a request (for a greater troop concentration in Vietnam) would have to be regarded in the light of circumstances at that time in Vietnam and Malaysia."
"By committing itself in Vietnam New Zealand's image in south-east Asia could have been harmed." Both statements reflect a decided uncertainty.
Holyoake's charges of Fol domination of Labour Party policy were hotly denied by kirk. But it cannot be denied that the emergence of a clearcut policy in conjunction with the Pol conference was a tactical mistake on the part of the Labour movement.
In by-passing all discussion on the remits and recommendations brought down by the external affairs and defence committee at the Labour Party conference the following week, it seems clear that the implications of this mistake were recognised only too well.
The Parliamentary Labour Party theoretically retains the control over policy in Vietnam. Yet with an overwhelmingly endorsed decision of the Fol and Labour Party conference, any room Mr. Kirk may have had to manoeuvre in, has been severely curtailed.