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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 30, No. 9. 1967.

Major seminar planned

page 4

Major seminar planned

IN this article Victoria Labour Club president Murray Rowlands gives a background to planning in New Zealand and explains the club's reasons For promoting a seminar on the topic in August this year.

IN 1944, faced with the need for planned rehabilitation of soldiers, so that the muddle and resulting suffering which followed World War I could be avoided, the Labour Government developed an overall scheme for social and economic planning.

The organisation for National Development, which was established to administer the Labour Party's planning policy, grew out of wartime planning. The Industries and Commerce Department became the Ministry of Supply; the Treasury with the Reserve Bank and the banking system became responsible for the administration of financial controls and investment policies and the Chiefs of Staff Committee was formed, something of a precursor to our "modern" Defence Ministry.

In 1944, what Foss Shanahan regards as "the most ambitious of recent attempts at overall planning" was made, when the Hon Dan Sullivan recommended the establishment of the Organisation for National Development. Its concern was to be with fiscal, economic and works problems involved in the transition from war to peace. Because of its central role in wartime supply planning, it was natural that such a scheme should be put for-ward by the Industries and Commerce Department. The establishment of the organisa-tion had its inspiration in the success of the previous organisation for National Security. At the same time, private enterprise critics could now always claim that they were being saddled with a scheme viable only in wartime emergency.

O course, many of the very people who declared OND "a Socialist attempt to take over the direction and management of the economy," were quick to be aboard the planning bandwagon when it be-. came fashionable after the success of the French and Dutch plans. Mr. Hunter's report of 1944 has something to say to those who see planning as a palliative for all social and economic ills. He said: 'Whatever short-term measures are adopted to smooth over the immediate difficulties of the transition period, these will not cure the maladies which existed in the pre 1939 world. We must not go back to the world of slumps, mass unemployment, broken down exchanges and trade restrictions.'

This report of 6th July 1944 for Mr. Hunter, rightly suggests that the organisation was intended to be a permanent establishment. However, at regional level, when planning bodies consisting of representatives from the Ministry of Works and local authorities, became sounding boards for local interests above national interests.

The failure of OND Is attributable to it not being located firmly within the administrative structure of government, and to being isolated and exposed to pressure groups that thrive in New Zealand.

What planning that has been done since October 1945 has a piecemeal air about it. Housing Conferences. Agricultural Conferences and the Industrial Development Conference of 1960 have all made plans for sectors of the economy, but neglected total planning. Walter Nash's inaugural address to the 1960 Industrial Development Conference does not mention the word "planning." Only the Socialist Economist, W. Rosenberg, advocates the use of planning in a paper entitled "Financial and Monetary Policy and Capital Requirements for Industrial Development in New Zealand." Rosenberg quotes from a paper by Sir Douglas Copland:

"A long-term plan in which public and private enterprise will co-operate in promoting economic growths is basic to the solution of the main problem. It is no longer possible to assume that a policy of laissez-faire is requisite to the position that either New Zea-land or any other member of the Western economy faces. The plan should be based upon a given rate of growth as measured by the ratio of investment to gross national product," Rosenberg's paper also contains an acute criticism of IMP policies, which most orthodox economists were bent on leading New Zealand into.

It seems a peculiar situation, when Sir Douglas Copland can address a conservative group of accountants, advocating economic planning, and Walter Nash, leader of the Labour Party, scrupu-lously avoids the word "plan." However, since 1965 the Labour Party's attitude has changed with Norman Kirk coming out strongly in favour of full planning. However, the party still has a lot of thinking to do before anything like a viable plan can be envisaged. To this end, the University Labour Club is organising a seminar on planning. The seminar is being run along the lines of the trade union seminars held with Adult Education support earlier this year. It is hoped to attract a good cross section of Party branch members and members from trade unions.

Three papers will be delivered. In the morning. M. Connelly. MP. will deliver a paper called "A Labour Plan." and the afternoon papers will be presented by Hon H. Watt, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. "Planning Power Resources." and Dr. M. Mc-Namara and T. Malloy, on "The Better Utilisation of Scientific Resources."