New Talk—Old Story

Events since the election have opened many people's eyes to what is really wrong with the National Party," claimed Norm Kirk, Labour M.P. for Lyttelton, last Thursday.

Kirk was addressing an audience of 65 students at a lunch hour meeting organised by the University Labour Club.

Speaking on the topic "What is wrong with the National Party." Kirk said that many people had been misled by the skilfully prepared public relations image of the National Party. They were now seeing the actual party in action and were becoming dissatisfied with it.

Kirk deplored the time and energy that had been put into trying to preserve the defunct mouth-piece of the National Party (The Dominion), when so little attention had been paid to a much more important problem, the sugar monopoly.

Kirk did discuss some topical issues such as the Dominion takeover bids. But most of his time was devoted to attacking National with old arguments about committees ("places for keeping minutes and losing hours"), and the complacency and aimlessness associated with the "Steady does it" policy.

Leaders of the University National Club kept the meeting alive by firing a continual barrage of interjections. Kirk's address could have been more interesting had the topic been more constructive. He explained that the topic was not of his choosing and he would have preferred to have dealt more with Labour's policy and philosophy.