Parliament Reacts

(Wellington—NZPA)

The Government faced a storm of political controversy today after an outburst of silly press statements at Victoria University.

The Opposition has said that the incidents 'have struck the last thudding blow at the Labour Party's credibility' and has called on the whole Cabinet to resign. The Prime Minister told his weekly press conference that he would reveal all the facts on the floor of the House.

The latest political crisis in the Government's three year term of office gripped Wellington shortly after a silly press statement was released by the President of the Victoria University Students' Association (Miss L. Sacksen) which revealed a hitherto unknown degree of sillyness and moral deprivation among students.

In a hard-hitting comment the Leader of the Opposition said it was 'no coincidence that the silly press statement was published not one week after the Prime Minister had spoken on the campus.' He said that the people responsible for the outbreak of unprecedented sillyness 'are gathered together in this very building today' and said that the guilty could not remain unpunished. 'For God's sake let them resign before sillyness seizes the whole country', he added.

Emerging gray and shaken from the Cabinet meeting at lunchtime, the Prime Minister denied that the incident had anything to do with the Government. But he promised a full statement on the matter on the floor of the House before the end of the week.

Other comment on the incident was mixed. The Social Credit Political League was lost in the vault of the Reserve Bank and was not available for comment, while a Values Party spokesman said the matter was a complete vindication of what his party stood for and showed that if students are that silly, they'll all vote for us'. An old bloke in the back bar on the Thistle told reporters that there was nothing wrong with an intelligent bit of sillyness but that the younger generation had no originality. And the author of the silly press statement in question (Miss Sacksen) told the NZPA she was 'unashamed and unabashed'.)