20 July 2000
Whoop! Whoop! Pull Up! Pull Up! 1970s Approaching
United New Zealand leader, Hon Peter Dunne, has congratulated Deputy Prime Minister on his latest initiative.
"Mr Anderton can always be relied on to come up with daft, batty, backward looking ideas - but this time he has really
surpassed even his previously high standards," Mr Dunne says.
Mr Dunne was referring to Mr Anderton's plan to bring in indicative benchmark petrol pricing on a regional basis.
"This is a superb idea - so reminiscent of the famous 1970s Maximum Retail Price (MRP) scheme, and likely to be as
successful."
"I am eagerly awaiting the next instalments - the restoration of the Price Tribunal and a Prices and Stabilisation
Division within the Ministry of Economic Development, supported by an army of price inspectors running up and down the
country must be a high contender."
"Then, following on the success of the People's Bank, why not turn the clock right back and reinstate People's Petrol
Stations and require them to invest in untried technologies to produce synthetic and alternative fuels under the trade
name 'Think Big'?"
"The possibilities are endless, but I have every confidence that Mr Anderton can be relied to produce more and more
time-warp ideas, that thankfully will never work, at an ever-increasing rate in the lead-up to the next election."
"The question New Zealanders will then have to ponder is how living in a society that looks more like the 1970s than
today will help our country foot it in the modern globally interdependent international environment."
"Or perhaps Mr Anderton will be quite content to see New Zealand become the Cuba of the South Pacific?" Mr Dunne says.
ENDS