Formation
The main issue at the 1957 election was the introduction of PAYE income tax. Both parties had promised rebates at the change-over between the old and new systems, and Labour won favour by proposing a simple £100 rebate per taxpayer. National denounced this as a bribe, but it seems to have been popular. Another issue was that of compulsory military training. This had been introduced as a Cold War measure, but Labour now argued it was unnecessary. Labour was led by Walter Nash, who had been Finance Minister of the first Labour government. He faced National leader Keith Holyoake, who had recently taken over the Prime Ministership from Sidney Holland and had not yet settled into his role. Labour won 48.3% of the popular vote, 4% more than National, but only two more seats.
Read more about this topic: Second Labour Government Of New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the word formation:
“The formation of an oppositional world view is necessary for feminist struggle. This means that the world we have most intimately known, the world in which we feel “safe” ... must be radically changed. Perhaps it is the knowledge that everyone must change, not just those we label enemies or oppressors, that has so far served to check our revolutionary impulses.”
—Bell (c. 1955)
“... the mass migrations now habitual in our nation are disastrous to the family and to the formation of individual character. It is impossible to create a stable society if something like a third of our people are constantly moving about. We cannot grow fine human beings, any more than we can grow fine trees, if they are constantly torn up by the roots and transplanted ...”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)