Economic • The
Black Budget was passed which, while countering an already existing balance-of payments problem, raised taxes on alcohol, cigarettes, automobiles, and petrol. • Industrialisation was pursued both as a means of import substitution and to develop a more mature economy. For instance, agreements were signed with overseas companies to construct an aluminium industry using cheap power from new hydroelectric projects at Lakes Te Anau and Manapouri, and a cotton mill in Nelson, which required the construction of a railway line to connect Nelson with the main South Island line; see
Nelson railway proposals. • Signed a formal agreement for
Consolidated Zinc to build both an aluminium smelter at
Tiwai Point and a power station in
Manapouri. • All tax-payers were given a flat-rate rebate of
£100 at the commencement of the
PAYE (Pay As You Earn) income tax system. • The Companies Special Investigations Act (1958) allowed for the supervision of certain company receiverships and winding ups. • A Technicians' Certification Authority and a Council for Technical Education were established (1958), the latter of which was meant to advise on the kind of education required for commerce and industry. By 1960, the first technical institutes began operation as full-time bodies. • In the 1959 budget, income tax was reduced, by two stages, to about the 1957 level. • In the 1960 budget, pensions and benefits were raised, together with state employees' salaries. The sales tax on motor vehicles, along with duties on cigarettes and petrol, were somewhat reduced. Taxes on cigarettes, petrol, beer were reduced again at the end of the year. • An Industrial Development Fund was established with £11 million in foreign exchange held at the Reserve Bank for allocation to promising projects. together with increases in other welfare benefits, universal superannuation, age benefits and other pensions. According to the historian William Ball Sutch, by increasing universal superannuation to the same level as the age benefit, Labour had put “old age with family benefits and free hospitals for all into the universal group”. • By the end of the Second Labour Government, New Zealand was spending 36% of total government expenditure on welfare programmes, which was the highest rate of any other country in the world at that time. • As a result of the Second Labour Government’s welfare initiatives, pensions and social security payments as a percentage of the private income of the nation rose from 7% in 1957 to 8.8% by 1960. • The Advances for Major Repairs to Homes Scheme was established (1958), with loans of up to £200 made available to war pensioners and social security beneficiaries “to enable them to carry out repairs to their home.” • The capital (or property) test on orphans’, • The Social Security Department developed a Welfare Section (1958), staffed by trained social workers, the aim of which was to provide a personal counselling and casework service to help beneficiaries and others with personal problems in addition to the economic problems that financial benefits were intended to meet. • The age benefit for a single person was raised to 36.9% of the nominal adult male wage index (1958). • A provision for capitalisation of family benefits up to a total advance of £1000, to assist in purchasing, altering or paying off a home, was introduced. This measure, together with the introduction of 3% housing loans (which helped to speed up housing construction), greatly extended the possibilities of the not-so-wealthy purchasing a home. • The Second Labour Government put an end to the promotion of state house sales, although the Second National Government reversed this decision. • Provision was made (1958) for the advance payment of up to 52 weeks “upon the birth of the first child or upon a child beginning their first year of post-primary education.” • Special Assistance (a social assistance scheme for the needy introduced by the
First National Government in 1951) was renamed Supplementary Assistance (1959), and the insufficiency of the benefit was officially recognised. • The first road to Maungapohatu was pushed through by Eruera Tihema Tirikatene, the Minister of Forests. • The Abrasive Blasting Regulations (1958) set out health and safety requirements for persons engaged in abrasive blasting operations in factories. • The Fireguards Regulations (1958) required the proper labelling of fire extinguishers containing materials that are or may become injurious to health. They also prohibited the sale, for domestic use, of certain pressurised fire extinguishers. •
Television was introduced. • An Arts Advisory Council was established to co-ordinate assistance to the arts. • A national diagnostic and guidance service for pre-school deaf children and their parents was established. ==Formation==