SPIRITED DEBATE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 246, 28 July 1944, Page 5

SPIRITED DEBATE

FINANCE BILL IN HOUSE. WAR EXPENSES AND OTHER ACCOUNTS. (P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 27. The Finance Bill came up for early consideration when the House of Rep* resentatives met to-day, the preliminarmy business occupying a comparatively short space of time. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr S. G. Holland) asked if the Prime Minister would give the House an opportunity (to discuss the four year agreement on the sale of produce before the agreement was concluded. It wasi a matter of great.importance, particularly to primary producers, and there should be a full opportunity to discuss details before the matter was completed. ‘ The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser) said that after the agreement was signed and the Government had assumed full governmental responsibility and discharged it, the House would have a full opportunity to discuss it. Mr W. A. Bodkin (National, Central Otago): An inquest.

Unauthorised Expenditure. Opening the second reading debate on the Finance Bill, the Hon. W. Nash dealt with the clauses of the measure in detail. Referring to the clause validating last year’s unauthorised expenditure, Mr Nash said the usual limit was £500,000 plus £IOO,OOO, for the Railway Department, but last year it was £1,365,000. This increase was inevitable in war years. He quoted as instances of unexpected items the 2s 9d per head subsidy for bobby calves and £IO,OOO for Indian famine relief. One clause provided for a technical amendment to the Death. Duties Act. It repealed a sub-clause in the Act and was made retrospective to January 1, 1942. The orginal legislation which was passed during the slump following the last war, provided that debts which were forgiven could not be subject to gift duty. Some clever lawyer found that this provided a hole in the law, and some people said that if anyone could get through such a hole the Government should let him get away with it and then fill up the hole. He did not agree with that and, consequently, the amendment was made retrospective. Mr Holland said they were all agreed that there was need for validating legislation under certain circumstances, hut he disagreed with Mr Nash when the Minister .said that if the Government saw a hole in legislation it could come back some years later and stop that hole. It was the job of Parliament to make laws without holes and not to keep the people in suspense wondering what the Government would do next. The Government made a law, then said it did not mean it that way and what had been done must be undone, although some had gone through the hole believing it to be lawful. Mr Nash: This Government did not leave that hole. It goes hack to 1923. Mr Holland said it was not usual for a Minister to try to get out on the back of a previous government. He appealed to the House to Improve the method of writing laws. Members should not be asked to vote for something they did not understand. The Finance Bill was being used to introduce vital and fundamental changes in the law. Evidently this was being done to enable the Government to do certain things, to make it moTe difficult to be detected and to cramp discussion because the debate on.the- Bill had to cover a number of; vital matters which should have been presented in separate Bills for separate debates. A total of £1,365,000 of unlawful expenditure was to be validated. Mr Fraser: Not unlawful. Mr Nash: Unauthorised expenditure. Mr Holland said apparently it was not unlawful, although it had to be made legal. There was a blanket cover for the establishment of a new State industry. The Prime Minister would say that was lawful because “we have done it.”

Purchase of Towelling. Mr Holland next referred to the recent purchase of towelling and said that if that was an example of State trading the State should leave trading The Hon. D. G. Sullivan: What was wrong with the importation of towels? Mr Holland said he had asked the Minister of Supply for details of the purchase and had not received them. Now the Minister wanted him to fire all his ammunition so that he could reply to it. One thing wrong was that the, towelling had been bought outside the Empire when it was available in Britain.

Going hack to the question of each subject in the Bill being covered by a separate Bill, Mr Holland said each of these- Bills should be accompanied by an explanatory memorandum so that members would understand what they were being asked to vote for. Such a course would shorten tile Budget debate. Reason for Purchase in America. Defending the towelling purchase, Mr Sullivan said at the time the orders were placed towels could not he had from Britain, in spite of what merchants said. He himself had frequently sent cable messages to the Imperial Government reporting that New Zealand importers claimed that certain goods were available to them in Britain only to be told by the British Government that the goods in question -would not he released for export from Britain. Only after the orders had been placed and American firms had started production did Britain advise that it had a supply of towels available. The question of whether licences should now he given to import towels from Britain obviously depended on the supplies now here. In the case of the purchase made from the United States, bulk purchase had been unavoidable, otherwise the Government would have been pleased to allow importation by the ordinary trade channels. Sir Sullivan said the validation of unauthorised expenditure by the clauses of the Bill represented no departure from jvhat had been done for many years by whatever Government was in office. If the Leader of the Opposition ever reached the Government benches he would find he would have to do the same. The expenditure had been properly made and was open for the Opposition to examine. There- was absolutely no need for the items involved to be

made the subject of a separate Bill, as Mr Holland had suggested. Mr Holland, interjecting, denied that he had advocated the presentation of separate Bills to cover this item of expenditure validated in this Bill. Surplus in Meat Pool. After discussing the history of the Meat Pool, Mr K. J. Holyoake (National, Pahiatua) said that by the end of the present season it was estimated that there would he about £3,500,000 in the Pool. He asked what was going to be done with that money.. Farmers were not in the mood to permit the Minister or the Government to monkey about with their funds. Mr A. S. Richards (Government, Roskill) said farmers were not worse off in this war than the last war. They were protected by a guaranteed price and by subsidies not enjqyed by other industries. Farmers’ costs had been kept lower in New Zealand than in any other part of the Empire. Mr W. S. Goosman (National, Waikato) contended that farmers had noconfidence in the Government; in fact, they were in a more resentful frame of mind than ever in the history of the Dominion.