BUDGET DEBATE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 267, 23 August 1946, Page 4

BUDGET DEBATE

DEPARTMENTAL ESTIMATES , CHARGE OF. BOLSTERING (P.A.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The Minister of Finance, the Rt. Hon. W. Nash, had bolstered up ihe estimates of departmental expenditure in order to avoid making greater tax remissions, declared Mr C. M. Bowden (Opposition, Wellington West), resuming the Budget debate in the House of Representatives this morning.

He said that. much of the departmental expenditure for which provision had been made in the estimates could not be effected this year because of shortages of labour and materials to carry out proposed works. The Minister had avoided tax remission by arranging accounts to appear as if lie was collecting only sufficient tax to meet commitments. Had the Minister wished, he could have made substantially . greater tax reductions, particularly as it was proposed to devote £12,700,000 to the Minister’s fetish of debt redemption. That sum could have been devoted instead to tax reduction.

Mr Bowden said the Minister of Finance, should elucidate the Government’s intentions regarding subsidies on clothing, Actual clothing prices were unlikely to be very much > reduced in spite of the removal of the sales, tax if the subsidies were removed. The Minister should announce the withdrawal of subsidies if it was the Government’s intention lest manufacturers be blamed for being unable to make reductions.