FAMILY ALLOWANCES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 189, 11 August 1928, Page 10

FAMILY ALLOWANCES.

FEW WORKERS BENEFIT. "TOO M AITS' RESTRICTIONS." LABOUR URGES LIBERALITY. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON", Friday. That the Reform Government had not lived up to their promises, meagre as they were, in connection with family allowances, was a point made by Mr. M. J. Savage (Auckland West) in his Budget speech in the House to-night. The bill was put forward in 1926 on the basis of 50,000 children, but the Department had been sadly mistaken in its calculations, Mr. Savage said. When the bill came forward Mr. J. A. Lee had accused the Government of having taken 7/6 out of the workers' pockets generally to give 2/ to a few selected workers on low wages. The Prime Minister had objected to this, and stated that it. was intended to take the allowances out of the Consolidated Fund. Anyhow, they only gave the workers 2/, whereas they had been led to expect much more. The Prime Minister had said more could not be given owing to the huge cost involved. He had placed the cost at £250,000. The Minister in charge of the bill, the Hon. G. J. Anderson, had! estimated it at £260,000, and the Minister of Justice put it down at £266,000. They were all wide of the mark, having made estimates five times greater than the amount actually spent. "I Want to know if the Government will make good the difference," said Mr. Savage. , "Will they increase the amount of the family allowances so as to bring the total sum up to what the;£ said they were willing to spend# Will they give feffect to their promise by altering the law? If they meant what they said-Jn 1926, they should mean it now. It is all very well for the Minister of Agriculture to sit there asking what does that prove? It proves -only one thing, to my mind, and that is that the Government said one thing* and meant another. : . The Prime Ministers Not at. aIT.- 11 proves there are less requiring assist ance than we thought. / •; :i The Hinfeter of Agriculture: It ahowt that there are less men getting undei £4 a week than was thought. Mr. Savage: I think theDepartmenta officers should have been able to mak< a more accurate estimate than they did The Hon. F. J. Rolleston: But yoi are talking about the amount claimet for the first year of the operation o: the Act only.

Mr. SaVftge: That excuse is better than none. Are we to believe that some people have been missed? Mr. Rolleston: Oh, yes. Mr. Savage: The fact of the matter is that 500 applicants have been turned down. I think most people applied who were entitled to the family allowance, but many couldn't get allowances because the Act bristles with conditions which disqualify them. Mr. Savage showed how conditions reacted against the workers in need of allowances. If a man earned 1/1 per week above the limit for only three months he was immediately disqualified, despite the fact that lie might have been unemployed for three months or more. A windfall at any part of the year, no matter how lean the bulk of it, might put him outside the scope of the Act. "I'm not a lawyer," said Mr. Savage, "but an intelligent reading of the Family Allowances Act surely means that a worker on £4 a week, plus 2/ for each child afbove the first two children, is entitled to the pension, and it should be computed on his earnings in the past twelve months. That is not done. The computation is made from the time the worker makes the application, and a few shillings earned above the limit puts him out. The law is nothing like what people expected it to be, nor is the Government giving away what it promised. Relief is given to a mere handful, and the balance are shut out by ridiculous restrictions. The law would be right enough if .administered liberally and properly."