DRASTIC CUTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 102, 2 May 1930, Page 7

DRASTIC CUTS.

STATE SALARIES. Taxes and Retrenchment To Aid Unemployment. £3,000,000 WANTED. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph-Copyright) (Received 11 a.m.) SYDNEY, this day. The main proposals submitted to the State Parliament by the Cabinet are a tax of 3d in the £■ on all wages and incomes without exemptions, to provide an unemployment fund of £3,000,000 annually. A reduction in the Public Service salaries from 6 to 7£ per cent is alad suggested, with two weeks off annually without pay, and Saturday morning work, equivalent in all to a ten per cent reduction. As an alternative retrenchments are proposed in the service, and an amendment of the industrial Arbitration Act to empower the Industrial Commission to extend the working hours to 48, without additional pay, or to retain the 44-hour week with a reduction m salary equivalent to four hours. If the Public Service scheme is not accepted by Parliament 3000 employees Will be dismissed, with more to follow.

Altliough the officials of the Australian Railways Union rejected tho proposal of Mr. W. J. Cleary, Chief Railway Commissioner, for the rationing of work, a ballot of the union members resulted in favour of the scheme by an overwhelming majority. UNEMPLOYED RELIEF. MEASURES IN VICTORIA. MELBOURNE, May 1. An attempt was made in the Victorian Legislative Assembly to-day to amend the Unemployment Relief Bill, which provides for a supertax on incomes, so that a stamp tax might be substituted, but ail amendment on these lines was defeated by 26 votes to 20. It is expected that £750,000 will be raised for the relief of the unemployed.