RELIEF WORKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 186, 8 August 1930, Page 5

RELIEF WORKS.

GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE.

NO POLICY CHANGE

P.W.D. EMPLOYING 17,000 MEN.

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Thursday. "There has been no alteration in the method of dealing with the question of unemployed relief," said the Prime Minister, Hon. G. W. Eorbes, in- the House to-day when replying to an urgent question by Mr. J. S. Fletcher (Grey Lynn). Mr. Fletcher asked whether the Government had made an offer, as reported in the Press, to the Dunedin City Council to put in hand work costing £10,400 on Whare Flat Road for unemployment relief, conditional on council paying annual maintenance up to £200 a year, and the Taieri County Council up to £50. The Prime Minister was asked whether local bodies in other centres, especially Auckland, would be accorded similar treatment. The Prime Minister replied that although the Press message might lead to the belief that there had been a departure in policy, such was not the case. According to information supplied him by" the Public Works Department, negotiations covering a start with work on the Whare Flat Hill Road were now in hand by the Department and the work would be done by relief labour. That arrangement was in accordance with the Government's relief works policy in all parts of New Zealand, whereby various roading works were being carried out as relief jobs at the Government's expense. It was no different from many relief works at present in hand in the Auckland district. In the case under notice, the Dunedin City Council and the Taieri County Council had agreed to pass resolutions undertaking to be responsible for future maintenance. The work was in the Taieri County. 17,000 Workers. "There has been no question whatever of wholesale dismissals; indeed the number of men employed by the Public Works Department to the end of last week was a record one, the total being over 17,000," said the Hon. W. B. Taverner, Minister of Public Works, when denying, in replying to a question by Mr. P. Fraser (Wellington Central), that men were being discharged from different relief works in New Zealand. The Minister added that employment of such a large number of men as he had mentioned involved the Department in considerable expense, and as far as ho was concerned the work was limited by finances available. Ho assured the member, however, that there had been no wholesale dismissals as suggested.