SLAUGHTERING ACT.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19726, 17 September 1929, Page 9

SLAUGHTERING ACT.

! PROPOSED AMENDMENTS. t Proposed amendments to the Slaughtering and Inspection Act formed the : subject of a report to the City Council ' last night, from the Abattoir Committee. The report was as follows:—A letter has been received from the DirectorGenera) of Agriculture, forwarding a draft of proposed amending clauses to The Slaughtering and Inspection Act, which affect the respective rights, duties, and liability of controlling authorities of abattoirs in respect of the sale of meat for human consumption in an abattoir district. He asks that any comments which the Council may wish to make on the provisions of the Bill be forwarded to him as early as possible. The clauses of the Bill were examined by the City Treasurer and his comments and recommendations thereon have been considered by the committee, and forwarded to the Director of Agriculture with the committee's endorsement. The principal amending clauses in the Bill, which affect the Council, are those prescribing the fees which are payable to the Council in respect of meat from stock slaughtered at a meat export slaughterhouse and sold within the abattoir district. In this conhexioa Clause 20 (3) prescribes that the fees so payable shall be fixed by the controlling authority by reference to the cha ge, exclusive of the cost of slaughtering, which would be payable if the stock had been slaughtered at the abattoirThe Act, as it stands at present, prorides that in no case shall the fees payable in respect of stock slaughtered at the freezing works be less than the fees paid by the users of the abattoir. The committee is of opinion that, having been compelled by law to establish an abattoir, the Council is entitled to some measure of protection, and that the Act should provide that meat from stock killed at the freezing works should be subject to fees slightly higher than that killed at the abattoi?. Clause 21 of the Bill empowers the Minister for Agriculture to order the Council to make a refund to either the users of the abattoir or the meat export slaughterhouses should it be found that an excess profit is being made on the abattoir undertaking. At the present time this power is only given to the Minister in respect of fees receivable from the freezing companies. The other clauses of the Bill are merely machinery clauses. report was adopted.