CO-ORDINATION OF TRANSPORT

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21024, 28 November 1933, Page 16

CO-ORDINATION OF TRANSPORT

BILL UNDER CONSIDERATION [From Our Parliamentary Reporter.] WELLINGTON, November 27. Proposals which are expected to lead to better co-ordination of the Dominion's transport services are contained in a bill, to amend the Transport Act which is being considered by the Minister for Transport (the Rt. Hon. J. G. Goates). The measure will, it is understood, provide for the establishment of an independent tribunal to act as adviser to the Government, and as the supreme authority over the transport industry. The reorganisation of transport control in such a way has been under consideration, by the Government for the last 18 months, and although the proposals have now taken more definite shape, the bill is unlikely to be introduced during the present session of Parliament, which has only three weeks to run. The need for such a tribunal was emphasised in the annual report of the Transport Department recently laid before the house. The report said that without some form of regulatory control the existing wasteful competition between different kinds of transport must continue, since each section of the industry was rdady to prove that the solution of all transport problems lay in its securing the whole of the traffic for itself. The report urged the need of co-ordinat-ing the system by a tribunal which would not be predisposed in favour of any one particular kind of transport service, but which would aim at providing transport in the cheapest and most efficient manner for the whole community.