HASTENING WORK OF HOUSE

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22244, 8 November 1937, Page 12

HASTENING WORK OF HOUSE

Midsummer Recess In Prospect STATEMENT BY PRIME MINISTER lFrom Our Parliamentary Reporter.! WELLINGTON. November 7. With only about five weeks remaining if the House of Representatives is to adjourn for the midsummer recess according to plan, the work of Parliament will be speeded up from now on. The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M J Savage) stated in an interview yesterday that he hoped to be able to adjourn at the end of the second week in December, and to accelerate the business of Parliament he proposed to commence Monday sittings after the present week-end. "We cannot remain here indefinitely." the Prime Minister said, "and after another week or two all of us will feel in need of a holiday. I know the majority of Cabinet Ministers would benefit by a few days well away .from Wellington and from the buzzing of telephones and endless correspondence. We will have plenty of work before us in the second half of the session, and our aim is to get through immediate business as rapidly as possible."

Mr Savage detailed several Government bills which, he said, required to be passed before the summer adjournment. They were the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill, affording much-needed relief to the Arbitration Court, the Sale of Wool Bill, the Electoral Amendment Bill, restoring triennial Parliaments, a bill dealing with important changes in the education system, the Coal Mines Amendment Bill, an oil prospecting bill, and a Finance Bill embracing miscellaneous provisions, among which ■would-be a hardship clause for the payment of graduated land tax. Other legislative measures might also arise, the Prime Minister continued, and apart from that the remaining classes of Estimates, as well as the whole of the public Estimates, had still to receive consideration. In addition, it seemed that time ■would have to be provided to allow members to discuss the Public Works and Railways Statements, and the first annual report of the Marketing Department. "There is no lack of business," the Prime Minister added, "and it is obvious that we will have to speed things up during the next few weeks Even if we are able to adjourn at the end of the second week in December it is more than likely that we will have to resume in the first week in February. Important matters will have to be dealt with in the second part of the session, and we do not ■want to be sitting for the whole of next year."