CONTROL OF NASSELLA

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23444, 26 September 1941, Page 6

CONTROL OF NASSELLA

NEW COMMITTEE SET UP MEETING URGES ACTION BY LEGISLATION Adoption as soon as possible of the control measures recommended in the nassella tussock report was urged by a representative meeting of landowners and others interested at Waipara earlier in the week. The meeting set up a committee, consisting of county council and Government representatives, with representatives of the original nassella committee, which has been given the responsibility of helping forward the legislation recommended m the report. The report made by Dr. H. H. Allan and Mr R. P. Connell at the request of the Minister for Agriculture, the Hon. J. G. Barclay, after .an inspection of the nassella areas, had been before the original nassella committee for some days, and was fully discussed at the meeting. The main recommendations in the report, which were unanimously adopted by the meeting, are:—To set up a Nassella Tussock Control Board by legislation, and to give the board powers of rating; power to borrow; power to carry out any control measures found necessary, and to resume land and to afforest it; and power to subsidise control work undertaken by individuals or bodies. It was reported to the meeting, at which the member for the district, the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, and Mr Connell, fields superintendent of the Department of Agriculture for Canterbury, were present by invitation, that the Government was already giving consideration to legislation necessary to bring into being a board with the powers recommended in the report. The main . business of the meeting was the setting up of a committee consisting of two delegates from each of the four county councils in the area, three members of the original nassella committee, and one representative of the Department of Agriculture. It was explained on behalf of the members of the original nassella committee that as that committee felt it was completely informal in its constitution, and somewhat localised in its membership, a new committee should be set Up. The new committee would include county council representatives and carry on the work of the old, but would be more authoritative and less informal. Mr Forbes said that the Minister was prepared to roceed with the legislation necessary, and had expressed a preference to collaborate and confer with the landholders concerned through a suitable organisation. He considered that a body on which there was strong county council representation would be most effective. It was undesirable to leave the nassella tussock position where it was at present, and the only way to ensure satisfactory implementation of the report was the setting up of a strong committee, as suggested by the original committee. A number of speakers agreed, and it was resolved to set up such a committee. , , ~ The meeting also passed a resolution approving* the setting up of a nassella control board along the lines of the report, and asked the new committee to make every endeavour*to see that the prospective legislation was acceptable.