Local Government

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24743, 7 December 1945, Page 4

Local Government

One of the major disappointments of the Parliamentary session appears in the Government's failure to fulfil the promise of time to discuss the report on local government. Five weeks have passed since the report was presented; and it is an undeniable fact that not a little of this period has been wasted. The House of Representatives has not been required to sit when it could have sat; and some business which has been put before it has been far from urgent. To this it may fairly be added.that the Government was in a position, long before *the end of October,, to prepare for the tabling of the report and for its discussion, but did not organise business in such a way as to ensure early and adequate* discussion, When the committee was set up, the Prime Minister said 'with entire truth that the importance of local government reform as a measure and an instrument of rehabilitation was hardly be exaggerated. This estimate and the Government's*present attitude are sadly inconsistent. If it was essential that Parliament should be informed and advised on reform of local government, it was because early action was acknowledged to be necessary and was intended. To advance from discussion to legislation in the remaining month or so of the session may have been impossible. If the Government rejects the sweepingly simple proposal of the committee that a permanent commission should be established, to act with powers limited only by the appeal procedure suggested, it probably was. There is, however, no evidence that .the Government does reject this proposal; the only evidence is that the Prime Minister, though he considers the report a very good one, does not agree with everything in it. On the more likely assumption, therefore, that the Government accepts the basic recommendations of the report, which was unanimous, it is safe to say that early debate, if it did not open the way to preliminary legislation this session, would at least have enabled a bill to be prepared for the first days of next session. If, on the other hand, the Government's' objections are fundamental, discussion of the report this session would have cleared the situation. At present, local authorities are considering the report as the probable foundation of coming -reforms. If the Government rejects it, they are wasting their time.