FILM OF MOLESWORTH STATION

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25300, 27 September 1947, Page 10

FILM OF MOLESWORTH STATION

CRITICISM BY MR J. K. MCALPINE, M.P.

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, September 26.

Criticism of a recent Government film dealing with Molesworth Station ■was made in the House of Representatives to-day by. Mr J. K. McAlpine (Opposition, Selwyn), who said that while it might have been authentic it was misleading, especially in some of its captions. Parts of the film dealing with erosion showed bare mountain tops, perhaps 7000 or 8000 feet up. The captions said that some of this bare country was the result of private enterprise on Molesworth. If that was so it should have added “2,000,000 years of private enterprise,” because the peaks had probably been bare for that number of years, he said. TLe had shown an ordinary wire fence which was said to be running through Molesworth. On one side of the fence was growing scabweed, and on the other side was tussock. But every high-country man knew that conditions of artificial fertility arose on the side of a fence for a few feet because of the habits of sheep. Various views of Molesworth, and the alleged abuses that had occurred there, were absolutely valueless in his opinion. Sheep were shown as lean, but the type of merino in that country was naturally lean. Mr McAlpine’s comments were strictly speaking out of order, as the House was discussing the Prime Minister’s Department estimates, but the Prime Minister (Mr P. Fraser) said he had been so interested in what Mr McAlpine had said, as he obviously spoke with knowledge, that he had not reminded him that the Molesworth film was made by the Public Works Department Mr Fraser said he would be glad if Mr McAlpine had a second chance to raise the matter. He could not imagine that the Public Works Department would knowingly produce a misleading film.