The Press THURSDAY, JULY 22. 1948. Harbour Boards

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25553, 22 July 1948, Page 4

The Press THURSDAY, JULY 22. 1948. Harbour Boards

For two reasons the Government has chosen an unfortunate moment to introduce amendments to the Harbours Act which will increase the power and influence of the watersiders. First, the waterside workers—or at least the largest group of them—have shown in the last few months an utter lack of responsibility in using their already great industrial power and a ruthless determination to increase it and to use it for their own selfish interests, regardless of the cost to the ■community. Second, the public has been encouraged to believe that the Government has at last summoned up the resolution to stand firmly against this abuse of industrial power, and that the Government is even now moving to ensure that law and order instead of disorder and irresponsibility shall rule in future on the New Zealand waterfront. The bill now before Parliament looks regrettably like appease-, ment.

Quite apart from the timing, however, the clause in the bill providing for waterfront industry representation on the majority of harbour boards—three each on the Auckland, Wellington, and Otago boards and two in the case of Lyttelton—deserves the criticism it received from Opposition members. It reverses the trend toward a more democratic constitution of local bodies and flies in the face of the recommendation of the Parliamentary Committee which exhaustively investigated the problems of local government in 1944 and 1945. The committee found that the present system of appointing Government nominees on harbour boards (which the new bill confirms) has no justification; and it had this to say about the representation of special interests on boards:— The principle of allowing special

interests to be represented on harbour boards is not one that we are prepared to endorse. Shipowners and payers of dues merely pass their charges on to the general public, ana to allow them to dictate policy is quite undemocratic. If such interests are represented, then farmers whose produce is shipped, and wharf labourers who work on the wharf, are entitled as such to be represented. The principle is entirely wrong. For the technical tasks engineers and other technicians are employed. The principle of democratic elections should be instituted for all seats on harbour boards, and representation of shipowners and payers of aues cancelled. The Government, not for the first time, has chosen to disregard the finding of the committee, and for the same reason—political expediency. But as it has chosen to take a line which the Local Government Committee mentioned only as an unthinkable absurdity, the Government might have been expected to follow the line to its logical conclusion. Instead, with a nice discrimination, the Government has selected the waterside workers for special representation on the harbour boards, and has passed over the claims of the farmers and of the many other special interests which the Local Government Committee might have mentioned in the same context. As it is too much to hope that the Government can be persuaded to withdraw the clause, the public can only wait, with interest, for evidence of the “greater effi- “ ciency in the working of har-

“ hours ” which, the Minister of Marine confidently asserts, will come from the appointment of these “men of practical experience”. It is not fair to judge all waterside workers by those of Auckland; but the innovation will be watched there not only with interest but with trepidation.