HARBOUR BOARD MEMBERSHIP

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25555, 24 July 1948, Page 8

HARBOUR BOARD MEMBERSHIP

PARLIAMENT

REPRESENTATIVES OF WATERSIDERS

OPPOSITION OBJECTS TO CLAUSE IN BILL

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, July 23.

Eight Government members had sat on a Local Government Commission which had strongly opposed the principle now embodied in the Harbours Amendment Bill, but none of them had risen to defend the stand he had taken as a member of the commission acting with a high purpose and not according to party politics, said Mr W. H. Gillespie (Opposition, Hurunui), talking to-day in the House of Representatives. Some outside influence, he said, had caused a complete volte face.

Mr A. S. Sutherland (Opposition, Hauraki) suggested that if the Minister of Marine (Mr F. Hackett) agreed to delete from the bill the clause which in effect meant that representatives of watersiders would be appointed to harbour boards a lot of argument would be avoided. After several references to the present situation on the Auckland waterfront, Mr Sutherland said a tribunal had been set up to deal with the dispute, and “a leading Communist has worked his way on to it.” The Minister of, Finance (Mr W. Nash) immediately protested that such reference to any judicial body was out of order.

Mr Speaker agreed, ruling that as a tribunal had now been set up the whole matter was sub judice.

Mr Gillespie suggested that the bill should be withdrawn because it was out of touch with all that local bodies wanted. The correct procedure would have been to refer the measure to the Local Government Commission. The bill should take away some of the watersiders’ privileges rather than add to them, said Mr J. J. Maher (Opposition, Otaki). A big majority of watersiders were decent, honest men, but it was the gangsters and wreckers among them who were doing wrong, and yet those were the people who would get on to harbour boards. “If there is one minister on the Government side who could deal with gangsters and rebels, it is the Minister of Works (Mr R. Semple),” said Mr Maher. “I wish they would throw some of them to him.”

Women on farms lifted greater weights than the disputed hatches, yet two men held the country to ransom because *they would not let the work be done. These were the men who might be appointed to harbour boards. How could others in the country be expected to pull their weight when they saw what happened on the waterfront?

Consumers, transport operators, and others had equal rights with watersiders to sectional representation on harbour boards. Mr W. Sullivan (Opposition, Bay of Plenty) said. If the Government wished to introduce worker control it should start with those enterprises already under State ownership. Let the workers see if they could do any better with railways than the State which was operating them at an increasing loss. Let them try to run the State coal mines better than they were run at present. If they succeeded it would be time to think of extending worker control in other directions.