UPPER HOUSE

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25954, 7 November 1949, Page 8

UPPER HOUSE

THE ELECTION

NATIONAL PARTY’S VIEWS

ADDRESS BY MR J. K. MCALPINE

The abolition of the Upper House and the amendment of the Electoral Act were two of the main joints in the National Party’s policy dealt with by Mr J. K. McAlpine, the party’s candidate for Selwyn, in an address in the Northcote Hall on Saturday evening. There was an attendance of about 50. and Mr McAlpine was given an attentive hearing although a small section of the audience was most persistent in its questioning.

In the last three years, he had not seen the Upper House do anything to justify its existence, Mr McAlpine said. The Labour Party had advocated its abolition but. when it became the Government, it found it ?ould not do it. He thought there was nothing to stop the National Party, if it became the Government, from abolishing the Upper House. “If we find that we cannot run the country without a bicameral system, we will replace the Upper House with something better.’’ he said. “My own idea would be an elective body on a totally different franchise to the members of the Lower House. It should be in some non-geographic form, with representatives of such organisations as the trade unions and the manufacturers. That would ensure f hat when < a landslide occurred, as it did in 1935. and a Government came ; nto power with a huge majority, it would not affect the Upper House.”

Dealing with the Electoral Act. Mr McAlpine said that in 1946 the Government realised it was on the way out, so altered Ihe electoral boundaries and altered the whole system on which members of Parliament were elected. It abolished the country quota and universal representation, introducing adult representation only, which further increased the areas of country electorates.

The National Party proposed to increase the present 5 per cent, tolerance to 12 per cent., and to restore universal representation. In 1943. Mr McAlpine said, the National Party won 34 seats with a total vote of about 400.000. In 1946 it won only four more seats, with a vote of 505.000. and won them by fewer than 400 votes. “Someone had done something to the electoral boundaries for their own benefit,” he said. The Cost of Living Mr McAlpine said he believed his party’s policy would reduce the cost of living without interfering with the rights of the individual or with wages. The chief cause of the rise in the cost oi living was inflation, and there were three ways of combating that. There was the method favoured by his party, the <encouragAnent of increased production, there was the Labour policy of taxing heavily and taxing more, and there was the third way, which their political opponents said they would practice if they became the Government the cutting of wages, pensions, social security and family benefits. “We definitely do not intend to do that,” he said. His party would encourage overtime work at penal rates. Discussing trade unionism, Mr McAlpine said he personally was opposed to compulsory unionism. He did not think the individual should have to have a licence for the right to work. His party’s view was that each union should be allowed to make its choice by a free, secret vote between compulsory and voluntary unionism. If voluntary unionism was wanted, there would be no interference. If compulsory unionism was chosen, his party would see that the minority in the union was protected. “In Auckland a few days ago a secret ballot was held by the Waterside Workers’ Union for six seats on the executive,” Mr McAlpine said. Because it was a secret ballot, the deputy president, Mr Drennan, for many years an avowed Communist, and a Mr Mitchell were defeated. Yet Mr Drennan has been deputy-presi-dent of the New Zealand union for years. Most other Communists would fo the same way if compulsory unions ad to have a secret ballot. "We are most adamant that all strike issues must be conducted by secret ballot. We hope we can avoid most of the strikes with better industrial relations. I think it is possible to avoid strikes in most instances.”

Although his party wanted to do something about Communists, it was realised that it was no use making them an illegal organisation, for they ■would only change their name as they had done in Canada, Mr McAlpine said. The best way to attack Communism was to improve the lot of the people of the country and give it less chance of surviving. After attacking strongly the Government’s handling of the Holmes satchel incident, Mr McAlpine said it was not a far cry from interference •with the individual fb the concentration camp.

Harbour Boards In the last session of Parliament the Harbours Act had been amended to give representation on harbour boards to harbour and wharf workers, Mr McAlpine said. That was not democratic, and did not live up to the Labour slogan “one man one vote and one vote one value.” Now 850 watersiders and other waterfront workers had the right to nominate three men to the Minister who would appoint them to the Lyttelton Harbour Board. That was giving a small group of people a second vote. His party proposed to abolish special representation, including that of shipping interests. Harewood Aerodrome He had battled for three years to try to persuade a decadent Government that the future of New Zealand was in international air connexions, Mr McAlpine said. On the eve of the election the Government announced that it would develop Harewood, over a period of years, at a cost of £400,000. Tf his paity became the Government, it wiuld develop Harewood soon enough for international planes to land durir * the centennial. It was not necessary to bring Harewood up to full international standard for many years, as long as it was as an international aerodrome, Mr McAlpine said. At Hokitika, there was a tremendous undertaking in building runways. Large quantiti?s of pug were being removed, and replaced with shingle. The pug was being dumped in a shingle nit big enough to take the Square. Cathedral and all He had asked for a report on the cost of that aerodrome to be tabled in the House but had not yet seen it. The Government wanted to keep Tasman Empire Airways a State monopoly and like all the others it was losing heavily. It was costing the country 3s a minute for the privilege of State owned and operated airways.