PARLIAMENTARY DAY

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26199, 24 August 1950, Page 6

PARLIAMENTARY DAY

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, August 23. Various aspects of preventive medicine arid Ways of reducing the national health bill were discussed by members of the House of Representatives this evening when the second-reading debate on the Medical Research Council Bill began. The general purpose of the bill is to provide for the incorporation of the Medical Research Council and to define its powers and functions.

The Minister of Health (Mr J. T. Watts), who moved the second reading. emphasised the importance of medical and dental research. The former Minister of Health, Missx M. B. Howard, who was the first speaker for the Opposition, said that the Opposition was in .complete accord with the bill and had no fault to find with it. Mr W. B. Tennerit (Government, Palmerston North) wanted the dental profession to be represented on the council. 'The debate was unfinished when the House adjourned at 10.30 p.m. In the afternoon tht Opposition sacrificed its opportunity to discuss Ministerial replies to questions and concentrated on the report of the Public Petitions Committee on a petition from residents of the Hutt Valley asking for an inquiry into recent increases in railway road service fares from Wellington. Opposition members claimed that as road services over the whole country were showing a profit there was no need to increase fares. The Prime Minister (Mr Holland), however, produced figures which showed that the loss on the whole of the road services for the year ended March 31 was £69.000. and that on the Wellington-Hutt Valley road services was £69.953.

The Petitions Committee had no recommendation to make, and an amendment by Mr F. Jones (Opposition, St. Kilda), that the petition should be referred back to it was talked out. Before the House adjourned this evening the Attorney-General (Mr T. C. Webb) gave notice of his intention to move that a special select committee should be appointed to consider the Capital Punishment Bill. It will comprise the members of the Statutes Revision Committee and will have power to sit with representatives from the Legislative Council and to report jointly or separately. Its proceedings Will be open to the public and accredited representatives of the press.