Waterfront Control

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26528, 17 September 1951, Page 6

Waterfront Control

The Auckland report that a draft of completely new regulations for the control of the waterfront has been circulated is disturbing, The report, which is circumstantial and supported by previous hints of Government action in this direction, suggests that something more is intended than a temporary measure to meet urgent needs, pending comprehensive legislation after the Royal Commission has reported. The first and obvious objection is that the Government should not introduce an entirely new system of control while the commission is investigating that very point under one of the terms of its order of reference. It is hard to imagine any reason for this so compelling as to be worth the risk of prejudicing the success of the commission’s inquiry. A second, and more fundamental, i objection is that the Government should not legislate for waterfront control by regulation when industrialrelations generally are governed, . as they should be, by statute law, ■ which cannot be altered without notice and without debate by the Minister in charge, subject only to the scrutiny of the Cabinet. Probably the use of war-time emergency powers in this way during peace time helped to cause some of the unrest in the last few years. There were good, probably sufficient, reasons in 1940 for removing the waterfront from the jurisdiction of ' the Arbitration Court and for setting up, under the Emergency Regula- ( tions Act, a flexible system of ad- . ministration suited to war-time cpn- ' ditions. Incidentally, the Waterfront ; Control Commission Emergency Regulations, 1940, remained in force

throughout the war, with only two amendments. The war was over in 1946, but the Labour Government still used its powers under the wartime act to alter the system of control by gazetting the Waterfront Industry Emergency Regulations. These, amended seven times, are still in force. The emergency for which waterfront emergency regulations were first made arose 12 years ago, and ended more than six years ago. The regulations ridiculously exaggerated a possibly justified delegation of Parliament’s legislative prerogative. The Government cannot excusably perpetuate what is at best only an administrative convenience. So far the Governm-nt has not made public its intentions: but, if, as seems possible, it is thinking about the issue of new waterfront regulations, it should think again. Properly, it should make as few alterations as possible to the present system until the commission has reported, and then present to Parliament a bill stating the principles to be adopted. It might be necessary to leave some details to be fixed by regulation; and no exception would be taken to this, provided the Minister were not given unnecessary powers. Parliament would then be able to give the Government’s proposals adequate consideration, and the new system would have a better chance of success.