BUDGET DEBATE TOMORROW

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27132, 31 August 1953, Page 8

BUDGET DEBATE TOMORROW

PARLIAMENT

First Speaker To Be

Mr Nash DISCUSSION TO LAST FOR SOME WEEKS (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, August 30. The House of Representatives can now settle down for a few weeks to a debate on the Budget. It is usual for every member of the House to speak in the debate, as it gives an opportunity for an airing of views on any aspect of the Government’s financial policy—what it has done, intends to do, or has left undone. Mr Nash, the Leader of the Opposition, will initiate the ’debate when the House resumes on Tuesday evening. He will be granted the customary extension of time to make his speech, and it is probable that he will occupy about the same time as did the Prime Minister (Mr Holland) when he read nis Budget. That took him almost an hour and three-quarters. That Mr Nash will have fault to find with the Budget js undoubted. What his main point of criticism will be is by no means clear, however. The Budget gives no great relief to moneyed people or to companies; there is some taxation concession in it for practically everyone who pays taxation. On that score, Mr Nash can find little fault, though he will probably endeavour to show why and how the concessions could have been greater. Pension Rates Unchanged For the first time since Mr Holland has produced his Budgets, there is no extra payment for pensioners, though the Budget repeats the Christmas bonus which age beneficiaries will get. That, however, had already been announced. This will be one topic for Mr Nash» but it remains to be seen whether it will meet with popular appeal in the light of what has been done for age and other beneficiaries. To reply to Mr Nash on the first evening of the debate, the Government may put up the Associate Minister of Finance (Mr C. M. Bowden), who had a major hand in preparing the Budget. But it could as easily call on the Deputy-Prime Minister (Mr K. J. Holyoake), who is the more skilled debater, and one who always has a ready answer to any criticism. After hearing the Government’s financial policy for the year, some members of the House on Thursday evening produced an anti-climax. When Mr Holland had completed his Budget speech, the House had to agree to the release of some items from sales tax. To do so, it had to resolve itself into th ? < C °” ln J lttee of W »y s and Means. Mr Nash began by urging a remission of sales tax on sporting equipment. Government members were quiek to reply by quoting long lists of what the Opposition had not done when it was on the Treasury benches - Hansards were produced to show what members on both sides of the House had said in former years; and the debate developed into a partv wrangle. * J The Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr J. T. Watts) set out to put the House on the right lines by pointing out that the House was arguing something which could be argued again, and was losing sight of the importance of the Budget. His advice might have been heeded had he. too. not then felt the need to go on and participate in the controversy.