PREPARATION OF BUDGETS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27151, 22 September 1953, Page 8

PREPARATION OF BUDGETS

Mr Holland Outlines Problems

LOYALTY OF PUBLIC SERVANTS PRAISED

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 21. Forecasts before the Budget that petrol tax would be reduced were made by persons who had no idea of what they were talking about, said the Prime Minister (Mr Holland) today, but he supposed, he said, that they might as well have talked about that as anything else. Mr Holland was outlining to the Wellington Junior Chamber of Commerce problems that face a Minister of Finance in making up a Budget. Only one critic had made an accurate forecast of something that was in the last Budget, he said, but it had not been a result of the critic concerned getting “information.” “I have now presented four Budgets, and there has not been one leakage of information,” he said, praising the public servants associated with the preparation of the Budget. Mr Holland said that the three main accounts were the Consolidated Fund, and the works and social security accounts. This year, to meet insistent demands that the financial picture be presented as clearly and simply as possible, he had drawn up a special composite account amalgamating the three main ones. This was published as Table I in the Budget, and was easy for anyone to understand. He had not seen one public reference to this important innovation, he said.

The official estimate of capital required this year for the State, local bodies, and private enterprise was about £167,000,000 —“a colossal sum to be spent in a country of only 2,000,000 population.” Confidence in Future

Certain Australian investors were expressing so much confidence in New Zealand’s future that they were prepared to leave in the country when it became due money they had lent. The Prime Minister said he would say more about this later in the week,.when he replied to the Budget debate. In the six years up to March, 1950. the Government of the day had made use of £54,000,000 of farmers’ money (in the pool accounts) and in the nine years to 1950 it had vised £75,000.000 — “which we have to pay back.” Critics were good at attacking a Budget after its presentation, but they never committed themselves before and by showing how they thought the Budget should be constructed, he said. The Junior Chamber could perform a most valuable service by “having a shot at writing one.” He would be S repared to place at its disposal facities for calculating sums and estimating revenue, and he would look with great interest at any such proposed budget that might be prepared before he drew up the official document.