The Press MONDAY, JULY 19, 1954. The Roxburgh Debate

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27405, 19 July 1954, Page 8

The Press MONDAY, JULY 19, 1954. The Roxburgh Debate

The Government was wise to give : opportunity early in the session for members of the House of Repre- ' sentatives to discuss the Roxburgh hydro-electric project. There has been public concern about the delays in the work at Roxburgh and some anxiety about reports of faulty ' construction work there. The Government has freely acknowledged its -dissatisfaction with some aspects of the Roxburgh project, ' and has made public the remedial measures that have been taken. It was, therefore, appropriate that it should be fully discussed in Parliament. Unfortunately, the usefulness of the debate was prejudiced by the Opposition’s determination to make political capital out of a contract that had gone wrong in the hands of the present Government and to grind an ideological axe by gloating over the shortcomings (on this occasion) of private enterprise. But if the Opposition is still not satisfied—or pretends for reasons connected with the election not be satisfied—the public have no reason to be dissatisfied with the information given during the debate. The Government has taken the opportunity to make knowm all the relevant facts, some of which it was not free to give until recently. The Opposition asserted that it was wrong to give the contract to private firms. The Minister of Works had no difficulty in showing that this was precisely the course favoured by the Labour Government’s Minister of Works, and for the same reason—because the Works Department was hopelessly overloaded with work. The decision to let the Roxburgh contract to overseas firms freed very large resources of the department for other work, including power developments in the Nprth Island. The Opposition charged that the Government was wrong to accept the lowest tender, which came from contractors with limited experience in construction of hydro-electric stations. It is easy to imagine what the Opposition would have said had the Government accepted any tender ■ but the lowest, which in fact came from a British firm with world-wide experience in huge construction

projects, and which was to be associated in the Roxburgh contract with a Swiss firm experienced in hydro-electric work. Moreover, the

Government was assured by a firm of eminent consulting engineers that the combination would be satisfactory and effective; and this opinion was confirmed by the Government’s own engineers. The

Opposition, wise after the event, appeared to contend that the Gov? ernment should have set itself above the expert advice on which it acted in arranging the contract and in making the financial adjustments that were necessary when the original pontract was replaced. That is surely a dangerous thesis; the public will have more confidence in an administration which, on the Prime Minister’s assurance, “at

“ every single step ” took the advice of its engineers—the engineers of the Ministry of Works, in whom the Oppbsition seems to repose a selective kind of confidence. The debate confirmed that the high hopes Built on Roxburgh have been disappointed, through no fault of the Government’s. Roxburgh will not cost £1,500,000 less than the estimate of the Works Department, as the Government had reason to 1 expect when it accepted the tender; but the project will not cost more than the- New Zealand engineers estimated. The Government hoped to cut a year off the Works Department’s estimate for the completion of Roxburgh. That hope has also been disappointed; but Roxburgh will be completed, it is now thought, within the period estimated by the Works Department. But even if there have been no advantages at Roxburgh from arranging a private contract for the project, there have been very great advantages elsewhere. Other works little less important -and not less urgent have been able to proceed at a speed that would have been impossible had the Works Department had the huge Roxburgh project on its shoulders at the same time. The public, who will share the Government’s disappointment that the hopes it rested in the private contract for Roxburgh have not been fulfilled, will certainly see no reason ' to share the disappointment of the Opposition at its failure to sustain its charges that the project was misjudged and maladministered.