GOVERNMENT POWERS

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27796, 22 October 1955, Page 2

GOVERNMENT POWERS

DECENTRALISATION URGED

MOUNT HERBERT COUNCIL RESOLUTION

“That a memorandum be prepared on the need for an examination of decentralisation of Central Government powers as they affect the South Island; that the memorandum be circulated to all South Island local bodies asking for their opinion and for the need for the executive of the South Island Local Bodies’ Association to call forthwith a special meeting of their compound bodies to discuss the matter.”

This resolution was adopted by the Mount Herbert County Council yesterday on the motion of Mr D. Cress - well.

In moving the resolution, Mr Cresswell said that the narrow defeat, by four votes, of his remit, on home rule for the South Island, to the South Island Local Bodies’ Association conference, was a very pleasant surprise. A considerable amount of feeling on the matter had been expressed throughout the South Island and four South Island newspapers had written leading articles on the remit. Two matters in which Wellington treated the South Island unfairly were population and power. Mr Davenport’s speech at the power conference on Thursday was fully reported by the newspapers, but he did not say in his report the things that South Islanders like to hear.

“Industry should be taken to power but we will be forced to take power to industry at a staggering loss if, as Mr Davenport suggested, power is taken from the South Island to the North Island,” said Mr Crcsswell. “The ball has started rolling and 1 would like to carry it a step further, if the council is not too timid, by moving the adoption of this resolution.”

Mr Cresswell then moved the resolution. There was a strong feeling, not for home rule, but for an examu nation of decentralisation, he said. The chairman (Mr V. B. Jaggar) said that decentralisation expressed what they wanted and intended by the remit. He thought the Christchurch newspapers, in speaking of a separate government for the South Island, were carrying the matter beyond* what had been intended by the remit as visualised bv the council.