PARLIAMENT “Production Incentives Lacking In Budget”

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28346, 3 August 1957, Page 14

PARLIAMENT “Production Incentives Lacking In Budget”

(New Zeaiana Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 2. Not one incentive for increased production was contained in the Budget, said Mr M. A. Connelly (Opposition, Riccarton) in the House of Representatives today. Mr Connelly, who was speaking in the Budget debate, said the depreciation allowance for manufacturers’ equipment, which had been removed last year, had not been replaced. Removing this allowance was one of the “worst things the Government has done,” he said.

Mr Connelly said the Government nad introduced P.A.Y.E, as a method of catching votes. Labour, however, had approved P.A.Y.E. for economic reasons, as an anti-inflationary and stabilising measure.

There was wide scope in the Budget for tax evasion. Businessmen had three income tax returns—l9s7, 1958, and 1959—“ up their sleeves with which to juggle.” He did not suggest that all businessmen were dishonest, but evidence in the Gazette indicated that some were.

Mr J. A. McL. Roy (Government, Clutha) spoke of the need for intensive scientific farming to bring the country’s fringe land into production. “Every acre of land is producing three oi four times what it did a few years ago, but intensive development will go further, and .it is necessary that it should,” he said. Mr T. L. Hayman (Government, Oamaru) stressed the need for caution in capital expenditure. Development in many fields in New Zealand meant a heavy drain on capital resources, and New Zealand had to be extremely careful that there, was no extravagant spending. The people of New Zealand, said Mr Hayman, were more than pleased with the Budget. For one thing, it meant that 450,000 people would not have to submit income tax returns Mr W. J. Scott (Government, Rodney) said that under the Labour Party’s system of P.A.Y.E., announced in its 1954 election manifesto, taxpayers would have been asked to pay two years’ taxation in one. That was probably one reason why the ‘‘sky was the limit” in the election promises. They expected to find their additional revenue from P.A.Y.E. Labour members had protested

about price increases and the Labour newspaper, the “Standard,” ran a feature listing recent increases. But the newspaper failed to mention price decreases. There had been, for instance, recent decreases in the price of eggs, potatoes, and canned beans and peas. The present Government had brought relative stability to prices. There was a plentiful and varied range of goods on the market, there was an easier labour market and there had been considerable improvement in the balance of payments, said Mr Scott. Mr C. L. Carr (Opposition, Timaru) said the Government criticised socialism, but its members did not seem to realise that the farmers of New Zealand were benefiting from the socialism practised by various departments of State, particularly the Department of Agriculture. Socialistic means were being used to enable individuals to do what they could not do for themselves. New Zealand’s farmers were much better farmers because of the help they received from technical advisers and from field officers. Mr Carr said letters quoted in the debate by the Minister of Education (Mr R. M. Algie) about the attitude of post-primary teachers to the teacher shortage were not characteristic. In his own electorate, the teachers had been reasonable in “every degree and sense.” A former president of the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association, Mr M. A. Bull, rector of the Timaru Boys’ High School, was influenced simply by a rightful and earnest consideration of the welfare of his fellow post-primary teachers, said Mr Carr. Greater decentralisation of industry was urged by Mr Carr both on strategic grounds and from the point of view of community development.