OFFAL PRICE RISE

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28362, 22 August 1957, Page 14

OFFAL PRICE RISE

Minister’s Answer To Mr Holloway (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON. August 21. Rises in the export prices for meat offal, of between 80 and 200 per cent., from 1950 to 1957, have affected the internal prices tor these goods, says the Minister in Charge of the Department of Statistics (Mr J. T. Watts) in a written Ministerial answer circulated in the House of Representatives today. Internal prices for meat offals and sundries had increased considerably more than the general average increase of 43 per cent, in the consumer prices of all commodities nd services. The average increases in the towns covered by the official consumers’ price index, from the second quarter of H*so to the second quarter of 1957, were: tripe, 69 per cent.; sheep's liver, 174 per cent.; sheep’s tongue, 89 per cent.; and beef sausages. 72 per cent. Mr Watts was answering a question asked by Mr P. N. Holloway (Opposition, Heretaunga). Other written Ministerial answers to questions were: An average price of £663 15s was recived for the Ministerial Chrysler cars sold recently. The Postmaster-General (Mr T. P. Shand) to Mr F. Hackett (Opposition, Grey Lynn). Clinical trials of a new toothpaste developed at the Otago Dental School will take two or three years to complete. No arrangements have been made to m: ke more than is required for the trials.—The Minister of Health (Mr J. R. Hanan) to Mr W. W. Freer (Opposition, Mount Albert). No patients are washed in the same water in any licensed private hospitals. The department will investigate any ease of unlicensed premises which should be licensed.—Mr Hanan to Miss M. B. Howard (Opposition, Sydenham).

Monthly Payment Of Superannuation

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August a.

About 7 per cent, of superannuitants had complained that they were losing one day’s superannuation when payments were changed over from a monthly to a four-weekly basis, said the Minister in charge of the Superanuation Fund (Mr R. G. Gerard), in a written Ministerial reply circulated in the House of Representatives this afternoon.

“This is not so,” said Mr Gerard. Most of those who complained had not fully appreciated the import of the dgte of payment chart sent out in June. When the position was explained many of the same people who had complained thanked the Administration for the change, whereby the inconvenience of budgeting for five week-ends is avoided.

The Minister was answering a question asked earlier by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Nash).