Dissatisfaction With Voting For Plains Rabbit Board

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28986, 29 August 1959, Page 15

Dissatisfaction With Voting For Plains Rabbit Board

Dissatisfaction with the voting papers sent out by the Department of Agriculture to farmers in the proposed Plains Area Rabbit Board region was strongly expressed at a meeting in the Darfield Memorial Hall. About 120 farmers whose properties would be included in the proposed area kept members of the Rabbit Destruction Council, officers of the department and officials of other rabbit boards answering questions for well over two hours.

The meeting gave the chairman of the council, Mr G. B. Baker, and the other speakers a quiet hearing, but a lively undertone began as the chairman (Mr M. E. Jfenkins) opened the questions.

The democratic merit of a voting paper which, if not answered, signified approval, was hotly contested for several minutes. Mr -H. McKenzie, a member of the council, replied .that prior to the present system a petition had been taken, round until sufficient signatures had been obtained to assure a majority approval. One farmer * claimed that three voting papers had arrived through the post for his property. They were addressed to him—one using one Christian name and the other using both—and to a former partner who had never had a financial interest in the property. “I can only vote on one of the papers so that means that there are two votes of approval against me before I start," he said. One other farmer said that he knew of two men who had not received voting papers and three men in the meeting indicated that they, too, had not received papers. One property had received papers for the farmer and for his father who had died some years ago. Mr J. Gibson, stock inspector of the department in Christchurch said that the voting roll had been compiled from a list supplied from the valuation roll by the Valuation Department. Scrutineers Appointed

A motion that the meeting appoint two men to be recommended as scrutineers to examine the papers at the time of counting was moved by Mr V. Fogarty and seconded by Mr G. Middlewood. This was carried, after considerable and, at times, heated discussion. Messrs G. R. Bedford and L.

Manion were nominated as scrutineers.

During the discussion to the motion Mr Baker said that the voting papers were not voting papers but only indicated an expression of opinion, an indication of the attitude of the ratepayers in the district to the proposed board. There was power in the Act under which the boards operated for the Minister of Agriculture to set up boards without conducting a poll. The “expressions of opinion” served to guide the Minister in his decision. There was no provision in the present Minister’s policy for petitions for the setting up of rabbit boards. If a farmer was farming an estate which was controlled by the Public Trustee, the Public Trustee had the vote and not the farmer, although the rates were paid by the farmer. The same applied to estates which were administered by private trustees, Mr Baker said. Unfair Balance of Votes

Farmers with as little as 10 acres in the proposed area had a vote and they were not likely to worry much about the 3s 2d or so they would have to pay, said a speaker from the floor. As a result they might not bother to reply to the poll and their vote of inferred approval weighed more than a farmer with a greater acreage. “It could be that four-fifths of the total acreage in the proposed area could be against the proposal, but the farmers owning one-fifth could vote in the majority. To a question, Mr E. A. Cooney said he represented a ratepayer at the meeting,' a large ratepayer, the Selwyn Plantation Board. The board had decided that whatever the community decided on the proposal the board would support. In each of the last five years the board had spent some £5OO on rabbit control but with a board the rabbit board rates would total about £2OO, which was a marked saving, he said.