Plains Rabbit Board

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28999, 14 September 1959, Page 3

Plains Rabbit Board

Sir, —Whether or not the 4200 ratepayers between the Ashley and Rakaia rivers cast their votes in favour of forming new rabbit boards matters little; they can rest assured that they will be ratepayers to a rabbit board within 1~ months and for the rest of their lives, 8d an acre upwards. Neither the meetings to discuss the matter nor the questionnaire were of the slightest importance —merely a matter of form, as the Minister of Agriculture has power to form a rabbit district on the recommendation of the chairman of the Rabbit Destruction Council. Are the votes counted? If so, under police supervision and with scrutineers? Will the results of such voting be published in the daily papers? If so, when?—Yours, etc.,

DEMOCRAT. September 9, 1959. [The secretary of the Rabbit Destruction Council (Mr D. M. P. Hay) said that the rates for rabbit destruction were fixed by boards which were elected by ratepayers. Whether or not a rabbit board was to be set up was decided by the Minister of Agriculture, who required an expression of opinion of the ratepayers within the proposed area. The Minister did not automatically accept the recommendations made concerning new boards, and it was therefore wrong to say that sending out questionnaires was a formality. Where ratepayers within an area wished to appoint scrutineers to check the questionnaires returned it had been the practice to make arrangements accordingly.]