Treasury’s Attitude To Local Body Changes

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29179, 13 April 1960, Page 18

Treasury’s Attitude To Local Body Changes

(new Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, April 12. The Treasury would be sympathetic with a long-term plan for improving local government with a bias toward merged, rather than subdivided, authorities, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr E. L. Greensmith, today told the Local Bills Committee of the House of Representatives, which is inquiring into the structure of local government. He said that holding as it did the view that it was generally better to use existing bodies, even though reconstituted, than to set up new ones, the Treasury was more attracted by the Ministry of Works proposals than by those of the Department of Internal Affairs for a two-tier regional system. It seemed likely that a blending of the two sets of proposals, strengthening and using existing provisions wherever possible, would give the best solution. Mr Greensmith said a body to deal with the loan requirements of districts would be advantageous to the Local Authorities Loans Board. Such a body would be able to plan and co-ordinate development under a single scheme. The board would then

judge the effects of a borrowing programme more readily than at present. The total raised on the loan market might not alter, but it should be easier, and at times cheaper, for one body to coordinate borrowing than would be the case where a number of small authorities were competing. He said there seemed to be a prima facie case for the removal of the requirement on harbour boards to obtain an empowering bill before raising a loan. It was conceivable that if Parliament passed an empowering bill for a harbour board loan, the Loans Board could withhold approval, and therefore be above Parliament.