LOCAL BODY SERVICE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29179, 13 April 1960, Page 27

LOCAL BODY SERVICE

Renewed Appeal For Allowance

A proposal that allowances to local body members should be investigated by the same Royal commission as inquired into Parliamentary salaries is made by Mr W. B. Souter, a member of the Waitemata County Council, writing in “Board and Council,” the local bodies’ journal.

. The Waitemata County Council, limited by law to 12 members, was now the sixth largest county in New Zealand, with an area of 384,000 acres, a capital value of £55 million and a population of 40,000, Mr Souter says. The county has sections of rapidly-developing urban areas with attendant problems of town planning, water and sewerage reticulation and roading. The 12 men also share duties of membership on various ad hoc bodies and committees, such as drainage boards, domain boards, cemetery boards, scenic boards, the regional planning authority and its committees, district roads council, metropolitan council, local body associations and district fire councils, as well as the council’s own committees, Mr Souter says. “For good measure, all councillors are rural fire ofificers," he adds. Meetings, Donations "I have made no mention of the various functions such as the opening of halls, schools and play areas, where attendance is expected, or meetings of ratepayers and personal attention to various matters in ridings. Conferences and deputations are an additional call on councillors' time, and, like members of Parliament, they are sitting shots for various forms of requests for donations. "Our M.P.s are paid £llOO a year, plus allowances, to pass laws. In the case of county councils, farmer members are expected to neglect their properties and livestock while attending to public business. They pay for help to run their farms while they are absent, and are out of pocket to this extent. The men who comprise the county council are limited by law to receiving 5s a head for a meal and mileage at Government rates for the use of their cars in attending meetings duly authorised by the council. All other expenses fall on members personally.”

Mr Souter says that a phrase used by members of Parliament that they regard the local bodies as the junior partners of Parliament makes him feel it is a very one-sided partnership when a councillor was called on to give on an average at least 10 full days a month on affairs of the county, to say nothing of meetings at night. No member of the council would want more than a revision of the system whereby he could make his contribution In service to the public without the heavy montetary cost now involved, Mr Souter concludes.