SERVICE BY FAMILY

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29368, 22 November 1960, Page 11

SERVICE BY FAMILY

For more than 40 years Sydenham has been represented by Labour, first for 21 years, as the old Christchurch South electorate. by my dad, and then for nearly 19 years by myself. During that time boundaries have changed, but the allegiance of the people has not wavered.

I have tried to render a personal service to my people, and they have appreciated it, as is evidenced by their visits to my home eacn Sunday with their troubles. The Howards have built up a special aome service and for all these years a Howard has represented Sydenham our house has been open every Sunday to callers from anywhere in New Zealand with their worries and problems. They come from far and wide, and the troubles are sometimes very curious, but there is always something that one can do to ease the burden.

I have administered the portfolio of Social Security for the last three years. They have been the hardest three years I have ever known. Social Security deals with the personal and inner troubles and sorrows of human beings. It cannot always be done by the department. Much of it needs purely personal handling, and I have personally handled hundreds of problems unheralded and unsung because they are purely human problems. But there is a great inner satisfaction and warming of the heart when one knows that a family, a lone person, a teenager or a child has been helped over a stfje. i Good Departments

I have had two good departments to deal with-—Social Security and Welfare—departments which are trained to act under any emergency, and they do. Invariably when I read of some tragedy in any part of the country I telephone the nearest department and almost always I get the reply that action has been taken.

Although the three years have been hard, they have been happy ones helping those who need it most—the older people who are on benefits, because these have been raised, and those needing welfare assistance, which has been greatly widened.

The Nationalist policy says that they will widen this scheme. They can’t, because everyone ■who needs extra help gets it now. I have been on a strenuous tour of the North Island. I have had good meetings everywhere, and there is no apoarent dissatisfaction with the Government.

I would say to my ooponent that he is wrong when he says nothing has been done for Sydenham, and that it is time for a change. There will be no change. Mr Nationalist The people of Sydenham will be loyal to Labour now. as in the past, and Mabel Howard, the Labour candidate, will swing into the home straight when the other two are only halfway round. I have not met my opponents, but will be happy to do so after the result and say: “Thanks, it ft as been a good clean fight.”