“Licensing Bill Is Step Towards Police State”

Press, Volume C, Issue 29643, 13 October 1961, Page 2

“Licensing Bill Is Step Towards Police State”

“This bill is nothing more nor less than another step towards a police state in New Zealand; we see toe hand of toe bureaucrat in every clause,” said Mr J. E. Ewart, president of the Hotel Association of New Zealand, commenting upon the Licensing Amendment Bill introduced in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. Mr Ewart described the bill as one of the most unjust pieces of legislation that had been introduced for many years.

“The architects of the measure,” he said, “are obviously the bureaucrats, who already have had too much influence over our industry in the past and who are’ apparently now determined to control us more rigidly than ever, on straight-out dictatorship lines. “If the Government really wants to remove anomalies and injustices from the "hotel industry, why'does it not face the position honestly and squarely by applying complete decontrol and thus allowing us to straighten them out ourselves, as would be done with any other industry?” said Mr Ewart. "If the Government expects us to provide any more accommodation for tourists we must be given some practical opportunity to do so. This bill creates the opposite, for it destroys the very incentive which it sets out to create. "Furthermore, it applies one more degree of State control under a Government which is pledged to the promotion and expansion of private enterprise,” he said. “Should the bill be proceeded with in its present form—and I sincerely hope it will not be—it will certainly create further grave injustices in one of our largest industries. ‘‘The members of our organisation are completely united in their determination to fight this measure and with all the resources at our command, and when the proper time arrives we propose to make known where its main injustices lie,” Mr Ewart said.