Comment From The Capital Licensing Bill Key To Session’s End

Press, Volume C, Issue 29681, 27 November 1961, Page 14

Comment From The Capital Licensing Bill Key To Session’s End

(From Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, Nov. 26. Although some members of Parliament are confident the session will end this week, the possibility seems remote unless some drastic decisions are made within the next few days. One of these would be the abandonment for this session of the much-discussed Licensing Amendment Bill. At present this stands sixteenth in order of business on the Order Paper; and advice given by the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) during the week-end discloses no intention to move it closer to the top of the list.

There are still 34 items on the Order Paper, including five local bills at various stages; but the Licensing Bill is the only one likely to take up so much of the time of the House as to forbid an early end to the session. Even the Chiropractors Amendment Bill, now awaiting committal, should not take long to discuss. On the main Order Paper, the Interest on Deposits Bill has joined seven other measures which will be held over. The others are the Workers’ Compensation Amendment Bill, the Nature Conservation Council Bill, the Transport Bill, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Investigations Bill, the Civil Defence Bill, the Public Bodies Meetings Bill, and Mr N. E. Kirk’s private measure, the Staff Superannuation Bill. Without these, there are only 21 measures on the Order Paper, exclusive of local bills. In his report to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Nash) on Friday, Mr Holyoake outlined the order in which the first 15 of these would be taken in the coming week. His list did not include the Licensing Amendment Bill, the Licensing Trusts Amendment Bill, or the Inland Revenue Department Amendment Bill, all of which await their secondreading debates. Programme Outlined

According to Mr Holyoake, the first item to be discussed on Tuesday afternoon will be the I.C. and A. Amendment Bill, now in its committee stages. Discussion of Clause 2 and the two remaining clauses should not take more than a few hours Then Mr Holyoake proposes to consider reports on the Finance Bill, the Wool Industry Amendment Bill, and the Stock Amendment Bill, which could virtually dispose of each. He will follow with the second-reading debates on the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill, the Maori Purposes Bill, the Statutes Amendment Bill, the Chiropractors Amendment Bill, the Town and Country Planning Amendment Bill, the Counties Amendment Bill, and the Local Government Commission Bill. With these advanced a stage, the House will then take the third-reading debate on the National Military Service Bill, followed by the second-reading debate on the Appropriation Bill, the committal of the Meat Amendment Bill, and the interrupted debate on the report relating to the Broadcasting Bill. This is the programme which Mr Holyoake has laid down to be completed before the Licensing Amendment Bill is proceeded with. Mr Holyoake says that it is intended to go on with the Licensing Amendment Bill; and the Minister of Justice (Mr Hanan) has indicated that “as far as he knows" it will proceed. Although the closing weeks of some previous sessions have produced nearmiracles of speedy legislation, it is unlikely that this programme car be completed, the final stages of several bills wound up, and the licensing measure pushed through into the Statute Book, all in 27} working hours. A Testy House The atmosphere of the House of Representatives changed sharply on Thursday afternoon, when the Minister of Works (Mr Goosman), apparently without reference to either the whips

or the Prime Minister, moved the closure of the secondreading debate on the I.C. and A. Amendment Bill.

The Opposition objected violently, and kept up its protests until the end of the week. This protest included the asking of a written ques-

tion by Mr Nash bearing on the number of closures asked for and applied. Although the written answer to this is still awaited (and probably vzill not be released until after the close of the session), the Chairman of Committees (Mr Jack) later made what was in effect, a verbal reply. Mr Jack said that of 20 closures moved by members of the Labour Government last year, only one had failed to be upheld by the Speaker or chairman. Of 50 closures moved this year by Government members, only 32 had been upheld. This reply is doubly interesting. First, it shows that there have been many more closures this session than last. Second, it would seem to suggest either that the present Speaker and Chairman have been more exacting in their requirements than their predecessors or that the previous Government had been more reasonable in its demands. The real explanation probably lies in the far larger volume of legislation brought down this year. It is also true that urgency was resorted to more often in 1960, and that many subjects instead of being closed by vote, were exhausted in the small hours by exhausted members. Even so, exchanges across the House are becoming less and less dignified. The Prime Minister himself, normally a model of decorum, fell from grace when he used the term. “You silly old ass," to Mr Nash. He apologised spontaneously and quickly—but the damage had been done. Mr Nash himself relies on several expressive words, not defined as unparliamentary, to indicate that he is displeased with a Government member or speech. One of the most prominent Of these is “humbug." Mr Holyoake’s reaction followed an outburst by Mr Nash, who had just said, in reference to some earlier remarks by Mr Holyoake: "I have never heard so much humbug from a Prime Minister in five minutes.” And Mr Nash has known many Prime Ministers!