Farmers’ Objections To Rabbits Bill Provisions

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30586, 31 October 1964, Page 16

Farmers’ Objections To Rabbits Bill Provisions

Strong objection to certain aspects of the Rabbits Amendment Bill now before Parliament was expressed yesterday by the Dominion Council of Federated Farmers.

A Dominion vice-president of Federated Fanners, Mr A. C. Begg, said in Christchurch last evening the bill provided legislative authority for county councils to operate as rabbit destruction authorities in the open areas outside rabbit board control, and it also had some other features which were of interest to both rabbit boards and the counties concerned.

Clause 18 of the bill provided that the Minister might, on the recommendation of the Rabbit Destruction Council, abolish a district or remove the elected members of a board from office and appoint others in their place who may or may not be electors in the district.

Clause 19 provided that on the recommendation of the Rabbit Destruction Council the minister might disqualify a board from receiving a subsidy on the rates collected.

Mr Begg said the report of the noxious animals and noxious weeds working party of the Agricultural Development Conference had recommended that the powers in clause 18 should be subject to the right of appeal by a board to a magistrate, and

since rabbit boards were elected local bodies responsible primarily to their ratepayers this power appeared to be decided arbitarily without some such safeguard as that proposed in the working party’s report. Qualification

The 180 rabbit boards at present operating in New Zealand had all been constituted with an unqualified assurance that they would receive a £ for £ subsidy on all rates collected. The bill proposed that this right should be qualified by giving the minister, on the recommendation of the Rabbit Destruction Council power to dictate to each and every one of them by the threat to withdraw this subsidy. “This condition makes the boards completely subservient to the Rabbit Destruction Council and makes boards nothing but a tool of the Rabbit Destruction Council and eliminates all but the facade of local control,” said Mr Begg. Mr Begg said the matter had been discussed by the Dominion council of Federated Farmers yesterday afternoon when a unanimous resolution had been adopted objecting strongly to the qualification of the boards' rights to a subsidy on their rates and to the disregard and the absence of any right of appeal against the min- ( ister’s power to sack a board. 1