Fears Of Further Tractor Deaths Denied

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30862, 22 September 1965, Page 3

Fears Of Further Tractor Deaths Denied

{From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, September 21. The allegation by Mr N. E. Kirk (Opp., Lyttelton) that if the Machinery Amendment Bill were passed in its present form, 12 more people would die in New Zealand before Christmas as the result of agricultural tractor accidents was heatedly denied in Parliament today by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Taiboys).

The debate on the second reading of the Bill, which provides that where a safety frame is fitted to a tractor, an approved type must be used, but which does not make it mandatory to fit frames on all agricultural tractors, was proceeding. Mr Kirk said that in failing to include any form of compulsion in the bill, the Government was acting with “a curious reticence." The Government’s attitude. Mr Kirk said, was also at variance with its attitude towards people who manufactured and operated other machinery. "If we have an unsafe car, it is put off the road,” Mr Kirk said. "Why this curious form of reluctance to introduce any form of compulsion? There is surely reason enough, with 356 people killed in tractor accidents since 1948, to take a firm line.” Mr Kirk said that if tractors used as prime movers in a country sawmill had to suffer inspection by the Labour Department under penalty, why did this not hold good for the agricultural tractor across the road? POSITIVE MOVE A positive move could easily be made. It could simply be required that any tractor purchased after a specified date should be fitted with a safety frame. It was possible that all tractors in .he country could not be so fitted, but at least there would be a start. Mr Triboys said nobody in Parliament was more interested in tractor safety than he was. He thought it was incorrect and unfair to imply that if compulsion were put into the bill. 12 lives would be saved before Christmas. “I suggest that if we brought compulsion into the bill, it would not stop one of those deaths,” he said. “As far as I know there are 35 different tractors used in New Zealand. "Would the member agree that it would not be right to rule that they should be fitted with frames, before those frames were tested and passed by the Institute of Agricultural Engineering?” Mr Kirk: Hundreds of safe-

guards are fitted to factory and other machinery without this official testing procedure. Mr Taiboys: That is not so. To insist on a requirement that frames must be fitted, without knowing whether or not the frames would be effective, would not be right, he said. Mr Kirk: Why do you make such a facetious argument? Mr Taiboys: I am prepared to admit that it is no credit to New Zealand that this has not been done before. Opposition voice: Then let's do it today. “IN A FIX” Mr Taiboys said that orchardists would be in a fix if ordered to fit frames to their tractors. It would be impossible. “We don't know how effective some of these frames are.” he said. “When we do, it will be time for compulsion. One of the saddest things to see is a child being carried on a trac-i tor which is towing an implement. The institute is getting on with the job.” Mr N. V. Douglas (Opp.. Auckland Central) said there was no sense in hoping that farmers would be cautious in I their use of tractors. The fitting of safety frames would have to be made compulsory. Mr W. Fox (Opp., Miramar) said the Government had a phobia about the word compulsory. Without compulsion in the use of many safety devices the accident rate in factories would double. Mr Fox suggested that two new clauses should be written into the bill. One should fix an early date on which the fitting of safety frames would be compulsory. This would enable a determined effort to be made to manufacture sufficient frames and to train competent persons to test them. The other clause, Mr Fox suggested, should be designed to prevent children under 15 from driving tractors not fitted with frames. The Minister of Labour (Mr Shand) in reply said the Opposition case against the measure was that it did not provide for compulsion. The Government’s failure to do so, the Opposition had claimed, resulted from the fact that it represented hardhearted employers who were not prepared to go to the expense which might possibly save some lives.

“It is arrant nonsense that farmers take an employer’s view and won’t take action to prevent accidents. Most users of tractors are members of a farmer’s family. Our attitude springs from an understanding of the difficulties of applying the act,” Mr Shand said. "I believe it will be at least three years before we would be in a position to compel anyone to use them as it will be at least three years before a reasonable number of safety frames have been designed and tested. There will then be a further period before they are manufactured in sufficient quantities.

“I did have a draft bill providing for compulsion by regulation but after talks with legal officers I decided it would be better to provide for it by an amendment to the act.” Mr Shand said an immediate requirement that all tractors carry safety frames would represent an industrial outlay of some £8 million overnight at the rate of £BO apiece for some 100,000 tractors.

“This is a huge undertaking for New Zealand’s industry and could not be carried out overnight,” he said.

The bill was read a second time. '