Ministers’ Plans For Holidays

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30939, 21 December 1965, Page 28

Ministers’ Plans For Holidays

fFrom Our Own Keporter) WELLINGTON, Dec. 20. After a lively year Cabinet Ministers are showing more interest than usual in a restful Christmas vacation.

Only one, the Minister of Housing (Mr Rae), will go overseas. From December 27 until January 13 he will, with his wife and 19-year-old daughter, Frances, visit Melbourne, Canberra, the Snowy River, and Sydney. The Minister of Education (Mr Kinsella) had planned to visit Australia, sailing there with friends via Lord Howe Island. The trip has cancelled. Mr Kinsella must remain in Wellington as Minister in Charge of War Pensions, to meet Senator G. K. McKellar, the Australian Minister of Repatriation, who will arrive on January IL But the Minister will still manage some sailing—across Cook Strait and in the Marlborough Sounds. Vacations have taught him that yachting confers no immunity from official problems. One year, while five miles out in the Hauraki Gulf in the keeler Giselle, for which he was forward hand, he was approached in a launch by a determined citizen who had been seeking an interview and tracking him for months.

The Cabinet "caretaking” chore may fall to Mr Kinsella. U not, it may be the lot of the Minister of Island Territories (Mr Hanan), who expects to remain in Wellington until January 8, when

he may leave from Auckland in the Moana Roa for an official visit to Niue and the Tokelau Islands. Accompanied by officers of the Island Territories and External Affairs Departments, he will be away for about 18 days. Cabinet Ministers seem to be concentrsting on Paihia. Early January win find the Minister of Customs (Mr Shelton) there as usual. This year, however, the Minister of Defence (Mr Eyre) and the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr Seath) will also head for Paihia. The Governor-General (Sir Bernard Fergusson) will be there too. staying in a waterfront house from next week until Jsnuary 17, when he will besin a month’s official residence in Dunedin.

For the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) it will be a conventional break—Christmas in Wellington, some haymaking on his Dannevirke farm and then some fishing from his West Taupo property and the new week-end home he has at Llnloch Marina, in which he has an interest The Minister of Overseas Trade (Mr Marshall) will leave about January 2 for his New Year trout-fishing haunt near Turangi. Appropriately enough the Minister of Marine (Mr Scott) nlans some salt-water fishing. After Christmas at his Whenuapai home he may make Kawau Island his base for several days. The Minister of Works (Mr Allen) looks forward to relaxing at his Whakatane home. Ohope, nearby, will see the

Minister of Labour (Mr Shand) as it has in several previous years. From his Waipu home, the Minister of Health (Mr McKay) will make trips to Laing’s beach nearby. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr Taiboys) will be at home on his farm at Winton, Southland, and has several January engagements in his constituency. The Minister of Finance (Mr Lake) probably will spend Christmas at home in Christchurch. Waikanae, north of Wellington, where he maintains a beach house, he may

visit later. The Minister of Railways (Mr McAlpine) probably will help with the harvesting on his North Canterbury farm and the Minister of Lands (Mr Gerard) will fish from his Rakaia property. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk) will have a brief holiday with his family in the Nelson district The first Cabinet meeting of 1966 may be on January 18. No decision will be made until about January 10. If there then seems insufficient business or enthusiasm, the Cabinet may not reconvene until January 25.