'Important Bills Passed Too Late’

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31047, 30 April 1966, Page 3

'Important Bills Passed Too Late’

(Neto Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, April 29. A remit attacking the tendency to pass important and controversial legislation toward the end of the Parliamentary session was carried at the annual conference of the Associated Chambers of Commerce in Auckland today.

The conference urged Government to lengthen the Parliamentary session, to arrange the Order Paper so bills were presented much earlier, to ensure that proposed legislation was drafted in time to be introduced earlier, to reduce the time allocated to the address in reply debate and to give interested parties the earliest opportunity to study draft legislation. Moving the adoption of the remit, Mr N, S. Marquet (Dunedin) said the only right of appeal from Parliament was to the electorate. It was essential that public opinion be freely expressed and considered.

On occasions of moment, public opinion generated by association,s such as chambers of commerce, had been gagged simply because there was no time to study, to present submissions or to gauge the public point of view. Parliament was virtually out of session for seven months of the year, he said. Mr B. J. Drake (Canterbury) said the Government had paid only lip service to this perennial problem. Mr S. D. M. Smith (Tauranga) said bills such as the Narcotics Bill, which had grave implications to the private citizen, had been passed hastily in the recent session.