REPLY TO CRITICISM

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31141, 18 August 1966, Page 18

REPLY TO CRITICISM

(N.Z. Press Association!

WELLINGTON, August 17.

It now appeared

that the policies which the former Commissioner of Works (Mr Hanson) helped to lay down were now considered by him to be wrong, said the Minister of Works (Mr Allen) today.

Mr Allen said that Mr Hanson had claimed a tremendous amount of credit for forming the National Roads Board and he was chairman of it un' f l replaced by the then Minister of Works. He played a large part in forming the policy of the board, a policy that had existed for many years, said Mr Allen.

Mr Hanson was a senior civil servant with the very important task of advising the Government on policy matters generally. “It appears that the policies that he helped to lay down he now considers to be wrong. “It is a pity that he did not take the chance to rectify them before going out from that very senior position.” said Mr Allen. “1 find it hard indeed to understand why so many of the policies which were brought into being while Mr Hanson was in office are now “wrong’ now that he is in retirement.” said Mr Allen. Mr Hanson said today that the board had been establish-

ed in post-war years “primarily to rectify road conditions that existed after 1945.

“The whole reading system went to the pack during the war,” Mr Hanson said. As chairman of the first National Roads Board in the mid-19505, Mr Hanson said his colleagues were never in a position where they had to deal with the same number

of people that the board had to consider today. “But in every case we either resettled or compensated people if they had to move because of reading development. “When Rongotai airport was built,” Mr Hanson said, “all residents and shopkeepers were offered either resettlement or compensation.”