Sub-committee To “Keep Alive” Aims Of Bill

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31542, 2 December 1967, Page 14

Sub-committee To “Keep Alive” Aims Of Bill

The South Island Publicity Association has set up a subcommittee to keep alive the recommendations of the member of Parliament for Waitaki (Mr A. D. Dick) for the establishment of jhe South Island Development Council. Mr Dick told a meeting of S.I.P.A. yesterday that his proposals, contained in a bill presented in Parliament earlier this year, had drawn widely diverging opinions. Some cities bad claimed that such a project would be too costly, others that it had no teeth, and still others that the bill did not look far enough into the future. Mr Dick put the running expenses of such a council at $lOO,OOO a year, which would be shared by the local bodies of the South Island. Whatever the cost, the future of the island lay mainly in the hands of the occupants. The South Island would always be outnumbered in Parliament and the only way to get the ear of the Government was to

approach In force with one voice. Mr Dick said he had been asked to put his proposals on a national basis but he considered this would lose some of the advantages envisaged for the South Island. He said he did not know what would become of his proposals but they might lead to something which would ensure the proper exploitation of the South Island’s potential. He said he fully supported a move made in Otago on Thursday in scrapping several councils in the province and establishing one Otago council bent on speaking for the province as a whole. Mr W. A. Pickford, the Government nominee on 5.1.P.A., said the executive council had discussed Mr Dick’s bill but thought it could cut into the activities of S.I.P.A. and other bodies such as the progress leagues. All these would find it difficult to get continued support from local authorities if they had also to support the development council.