Inspectors Object To Meat Bill Provisions

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31549, 11 December 1967, Page 11

Inspectors Object To Meat Bill Provisions

“This is another attempt by the central Government to take away powers from local bodies,” said the county health inspector (Mr A. J. Riley) at a meeting of the Wairewa County Council on Friday, when he discussed the Meat Amendment Bill.

The legislation, given its second reading and then held over, had caught everybody by surprise, said Mr Riley. Its deferment, however, would give time for submissions to be made on it Saying he was a Government employee, and thus in a “rather tricky position,” Mr Riley said the bill gave powers of entry by Department of Agriculture inspectors to places where meat was sold, or held for sale.

Health inspectors, he said, felt that this would duplicate their own responsibilities, and those of local bodies. The bill would work in the same way as the proposed transfer of hydatids control to the Department of Agriculture, by taking over local body duties. Mr Riley said the Canter-bury-Westland branch of the Institute of Health Inspectors had already objected to the bill. He thought the Municipal Association and the Counties Association would do likewise.

Practically every retail

butcher sold mince, sausages or sausage meat wholesale, he said. The bill would require these businesses to be registered as domestic packing houses, and to come under the department’s meat inspectors.