The Press FRIDAY, MAY 3, 1968. Nassella Tussock

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31669, 3 May 1968, Page 10

The Press FRIDAY, MAY 3, 1968. Nassella Tussock

On reading that 28 per cent of the North Canterbury Nassella Tussock Board’s grubbing staff left the job within a month, the city-dweller may well think that the country’s employed are not taking their plight very seriously. To be fair to the unemployed, grubbing nassella is a tough job. “ There are easier “ways of earning a living”, wrote one of our reporters in an article in 1966, “than grubbing “ nassella tussock during the summer ”. As the rest of his article—written after a week’s work with the North Canterbury Nassella Tussock Board —made clear, this was very much an understatement. Heat, blistered hands, monotony, and sheer physical exhaustion were the lot of the board’s workers, he found. This is work which calls for fit young men, not men from sedentary occupations. Yet it is scarcely more arduous than much of the work done every day of the week on farms, in contracting, and in a wide variety of unskilled or semi-skilled occupations. And most of the country’s unemployed men are unskilled or semi-skilled workers used to manual labour.

It is easy to say that such men “ ought ” to take work when it is offered to them, less easy to compel them to take it Even if this were practicable, it would not solve the board’s problems, which are now becoming critical. As the board’s experience in recent months has shown, reluctant workers are inefficient and expensive workers. To carry through its planned programme this year with New Zealand labour instead of with Fijian Indians would cost the board an extra $28,000. If the money is not found the work will not be done and farm production eventually will suffer. While some unemployment—even as little as 1 per cent of the male labour force—persists in New Zealand, there is no prospect of resuming the Indenture of Fijian Indians, however much the board and North Canterbury landowners might wish it They can make out a strong argument, however, for carrying through their original programme with New Zealand labour, and for passing the extra cost on to the Government Indeed, the Government might be asked to subsidise the employment of many more men on tussock-grubbing than at present. Larger gangs and a corresponding reduction in each worker’s pace of work would make the job less arduous, perhaps reducing the expensive labour turnover. An expenditure of perhaps $lOO,OOO by the Government this year would help to reduce unemployment; and it should make a significant contribution towards getting nassella tussock under control.