Mr Kirk Calls Bill ‘Applied Madness’

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31775, 4 September 1968, Page 26

Mr Kirk Calls Bill ‘Applied Madness’

(New Zealand Press Association! WELLINGTON, September 3. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk) today attacked proposed legislation which would extend the powers of county councils.

He said it was “applied madness” to legislate for a multiplicity of functions already carried out by Government departments and local bodies.

Speaking during the introduction of the Counties Amendment Bill, Mr Kirk said that the bill provided for a local body to licence as a boarding house residential institutions with more than five occupants.

This would include old people's hostels that were already licensed by the local authority and the Health Department, and would now have to be licensed as boarding houses as well. Such a step would mean the employment of more inspectors to see that such establishments had licences and all the paraphernalia that went with this.

“All this nonsense has to be supported by the ratepayers who are already scratching their heads and wondering where this year’s rates are coming from,” Mr Kirk said. ”One Enough” “Let us licence private nursing homes by all means.

but surely one licence is enough,” he said. Mr Kirk criticised other clauses in the bill, particularly one providing penalties for causing damage to roads by oil and other liquids. A landowner could innocently drain stormwater off his land on to the side of a road, but in a storm such as on April 10, substantial damage could be done to the road. In this case the owner might receive a bill for several thousand dollars. “It is a sweeping power to impose on a local authority,” Mr Kirk said. "I protest at the willingness which the Government always seems to have towards allowing more and more power to be given to local authorities.” The Acting Minister of In-

ternal Affairs (Mr AdamsSchneider) said the key to this clause was the reference to “wilful or negligent” action.

Other Labour speakers, Mr N. V. Douglas (Auckland Central) and Mr M. Rata (Northern Maori) also opposed the bill because it imposed more “unnecessary controls” on the personal liberties of the individual. Mr Adams-Schneider said the matters raised would be examined “very thoroughly" by the Local Bills Committee but he doubted if the opposition from the Labour Party would be carried through to cause amendments to the bill. County Boroughs Under the bill, county boroughs—a new form of local government—may be constituted from any county town or borough merged with a county, but the area involved must have a minimum population of 1500. A county borough would become a county riding, as of right and would exercise the powers and duties of a county council, with some exceptions, such as rating and borrowing. A county borough council would have the right to advise the county council in matters over which it had no direct power. The legislation provides for each county borough council to have a chairman elected by the county borough council who would, by virtue of his office, be a riding member of the parent county council. County borough councils would be elected in the same way as municipal councils. The bill was given a second reading pro forma and referred to the Local Bills Committee.