Phone rental payment

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32430, 17 October 1970, Page 18

Phone rental payment

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, October 16. Labour Party members of Parliament today continued to press their case for Government payment of half the rental charges on telephones for meanstest beneficiaries. . The occasion for their claims was the resumed debate on the introduction of the Social Security Amendment Bill, a private measure sponsored by Mr B. G. Bare-

lay (Lab., Christchurch Central). The bill calls on the Government to pay installation costs and half the rental on beneficaries’ telephones. Mr T. M. McGuigan (Lab., Lyttelton) said a telephone gave security in times of anxiety, company in times of loneliness, and brought tradesmen and medical attention much nearer the pensioner.

Mr T. F. Gill (Nat., Waitemata) said it was Government policy to give assistance with telephone rentals, where necessary, under the supplementary assistance scheme for beneficiaries.

But Mr N. J. King (Lab., Birkenhead) said the beneficiary should have a telephone as of right. Mrs E. I. Tombleson (Nat., Gisborne) said she was very much in sympathy with the principles of the bill and in fact had spoken in favour of more generous assistance. But she opposed piecemeal legislation. The bill would discriminate against beneficaries without telephones and did not want them. Mrs Tombleson said that the Royal Commission on Social Security was still sitting. She believed that when its evidence was brought forward it would be of benefit to all beneficiaries.

Mrs E. E. McMillan (Lab., Dunedin North) said the Government had no real sympathy for beneficiaries and was “doing the pensioners over.”

Supplementary assistance was not being used as supplementary—but was being used to subsidise beneficiaries and to curtail their justifiable right—a reasonable benefit which increased to meet rising costs. More than 13,000 recipients of supplementary assistance had last year been granted renewals of the grant, she said.

In reply, Mr Barclay appealed to the Government to support the Bill. The telephone was often the only lifeline to the outside world for means test beneficiaries. He attacked Government speakers for saying that there was justification for the measure but who then said they could not support the bill. ! The bill was introduced and! given a first reading. I