Same question put to 17 Ministers

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32702, 3 September 1971, Page 1

Same question put to 17 Ministers

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, September 2. The Opposition member for Palmerston North (Mr J. A. Walding) has taken the unusual step of submitting the same question to all 17 members of the Cabinet.

His written question, due for reply on September 8, concerns Ministerial powers to recommend or make appointments and is directed separately to every minister, except the Prime Minister (Sir Keith Holyoake) and the Associate Minister of Finance (Mr Pickering). The question asks each Minister to what organisations his portfolios give him power to recommend or make appointments; how many recommendations or appointments he is entitled to make to each of these organisations; how many appointments other than civil servants had been made to each

of these organisations; and what payments had been made by each of these organisations to the persons recommended or appointed by the Minister for their services for the year to March 31, 1971. Mr Walding said in an interview this afternoon that his series of questions was designed to find the extent of the power of appointees in i administration, how much of Parliament’s delegated i authority was controlled by : Government nominees, and the expense involved in some i of these cases. i He thought the expense • would be "much larger than I people may think,” and he i added that the answers would

enable comparisons between the financial returns for various appointments, and their relative values. The information he was seeking was not available elsewhere, he said, and it would be interesting to see how much of delegated authority lay outside the civil service.