THE WEEK IN THE HOUSE Some progress, without party bickering

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33929, 23 August 1975, Page 2

THE WEEK IN THE HOUSE Some progress, without party bickering

(From CEDRIC MENTIPLAY, our Parliamentarg reporter)

WELLINGTON, August 22.

This week has been one of some progress, happily uninhibited by party bickering — but there is no assurance that the final two months of this session of Parliament will be similarly endowed.

Government measures continue to arrive, all apparently to be passed into the Statute Book before the House rises for the General Election campaign. How this

may be accomplished, in the face of a small but lively Opposition which seems determined to make every point it can, is difficult to determine.

The week’s highlight was the arrival of four Government bills which could change New Zealand’s drinking habits, and which could also destroy the increasingly delicate balance existing between the liquor trust system and the licensing trade in general. Apart from the embattled subject of the lowering of the drinking age, these measures restrict the operation of the Licensing Control Commission, set up a dual control of the various kinds of trusts, and apparently inhibit the right of citizens to protest against such matters as the siting of taverns, bottle-stores, and “small community drinking lounges.”

Time running out The bills will be examined by the Statutes Revision Committee; but time must already be running out for this heavily committed body, which cannot sit during the hours of Parliament, and which now has no fewer than 14 important general measures before it, including two introduced during the 1974 session. This week, two of the four sitting days were devoted to the discussion of Estimates. This, it seems, will be the pattern until the main Estimates are concluded. It would seem that the Appropriation Bill discussion (on the main Estimates) will not be completed before the last week in September, after which the House is likely to have a brisk debate on the Supplementary Estimates.

The main concern at present, however, relates to the number of measures on the Order Paper, and the amount of time taken to discuss them. On Wednesday l

evening, the Prime Minister (Mr Rowling) took urgency on six measures so that some progress could be made. As a result, the Huse sat until 11.12 p.m. — only 42 minutes past the usual time. Among the measures which passed their third reading, and so moved into the Statute Book, was the Education Amendment (No. 5) Bill, which was one of those left on the Order Paper when Parliament rose last November at the end of the 1974 session.

It was said last year that these would be considered by Select Committees during the Christmas, 1974, recess,

where necessary, and would be. available to be proceeded with when Parliament resumed early in 1975. The Order Paper is still stippled with them; and they could become a factor in any “sik o’clock swill” which may inhibit the rising of the House this year. . High on the Order Paper are four such measures: the Penal Institutions Amendment Bill, the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Bill, the Historic Places Amendment Bill, and the Antiquities Bill. All these have some elements of urgency, and might have been expected to have been in the Statute Book some months ago.