Report Insulting’, says Mr Minogue

Press, 16 February 1978, Page 1

Report Insulting’, says Mr Minogue

Wellington reporter Words passed between the Minister of Works (Mr W. L. Young) and the National member of Parliament for Hamilton West (Mr M. J. Minogue) at the National Roads Board meeting after Mr Minogue described a report presented to the board as “an insulting document.”

The document was the latest in a series of reports on the administration charge levied on the board for work done by the Ministry of Works and Development. This levy has been set at 7.5 per cent of gross reading expenditure, but the board has lobbied the Government to have this proportion reduced. A reduction has now been made, provisionally to 6.8 per cent to recover costs incurred in servicing the board, but the Government declined to abolish the charge altogether. The Government also said that the charge might be adjusted up or down in the light of a further review. Mr Young said the reduction was very satisfac-

tory, but Mr Minogue said the document was an insult, as the board was entitled to know the full costs on which the charges for administration were based but was just being "fobbed off” with a bald statement of what the percentage would be. "I want to know the full amount of cash involved in these charges as I bet with our increase in revenue this 6.8 per cent charge is worth more to the Ministry of Works than 7.5 per cent of our former revenue, and they will get this extra money without doing any more to earn it,” he said. “We are feeding the bureaucracy.” The Director of Reading (Mr F. A. Langbein) said the reduction in the charge showed that the Government believed that the board should pay its rea-

sonable share of costs and no more.

Mr Minogue said he agreed, but w'hat were "reasonable costs?” Without the details of costs the board w'as not in a position to satisfy its statutory obligation to oversee the spending of roading money. Mr Young said that to show dissatisfaction with the reduction would be to make it harder to obtain funds from the Government in future. Mr Minogue said he was not dissatisfied with the reduction, but he wanted to know the details in cash terms. He later dissented from a resolution thanking the Government for the reduction and deciding to keep the matter under review, saying that the resolution did not go far enough.