Board’s ‘usefulness outlived’

Press, 24 December 1980, Page 1

Board’s ‘usefulness outlived’

PA Wellington A Labour government would abolish the Marginal Lands Board and pass its “loan of last resort” functions to a special division of. the Rural Bank, said the Leader- of the Opposition (Mr Rowling) yesterday. Commenting on part two of the report of the Commission ;of * Inquiry into the Marginal Lands Board loan affair, Mr Rowling said the controversy over the affair had shown that the board had outlived its usefulness. “The Fitzgerald incident and the commission hearings have shown that this board is too open to Ministerial influence, that there are irregularities in its functions.

and that the statute itself is simply out of pace with modem administrative law,” Mr Rowling said. “As the Rural Bank has a proved record, and has built up'great credibility with the farming community, it seems obvious to us that the functions of last resort loans should be passed over to the bank” he said. - / It seemed, a . complete waste to have a special organisation dealing with loan money of about $4 million a year. • ' The man who prompted the Fitzgerald land loan inquiry, Mr Roly White, of Whakatane, said yesterday that he would be concerned if -the Government consid-

ered it ‘necessary to stop people speaking out on matters of public interest. Mr White had been asked to comment on a recommendation made by the commission which suggested that confidentiality provisions in the law be tightened, and said that if breached, this should be a ■criminal offence. Asked if such a provision would have made any difference to his own action in June, Mr White said it would have done. But • his actions had been intended to bring to the public a matter he had considered to be important. He had been acting in thfe public interest, Mr

White said, because public money was involved. “I would be very concerned if I thought the Government of the day considered it was essential to stop people speaking out on an issue of public interest, particularly where Ministers of the Crown were concerned.” Even so, Mr White said he still believed he would have made the matter public so that people knew what was happening. The Director-General of Lands and the deputy chairman of the board. Mr N. S. Coad, said he would take the commission’s

recommendations to the board at its next meeting in February and ask if it wanted to make recommendations of its own to the Government.

The board had itself, as he had told the commission, wanted some parts of its covering legislation clarified and, generally speaking, the commission’s recommendations were much in line with board thinking; However, Mr Coad said hn was not very happy about the recommendation that breaching confidentiality should be made a criminal offence: Commission’s report, Page 3. ..