THE PRESS FRIDAY, MAY 29, 1961. Proposals before Parliament

Press, 29 May 1981, Page 16

THE PRESS FRIDAY, MAY 29, 1961. Proposals before Parliament

If the Government has surprises to bring before Parliament, to cheer the community in an election year, they are being saved for the Budget in about a month’s time. The Speech from the Throne delivered at the opening of Parliament yesterday by the Governor-General, Sir David Beattie, outlined a legislative programme which offered little consolation to a country beset by. economic uncertainties. Acknowledgement is being paid to areas of special concern — unemployment, inflation, promotion of exports, more jobs for young people, and especially for young Maoris, and the rapid development of New Zealand’s energy resources. To state the intentions is worthy enough. The Government has yet to indicate, that it has an over-all plan which holds the promise of rapid improvement. Most people, can see evidence of the pieces of a strategy; combining the pieces into a picture of development is not so easy. The community might be at fault in believing such a succinct or coherent plan is possible or desirable. Yesterday’s speech suggested that the Government’s intention remains that of encouraging efficient private sectors of the economy to develop natural resources and find new products to export, and new markets in which to sell. The intention to leave private initiative and enterprise to remedy the economic malaise is sensible. Success will be, best assured if the Government uses its resources to provide the conditions which make it possible for individuals and businesses to work more effectively. Restraints on the proliferation of bureaucratic direction and control, and tax concessions to increase the rewards of effort and initiative, still await recognition in legislation. . . Improvement of the country’s transport system has been described as an essential component of national and regional development. Yesterday’s speech *ave an' undertaking that the Railways Department would be changed to a corporation. In itself this might do little to improve the performance of the railways. However, a corporation should be better placed than the department to make clear to the community the costs, of the services. it offers.

If a Railways Corporation is required to provide services for social or political reasons, even though it loses money in the process, it should be able to demonstrate how the loss is being subsidised from other, profitable services. Alternatively, it will have to ask taxpayers, .through the Government, to meet the loss.

Some sections of the community are going to welcome confirmation. that the Official Secrets Act is to be repealed and that new legislation dealing with access to Government information is. proposed. Balancing the right of individual privacy against the right of the community to know what its “public servants” are up to is not going to be as easy as some advocates of reform have supposed. Probably more information is available now, at "least in theory, than many people realise.

Improvements in access to information need to be designed to help individuals rather than the news media, even though some sections of the media, at times, have been especially vigorous in seeking reform. The media seek information on behalf of the individuals making up the community. If it turns out that many more individuals require more information from departmental files, departments may. have to employ more staff to meet the demands. Perhaps that is a small price to pay for a greater assurance that the State is not hiding its activities. Yet providing more staff to answer public questions will be one more constraint on the Government's intention, also expressed yesterday, to “keep a tight rein on expenditure.”

When State expenditure in almost all sectors of public spending is increasing faster' than the rate of inflation, the Government has an obligation to those who pay the bills to examine with special care any proposals which will add to expenditure. The community, for its part, has to recognise yet again that to insist that the State provide some new service is to insist that taxation be further increased. Tax cuts must mean the State will do less for its citizens. Neither the Government nor the community has so far indicated where significant cuts in the State’s services would be acceptable.