Govt ‘showed contempt’

Press, 23 April 1983, Page 8

Govt ‘showed contempt’

PA Wellington The Government was accused of “negligence, incompetence, and fear” yesterday after its majority on a Parliamentary Select Committee refused to conduct an inquiry into the wage-price freeze regulations. The charge was made in Parliament by the Opposition’s deputy leader and spokesman on constitutional affairs, Mr G. W. R. Palmer, who said the Government had shown a contempt for Parliament. and tried to hamstring its processes. Mr Palmer said the reason given by the Government -members on the Statutes Revision Committee in refusing to examine the regulations was that it “involved Government policy.” “A more fatuous reason could not be found,” he said. Mr Palmer was speaking as the matter was reported back to the House from the committee. It had been re-' ferred by a number of Labour members soon after the’ freeze was imposed half-way through last year. The wage freeze was imposed on June 22. ... The regulations for the freeze were referred to he committee on July 15 by a letter from 14 Labour members under rules saying that committee could examine regulations when Parlia-

ment itself was not in session,

The House resumed after a recess on July 20. Reporting the matter back from the committee yesterday, the chairman, Mr D. M. J. Jones (Nat, Helensville) said that if the Opposition had been serious about the matter it would have written the letter “within days not weeks” of the imposition of the freeze. The primary forum for protecting the'rights of citizens was Parliament. A select committee was only the secondary place. Mr Jones said the wage-

price freeze was debated in Parliament on the day it resumed after the recess—" in this House, even before the Statutes Revision Committee could consider the request from the Opposit” He said he asserted therefor? Lt the rights of the citizens were “well and truly” protected. “The Opposition’s attempt on the Thursday before the House resumed was truly an example of an effort to turn an otherwise fairly bipartisan select committee into a circus for the benefit of the Federation of Labour

and the Combined State Unions.” Mr Jones said, „ , .. However, Mr Palmer said the committee had failed to ? nter into an inquiry which *t ,^ as obliged to conduct, “It was not done, and it was not done to save the Government; political embarrassment, Mr Palmer said - Mr Palmer accused Mr Jones of trying to draw a smokescreen over Government “negligence, incompetence, and fear of a proper independent inquiry by Parliament into what it has done.”