HUTT LABOUR OFFICE

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 213, 5 June 1931, Page 5

HUTT LABOUR OFFICE

Inadequate Facilities Despite several deputations from the Hutt Valley, the Minister of Labour (the Hon. 8. G. Smith) has not up to the present established a permanent labour bureau in the district which, besides its importance industrially, has a population of nearly 30,000 people. He has resisted the Hutt Valley claims on the grounds that because of its proximity, the district can well be served from Wellington. Th'e acuteness, however, of the unemployment situation in the Hutt Valley has led to the opening up of offices in Lower Hutt and Petone. So that it cannot be said that the Labour Department recognises anv liability for their formation, in terms of the Minister’s refusal to establish a labour bureau in the Hutt Valley, the offices are staffed each with two men who really belong to the Post and Telegraph Department. The office for Petone is situated in a little shed behind the borough council chambers. If it is small and lacking in most facilities for successful office work, it at least has the merit of being centrally located. Not so, however, of the Lower Hutt office. Housed in a building owned by the Lower Hutt Borough Council, it is situated in about as inconvenient a position as could be found. It is placed in Victoria Street midway between the Hutt bridge and the ramp leading on to Cuba Street, Petone. The walls are bare, furniture is a negligible quantity, there are no heating appliances, no telephone, and absolutely -no sanitary conveniences. If the officers are desirous of using a telephone they must go to a public box. Some of the public who have used that same telephone have complained that they have paid the fee of threepence for nothing for the telephone seems to be out of order. In an area that includes Lower Hutt borough, Belmont, Normandale, Waintn-o-Mata, Taita, and Stokes Valley, and where 653 men are registered as unemployed, one would think that a telephone is an absolute necessity. From the point of view of the unemployed also, the situation of the building is quite wrong. An office should be sought and provided in the heart of Lower Hutt. Apparently the present building has been secured because the Lower Hutt Borougn Council has given it free of cost.