WORK OF SESSION

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 235, 3 July 1939, Page 10

WORK OF SESSION

Business For Present Week

ADDRESS-IN-REPLY

Opposition No-Confidence Amendment Likely

With the opening formalities out of the way, legislators will be able to settle clown to business when the House of Representatives resumes tomorrow after the weekend adjournment. A preliminary spurt has already been given to the working part of the session by the Imprest Supply Bill debate, which occupied all of Thursday’s sitting and kept members in their seats till the early hours of Friday morning, but while the tactics of speakers on that occasion might be best described as sniping, the full-bodied barrage from both sides of the House will begin during the coming week.

Since the Address-in-Reply debate, which is to be inaugurated by. two new Government members, Air. Macfarlane (Christchurch South) and Air, Boswell (Bay of Islands), will not begin till tomorrow evening, the afternoon sitting is likely to be a short one, as only formal business is to be taken. After these two speeches the House will adjourn till the following afternoon, when the case for the Opposition will be presented by the Leader, Air. Hamilton. Though no actual decision has yet been made it is expected that he will take advantage of the opportunity to move a motion of no-confidence in the Government.

The points on which the expected amendment will be based are likely to include the general financial situation, import restriction, defence, the position of the farming community, and industrial unrest, as well as various other problems which are before the public at present. Such an amendment to the Address-in-Reply motion has of course no chance of being carried because of the largo and well disciplined majority the Government has in the House, but it will serve to focus public attention on these issues.

Opposition tactics for the debate have not yet been considered by the party as a whole. Air. Hamilton indicator! in an interview on Saturday that this would probably be done at a caucus to be held immediately after the House rose tomorrow following the speeches by the mover and seconder, and the exact form of any amendment would be determined then. In the early stages of the debate, speeches are likely to bo made alternatively from the Government and Opposition benches, but when the supply of Nationalist speakers is exhausted, the Government will require to double-up if it wishes to prolong the debate, which, in view of the absence from the Dominion of the Alinister of Finance, Air. Nash, it will probably be anxious to do. As for the legislative programme of the session, as briefly outlined in the Speech from the Throne, there is little that can be said about it at present. Little in the way of new legislation is promised; and none of any importance at all is likely to appear till after the completion of the Budget debate, which is still in the rather indefinite future.