The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1939. AN URGENT REFORM RE-EMPHASIZED

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 258, 29 July 1939, Page 10

The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1939. AN URGENT REFORM RE-EMPHASIZED

It is a matter for surprise and disappointment that the Government seems to be quite indifferent to the constant appeals from all over the country for reform in the system of hospital rating. Year after year, since the present Government came into office, demands upon the ratepayers through the local bodies for hospital levies have shown heavy increases. In March last the extra call on the contributory local bodies in the Wellington Hospital rating area totalled in round figures the sum of £43,000, an increase of 38.2 per cent, on the demand of the previous year, and a fair indication of the experience of other hospital districts. These demands evoked widespread protests, especially in the rural areas, where the farming industries are having a hard fight against soaring costs in every direction. Yet there is. no. sign from the Government that the injustice of the position is appreciated. On the contrary, the Minister of Health informed the New Zealand Counties’ Association Conference on Thursday that the Government has no intention of introducing legislation to change the present system. There«was some very plain speaking on the subject at the opening session of the conference on Wednesday. Mr. C. J. Talbot, the president, dealt very fully with the matter in his opening address, and the conference resolved that the whole basis oi hospital rating should e reviewed. The points made by the president have been stressed repeatedly in previous discussions by local bodies, but one mdividua instance cited by Mr. Talbot emphasizes the seriousness of the impact of the steep rise in hospital levies upon the fanning industries. In this case a Taranaki fanner, who paid £3/16/11 in hospital rates in 1938, was called upon to pay £5/8/3 this year, an increase of 40 per cent in one year. “To the 80,000 fanners dotted all over the Dominion,” added the speaker, “the aggregate increase m hospital rates must have amounted to a considerable sum.” As Mr. J. N. Massey, M.P., who represents a rural constituency, emphasized in Parliament last week, hospital rating is becoming “an intolerable burden” on the community. In his own county rate charges had increased from £32,000 in 1932 to £49,000 in the present financial year. It was necessary, he urged, to study the ability of the ratepayei to pay- . .... ■ All over the country hospital boards are going in tor building extensions to meet the extra demands for accommodation arising from the free services under the Social Security Act. Every hospital board without exception reports a steep rise in administrative costs resulting from the Government’s policy and legislation. This steadily mounting expenditure is accompanied by annual heavy increases in the hospital levies. “It is the burning hot question of the day among all county councils,” said the president of the Counties Association. . And it is a burning hot topic among the urban local bodies, too. It is not only that the burden is becoming irksome through the increasing drain upon the income of the ratepayer, but it is also the injustice of the system that is resented. The Government subsidy to the hospitals comes from the taxpayer; as a ratepayer he is asked to pay again; and as a contributor to the Social Security Fund he pays a third time. This is taxation with a vengeance. No Government with a due sense of its responsibilities could go on ignoring these constant appeals for a more equitable system of financing the public hospital services. The Counties’ Association has suggested that a Royal Commission on the system of local government might have this question included in its order of reference. But the facts do not need investigation. They are known, and conspicuously plain. The injustice and inequity of the position is beyond question. There is ample material in evidence before the Government to make the strongest possible case for reform—reform long overdue, and now urgent and imperative.