AMENDING LEGISLATION

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 32, 7 August 1923, Page 10

AMENDING LEGISLATION

BILL BEFORE THE HO'^SE

PROVISIONS DISCUSSED AT

LENGTH.

The 'War Pensions Amendment Bill was the only measure dealt with in the House of Representatives yesterday, the discussion upon the second reading occupying all' the evening, and running into the parly morning. The.Minister of Defence (the Hon. Sir R. Heaton Rhodes) pointed out that the existing pensions were more liberal end generous than the scales in operation anywhere else in the Empire. But as time went on it was natural that the necessity for changes in the scheme should arise. The pensions scheme had twice been reviewed, and the present measure was a further effort to liberalise the scale of compensation for. war injuries. The Bill gave effect to nearly all the recommendations contained in the report of the War Pensions Commission, and lie hoped it would satisfy the members of the House, as he was informed it satisfied the returned soldiers.

A Labour member: "Very few of them."

.The Minister said he could not satisfy everyone. In respect to the recommendation that applicants should have the right of appeal before a Judge of the /Supreme Court and medical specialists, he pointed out that, the Judges were already considered to be- overworked. He gave an assurance that the president of the board would be a person who would be acceptable to the Returned Soldiers' Association. In support of Jjis contention that the Government was providing well for disabled ex-service men, he quoted figures showing the number of temporary pensioners who had .been healed of their injuries, and the number _ who had applied for "enewals of-pension after the prescribed period. (Juite'a number of soldiers had not i't'd tbe necessity to apply for renewals. It Was: the-desire of the Government to iiake as liberal a scale 'as was consistent with justice and the finance of the country. In the course of a brief review of'the provisions of the Bill, he stated tnat in no cases would existing pensions lie reduced. In moving the second reading of the Bill, he submitted that the Government was earnestly, striving to improve the previous legislation, and expressed the hope that it -would give Satisfaction. AN ADVANCE STEP. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. T. Al; Wilford) congratulated the R.S.A. upon having obtained a commission, and upon the success it had achieved in securing the present Bill, which certainly represented some advance on the existing legislation. Dealing with, the appeal .question, he said that the Bill imposed certain limitations upon the right to have decisions reviewed. While he welcomed ■the right of appeal, he thought the Government might have provided for a gensral appeal. He would sooner open the iopt to all than to shut out those who might think they had no chance of success, and whose cases might not be frivolous. He thought the door should be left open to all, appeal being allowed on all grounds. Discussing the difficult question,.*vdf aSttvbijtability. to war. causes, he advised the Government to lay it down that if a man was free of disease before going to the war and returned suffering from a certain disease, his trouble should be considered attributable to service. He did not think a sufficient allowance had been- made in respect of the children of widowed mothers, and urged that the amount prescribed for each child above one should be increased. It was iniquitous to suggest that because a soldier was dot, in the opinion of the board, well enough to marry,- his wife should not be eligible for a pension after his 4eath. Speaking generally, he said he hoped the' IBiil would be successful, for it certainly \nade an advance upon the present legislation. He would heartily support the £econd reading of the measure, reserving /the right to draw attention to certain alterations he considered necessary until the Committee stage. The Bill would not solve the pensions problem, however, As disability -was a recurring trouble. He fwould like to see added to the Bill a [provision giving general-discretion to the Minister in dealing with matters that plight arise in the future. LITTLE more THAN A WRIGGLE. Mr J. A. Lea (Auckland East) conjessed to a feeling of disappointment (with the Bill It was little more than a : wriggle. A s time went by a lot of the clauses would be found to be practically useless. Indeed, many of the provisions could have been made by the jpenssons authorities under the existing legislation. He criticised the proposal (to. give discretionary powers to the Pensions Board, and maintained that war pensions should be paid on definite prescriptions according to the nature of the jHrjnry or disability. He characterised ithe proposals in the Bill as being in the mature of charitable doles, and it was evident the Government was trying to tiodge and shirk its responsibilities aUr. bneaker: "I am afraid the hon. member is not in order in usine such words." ■Jilr. Lee withdrew the expression, and said the Government was avoiding ate fair responsibility to the disabled men ihe Bill was a piece of political window dressing, and the Government iwas attempting to wriggle out of making just and equitable payments. In the matter of R.S.A. representation on the Pensions Board, it appeared as if the dice was being loaded i,, favour of the , Government, and he thought the asso- ' ciation should have the rish't to appoint its-own representative. The Bill should jjay down mandatory provisions instead of discretionary powers. He ventured to pay that when the Taxation Bill came icown it would confer no such discretionary powers, and that the Commissionjer would be told that in certain cases jne- must reduce taxation. The Prime Minister: "Oh, no." "NOT .VERY ENCOURAGING." The Hon. W. Downie Stewart expressed surprise at the criticism of the Ipreyioiis speaker, and quoted figures in refutation of some of his arguments. He jpointed _ out that the majority of the clauses in the Bill had been inserted on the' recommendations of the Pensions Commission, after full investigation of the facts and consideration of the evidence. He quoted at length from the report of the Commission to chow that the Government had dealt almost entirely in accordance with the Commis-' siori's suggestions, and said that 6uch remarks of censure as had been used were not; very encouraging. Discussing the question of attributaCility, he said that if pensions were granted indiscriminately the: Pensions" Board would become discouraged. He thought the Bill would operate in the interests of the soldiers.

Mr. \V. A. 'Veitch (Wanganui) said that if it did it would do good. Everything depended udou now the Act was administered. He did not agree with the proposed constitution of the Pensions Board, and etronjrly nr?ed the Minister to eiv e the Keturned Soldiers' Association the riprht to appoint its own representative. He pointed out that

while the Minister boasted that the proposals involved concessions of the value of £80,000, the war pensions expenditure had been reduced within tho last two years by £397,560, so that the exservice men were to get back a very small portion of that reduction. The greatest weakness he saw in the Bill was the fact that economic pensions were to be entirely supplementary. The greatest sufferers were not those with insufficient pension, but those who received no pension at all through their inability to come under the provisions of the Act. The clause in the Bill which allowed the Appeal Board to consider the extent to which a man's disability was aggravated by war service was not wide enough, and he urged that the law in that respect should be made more elastic. The greatest need was for a fair compromise as between the two extremes. There was too great a tendency on the part of the Government to throw its responsibility towards returned men upon hospital boards and other public bodies. While he admitted the Bill improved conditions, it had its limitations, and he thought it might be amended, civing greater discretionary power to the Pensions Board in determining attributability.

WIDER DISCRETIONARY POWER.

Mr. It. A. Wright (Wellington Suburbs) pointed' out that the 6teinest critic of the measure was the member for Auckland East, himself a returned soldier, who he thought had not given the Bill sufficiently careful consideration. Personally, he had always found the board sympathetic to the claims of the applicants, and that where it failed itdid so because of the limitations imposed upon it by the Act. One benefit .conferred by the Bill was that it gave assistance to the man who was physically unable to obtain emploj'ment. This removed one of the blots upon the present legislation. He thought it would be dangerous to prescribe mandatory powers, and submitted that in order that cases might be dealt with on their merits the board should have discretionary powers. In regard to the penalty for misconduct, he pointed out that if a business man committed an offence he was liable to lose his position as well as be fined by the Court. Still, he admitted that the returned soldier perhaps came into another category. Hei urged that a clause should be inserted in the Bill giving the board the opportunity to deal as liberally as possible in cases of attributability. The soldier should be given the benefit of the doubt, and to that end the board should have the very widest discretionary power. He was willing to leave it in the hands of the j board, also, to make the decision in respect to death-bed marriages. In conclusion, he congratulated the Minister upon bringing down such a measure. UNSYMPATHETIC ADMINISTRATION. Mr. H. E. Holland (Buller) said thatthe furnishing of a return would show whether or not the administration of the Act had been sympathetic or not. He knew that it had not been administered as sympathetically as it might have been. The speaker did not think a pension should be. stopped where a man was otherwise punished for breaches of the law. It had always been recognised as bad to punish a man twice for the same offence. The man had won his pension on the field, and it should run on apart from any other punishment. Mr. Holland said he knew of a case where a man who snffered shellshock at the war took to' drink on his return, and afterwards committed suicide. That man's widow and four children were -refused a. pension because; it was ' saicl'"'tKa't fhV husband's death had not been due to war disability. The speaker claimed that it was, and that the refusal to grant a pension was an evidence of unsympathetic administration of the Act. A clause which would need close attention was that which provided that the amount of wages earned be deducted from the pension. He agreed that a pension should be granted as a right. The returned soldiers should have the right of electing their representatives direct to the Appeal Board. That principle operated in the case of the Railwaymen's Appeal Board. Mr. A. R. Harris (Waitemata) felt disappointed that nothing was proposed to deal with war attributability. He would have preferred to see set up an Appeal Board which was not composed of medical men, because medical men could not look at matters from the layman's standpoint. A medical man could be called in if desired. If it was good enough to take a man to the war. then he should be given a pension if a pre-war disability became more acute as the result of his war service. Mr. Harris considered that men with "V.D. should be granted sympathetic treatment, as their trouble was due to war service, and no one could say otherwise. Had these, men not gone to the war they would not have got into such a condition. BETTER TO'BE OVER-GENEROUS. Mr. L. M. Isitt (Christchurch North) said he had listened with intense interest and a great deal of anxiety to the statements made in the debate. Mr. Lee had spoilt the claim he had made on behalf of his soldier comrades by imputing callous, brutal motives to other members in the House. There was no one who did not desire to do tha ntmost for those who deserved the lasting consideration of the country. The Government might with safety leave it to the R.S.A. to nominate its representatives on.the Appeal Board. He felt that men who broke down after being discharged as fit should be given pen" sions. The Government should err on the side of over-generosity and not be parsimonious in its treatment of the soldiers. Mr. F. F. Hockly (RUorua) wanted to know whether Mr. Lee was speaking ex cathedra in his criticism of the Bill. The returned soldiers would not thank Mr. Lee for what he had said, because the majority of the men were in favour of the Bill. His experience had been that the Act was sympathetically administered. At the same time, there were cases where men were suffering because of war disability, but yet were receiving no pension because their medical history sheets did not show that the war was responsible for their ailments. In such cases greater discretion might be given to the Pensions Board. A STONE INSTEAD OF HELP. Mr. F. Langston (Waimarino) did not think the Bill much of an improvement on the 1917 Act. Those on tho Labour benches did not think the Act would be administered any more sympathetically than in the past. Surely the country could afford to be more generous to the soldier pensioners, who instead of getting more help were getting a stone. On the other hand, concessions were granted freely to vested interests. Sir John Luke (Wellington North) considered that everyone entitled to a pension should get it. He spoke favourably of the report of the Commission. "I would like to be. as enthusiastic as the member for Rotorua," said Sir John Luke, "but I am sorry to say that I cannot, because I know of case's where there lias not been sympathetic consideration." Over £6,000,000 Ir.ul been subscribed for patriotic purposes, and that was an evidence that the pcoplo were not going to be parsimonious with the soldiers.

The Hon. D. Buddo (Kaiapoi), discussing the constitution of the Appeal

Board, said lie would move an amendment when the Bill was in Committee giving the R.S.A. the right to directly appoint a medical practitioner. The power of the appeal board,'he thought, should be absolutely unlimited, and he therefore thought the provisions in the Bill should be widened. The economic clauso should be eliminated from the Bill, and all-round increases in pensions should be granted. He felt sure the people of the country would support allround increases. as the reward for war service and physical disabilities. Ho had no doubt the Government had had good intentions, but they were not in the Bill, and he confessed to disappointment with its contents.

Mr. K. S. Williams (Bays of Plenty) said he would like to know how far disabled returned men were to have their pensions reduced according to their income; also as to what was provided for nurses who went to the war. who, he thought; should receive some recognition. Mr. W. E. Parry (Auckland Central) upheld the arguments of tho member for Auckland East, and said that consideration should be given to the fact that for three years he had been a member of the executive of the Auckland R.S.A. As pointed out by the member for Auckland East, there was little in tho Bill that was not provided in the present law. Mr. Massey: "Well, are you satisfied with it?" Mr. Lee: "The old Act was never used." Mr. Parry said that if the present legislation had been administered there would have been no need for the Bill, and he justified Mr. Lee's criticism on that ground. Mr. J. Edie (Clutha) said that if any defects were found in the Bill as it stood they could be rectified by amendment next session. The main thing was to get the thing started. They could improve upon it later on. He advocated greater elasticity to the powers of the Pensions Board. Mr. S. J. Smith (Taranaki) said that in view of the claims of the R.S.A., he hoped the Government would see its way to give effect to the recommendations of the Commission, in respect to widows who did not come under the present Act, and also in respect to widows who were at present rendered ineligible by marriage. He also urged further assistance for Maori War veterans. Mr. G. .M'Kay (Hawkes Bay) did not think that the State should relinquish any of its responsibility in regard to the men who had been accepted for war service. ' The R.S.A. should have the right to elect a representative to the Appeal Board. MINISTER IN REPLY. In reply, the Minister quoted figures to show the extent of the-increases which were proposed in the Bill. There were innumerable dSJiculties in respect to the question of attributability, and ho did not know how these - could all be overcome. The New Zealand pension figures compared very favourably with those of other countries. He maintained .that .the Act had been sympathetically, administered. A soldier who was in prison did not lose his pension, which was paid to his wife and children all the while, and it was reinstated when he came out. That was more than was done for civilians.

The Bill was read a second time, and at 12.40 a.m. the House rose until 2.30 p.m. to-day.