HOSPITAL LEVIES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 35, 10 August 1927, Page 14

HOSPITAL LEVIES

CAPITAL VALUE RATING

NATIVE LAND DIFFICULTY

Eeference was made by the Ministor of Health (the Hon. J. A. Young) in the House of Representatives yesterday to tho question of hospital levies and subsidies, which has. been' the subject of discussion of late.

The moneys which a hospital boaid required to levy against local authorities, said the Minister, were allocated throughout the hospital district over the several local bodies within the district in proportion to the capital value of the rateable land within those local bodies' districts. It had been found that while land which appeared on the valuation roll was rateable in theory, in practice a local authority was unable.to collect.rates. This applied more particularly to some of the counties in which there were large areas of Maori lands. It did seem unfair that the Europeans settlers should have' to carry the burden because the Native land; did not bear' any share.

Mr. D. Jones (Ellesmere): "Why should land be liable and income escape for hospital rates?" "That is another story," replied Mr. Young. The proposal referred to by Mr. Jones was novel, it had only recently been put forth, and the speaker did not think that it-would be practicable. The principle in operation in this country was that wealth paid on the capital value. The present system did not originate in 1909 as some supposed,' but in the first Hospitals Act of 1885; There were anomalies under most systems of taxation, and' there were some in the present system of hospital levies, but people who proposed remedies should be certain that these would not contain elements of inequality and hardship greater than the anomalies in the system which they proposed to change. The Hospitals Commission had not recommended that the present system should be altered, neither had the Department, and the Commissioner of Taxes in 1923 had reported in its favour.

The Department did not recommend the system of basing the levies partly on population and capital valuation, the Hospitals Association and the Commissioner of Taxes had opposed it. and the Hospitals Commission did not recommend it, but the matter of levies was not a specific order of reference for the Commissioner. It seemed to him that it> was very' debateable to suggest deviating from the present system. ■ ■

With regard to the medical treatment of Maoris, the Minister said that last year the expenditure by the Health Department under this head was £14,691. The Department practically undertook the outdoor treatment of Maoris, leaving the institutional treatment to the boards. He agreed that Maoris able to pay for hospital treatment should do so. In regard to rating of Maori lands, the position was that under the. Act passed last; year a local authority in a district • where there was Native land Could, if it was satisfied that it could not collect rates from the Natives, apply for authority to exclude the Native lands from the district rate roll. Instead of the whole liability for the Native rates being borne by a few Europeans in the local district, it would then be spread over the whole' of the hospital' district.

Dealing with subsidies, the Minister said that there would be an increase this year. The gross estimated maintenance requirements of boards this year would be £145,000 more than for last year. Half of the money would have to come from the Consolidated Eevenue, and the other half from the local bodies. In regard to capital expenditure, the Minister said that the Department and he had urged the boards to economise, and this year they had put off expenditure on new buildings to the extent of £250,000 (Hear, hear.) -.-.•■