RATES COMPARED

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 68, 21 March 1931, Page 14

RATES COMPARED

CIVIL SERVANTS' PAY

AUSTRALIA AND N.Z,

A statement by Mr. W. J. Poison (Independent, Stratford) in the course of the Finance Bill debate that the Civil servant in New Zealand was in a better position in respect to salary than the Civil servant in Australia was contradicted in the House of Eepresentatives early this morning by Mr. K. Semple (Labour, Wellington East). Keferring to telegraph messengers, Mr. Sernplo said that in New Zealand tho boys' commencing salary was £52 per annum. After i one year's service they could rise" to £65 per annum, at which salary they remained until they wero promoted. In Australia, boys at sixteen years of age began at £87 per annum; at eighteen years of age they got £ 109 per annum. , After three years' service the messengers in Australia received, in, the' aggregate, £105 more in salar: than.the messengers in New Zealand. In the Post and Telegraph ■ Department in New Zealand tho maximum salary for postmen, exchange clerks, post office messengers, and linesmen was £240 per annum. In Australia, postmen received £25tf, as against £240 in New Zealand. ■ Linesmen received £257 as' against £240 in New Zealand. In Australia all Commonwealth Public servants receiving a salary not exceeding £600 pe"r annum were granted an allowance of 5s per week for overy child under the age of fourteen years. This meant that a postman in Australia with four children under the age of fourteen years received £302 per annum, as against £240 received by the postman in New Zealand with equal family -responsibilities. Tho maximum salary for telegraphists in New Zealand is £295 per annum. In Australia the maximum salary for telegraphists was £348 per annum, a difference of £53 per annum. A telegraphist in Australia with ■ four children received £400 per annum, as against tho New Zealand telegraphist's £295, with four .children dependent on him, the difference being £105 annum. If the salaries of Commonwealth Public servants, which were fixed ■on an arbitration basis, were reduced by. 10 p.e_r cent., and the New Zealand salaries were not touched" at all, said Mr. Semple, the ■ Australians would still receive a higher wage than was paid in the Now Zealand service.