PARTY LEADERS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 123, 20 November 1935, Page 12

PARTY LEADERS

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

ATTACK AND REPLY

(Special to tho "Evening Post.") GORE, This Day. The controversy between the Leader of the Democrat Party (Mr. T. C. A. Hislop) and members of: the Government regarding the position of the public accounts was advanced a stage further yesterday when the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes), speaking in the South Otago district, made a spirited reply to Mr. Hislop's attack on the Government. "The Democrat Leader comes forward as a champion of honesty, but carefully omits reference to a paragraph where the Auditor-General pointed out that he did not raise any question as to the correctness of the accounts," said the Prime Minister. "He should have presented the full statement of the Auditor-General. I suppose he feels it good political tactics. Well, he is new to the game, but I think as time goes on he will find there is a standard to live up to, and when it comes to impugning the honesty of the Government or a member of Parliament, unless he can produce actual evidence, those innuendoes recoil on the person who makes them." Mr. Forbes said he had seen in the newspapers Mr. Hislop's criticism about the accounts based on remarks of the Auditor-General, and also the Democrat Leader's statement that in the accounts there had been revealed gross mismanagement, misappropriation, and all that sort of thing. That showed how men in a political fight sometimes used statements in a not too scrupulous or fair way. ALL CORRECT. "Mr. Hislop picked out some comment of the Auditor-General, but did not say that the report raised no objection whatever to the actual accounts, and that he said the transactions were all correct," said Mr. Forbes. It was on the form in which they were presented, not on the items, that the Auditor-General based his complaints. This argument has been going on .between the Audit Department and the Treasury for a long time. Audit says the way the accounts are presented is not right. The Treasury says they were presented in accordance with the best accountancy practice and along the same lines as adopted by the British Treasury. The Prime Minister said Mr. Hislop picked out some comments of the Auditor-General and construed them as indicating misappropriation, juggling of accounts, etc. He was trying to create in the public mind some suspicion of dishonesty about the handling of the accounts. Any candidate taking up that attitude did a disservice, for all the public accounts were handled by responsible Treasury officials and audited by the Audit Department, who said they were in order. Their complaint was only with the method of presentation, he repeated. POLITICAL HEAPS. "We submitted the question to the Public Accounts Committee," Mr. Forbes said. "They said as far as they could see the arguments on both sides were so reasonable, and the matter so highly technical, that they thought it was fifty-fiity, and made no recommendation. Then Mr. Hislop all of a sudden, after nosing over discarded political heaps, tries to raise a question about dishonesty. In my 27 years in Parliament Ido not know one single instance where any member in any way brought himself under a charge of using his position for personal advantage. You need have no concern about whether matters of administration are dealt with fairly and honestly by the State or public authorities. Some other countries would like to have that record, and it is a great thing that New Zealanders are able to say that from the highest seats of justice to the smallest public body they get honest administration. Mr. Hislop's action amounts to slandering public men, and when a party leader takes tip that attitude you know just what strength his party has."