PRICE-FIXING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 125, 23 November 1938, Page 11

PRICE-FIXING

N.S.W. PLAN

DOMINION SYSTEM REJECTED

(From "The Post's" Representative.) ' SYDNEY, November 18.

The New South Wales Cabinet, rejecting, on the advice o£ a special investigator, the New Zealand system, of price-fixing, has decided to constitute the Industrial Tribunal to investigate all prices and charges. A new Judge will be appointed to the Commission to cope with the work, and it is expected that he will foe the special investigator in New Zealand, Mr. John Spence, the State's Auditor-General.

Mr. Spence, in his report on the New Zealand system, said that it had involved considerable expense in administration and the exercise of inquisitorial powers of investigation, which, although accepted by the commercial community in a spirit of resignation, was, in principle, strongly resented. The New Zealand experiment had extended beyond measures to protect the consumer against high prices t6 an attempt to control and rationalise industry by licensing and supervision by the Bureau of Industry. Contrasted with the determination of ♦wages by a judicial authority, the administrative control of prices and industry through a Government Department could not be altogether free from the suspicion of political influence.

Mr. Spence said that, with the exception of the provisions of the Industrial Arbitration Act, which empowered the Industrial Commission to report on the prices of commodities, and, whether or not monopolies or trade rings existed unfairly to keep up commodity prices, there was general legislative-machinery to enable the Government to,investigate or fix prices or, without legislation, to give effect to the Commission's recommendations.

Amending legislation, to implement the proposal will be introduced in the Legislative Assembly early next month. It will provide legislation to clothe the Commission with appropriate additional powers, amend exising statutes relating to investigation and pricefixing of bread, metals, bricks, and cement products, and transfer those functions to the Industrial Commission, and enable the Commission to review the question of prices and charges closely affecting the public, dealing first with rents, building materials, and foodstuffs.

The specific powers to be conferred on the Industrial Commission as regards regulation of prices have not been disclosed. At present the Commission's powers are limited to investigating the influence of monopolies and trade rings.