HOSPITAL RATING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 11, 13 July 1939, Page 10

HOSPITAL RATING

GROWING BURDEN

FARMERS SEEK A CHANGE

SOCIAL SECURITY

FUND

The burden of hospital rating on rural communities was discussed at the ; annual conference of the New Zealand ! Farmers' Union today, and the following remit was adopted unanimously:— That this conference urges that the , present inequitable system of hospiI tal rating placing as it does an everi increasing and unbearable burden | of rates on the farming community L without regard to ability to pay, I should be abolished and the whole j cost be met from the Social Security j Fund. ! Mr. H. E. Blyde (Taranaki) said the rural ratepayer paid more than the urban ratepayer towards the upkeep of hospitals. Today urban ratepayers were joining rural ratepayers in objecting to the burden of hospital rating, and their strength was greater , than ever. The time had arrived when the burden of maintaining hospitals should be borne on a national basis | and not on a district or class basis. j They might just as well bo specially! i rated for the building an i maintenance

of schools as for the building and maintenance of hospitals.

NATIVE RATES

Mr. H. K. Hatrick (Auckland), pointed out that unpaid Native rates were an added burden. An. Auckland remit advocated derating. Many Maori maternity cases going into hospitals meant added hospital capital expenditure. The north of New Zealand hi J a greater claim than other parts of the country.

Captain H. M. Rushworth (Auckland) said the question of Native rating applied over a very large area. Today the hospitals were crowded out with Natives and the burden on the ratepayers was tremendous.

Mr. J. E. Benson (Poverty Bay) claimed that farmers' hospital contributions were double those of other sections of the community.

Mr. Blyde said there should be direct taxation, based 6n ability to pay. Some of the taxes they paid at present were out of all proportion to their income. The increase in hospital rates had been largely due to the shorter working hours and the increases which had taken place in wages. If it was ever imperative for them to make a fight, it was at the present'time. The attitude he had adopted so far as his own hospital board was concerned was that there should be no new building programme until the incidence of taxation had been overhauled.

TAXED TWICE

Mr. W. A. Sheat (Taranaki) thought the conference should say straight-out that the cost should be met from the Social Security Fund which should stand the whole cost of the free treatment. The whole cost of hospitals should be a charge on the Social Security Fund. "We are being taxed twice under the present system," he said.

Mr. Blyde said he would be prepared to accept Mr. Sheafs suggestion.

North Canterbury was faced with a £600,000 building, said Mr. A. M. Carpenter, and the proposed alteration would take that liability from the land and put it in its proper place.

The remit was carried,

Mr. Blyde moved that the whole of motor taxation be spent proportionately on all roads in the Dominion, but that the present system of local body control be retained.

The mover said that if they advocated total de-rating they woul4 immediately have the opposition of Automobile Associations. The word "proportionately" was important, as they did not want all the money spent on main highways and nothing on the byways.

The remit was carried