HARBOUR WORKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 64, 13 September 1939, Page 16

HARBOUR WORKS

BILLS CRITICISED

NAPIER AND WANGANUI

Much of the time-of the House of Representatives yesterday was occupied by a debate on the Napier Harbour Board Loan Amendment Bill, which sanctions the raising of an additional £125,000 to complete works authorised in the original Act. Mr. E. L. Cullen (Government, Hawke's Bay), who moved the second reading on behalf of the Hon. W. E. Barnard (Government, Napier), explained that costs had increased, and that this was the principal reason for the new authority sought.

Mr. A. E. Jull (National, Waipawa) led the Opposition in objecting to the Bill, principally on the ground that borrowing was being undertaken without the authority of a ratepayers' poll. He and other Opposition members criticised the proposed expenditure ~on providing deep-sea berthage at the wharf within the Napier breakwater.

Government members claimed that the Bill had the support of all the local bodies of the district and of the ratepayers.

Amendments moved by Mr. Jull in the Committee stage aimed at deferring consideration of the Bill were ruled out of order, and the Bill was put through the remaining stages and passed. \

The Wanganui Harbour Board Empowering Bill, giving power to raise an additional £25,000 for harbour works and improvements, came in for further criticism from the Opposition on its resumed second reading and was finally "talked out.'