WHAT WAS PROMISED?

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1942, Page 4

WHAT WAS PROMISED?

Councillor J. D. Sievwright disputes the facts given by the Prime Minister in his reply to the City Council deputation regarding hospital rating.

"When the Social Security Act was passed (he writes) it was stated emphatically and in detail that 'all the hospital benefits under the Act would be supplied to every person in the Dominion as from April 1, 1939.' In addition to 'hospital services, pensions, unemployment payments, services of medical practitione s, and free drugs as prescribed by & qualified practitioner to receive in a public hospital; in brief, all the attention necessary in a public hospital to enable a person to be restored to health.' 'The tax of Is in the pound will provide for everything of that kind.' That Is in the pound was to be taken, and is being taken, from every person 16 years and over, and was to constitute, arid does constitute, the Social Security Fund with a further contribution from the Consolidated Fund, drawn also from all the people. The Minister in charge of the Bill in 1938 made it quite clear that these funds were to 'provide for everything' to carry out 'all hospital and charitable aid services.' There was no mistake about what Mr. Nash meant by the statements he made and quoted by me in the foregoing paragraph from his speeches in Parliament. To make these declarations more emphatic and memorable, Mr. Forbes asked the then Finance Minister: 'There will be no extra charge for all these services?' Mr. Nash: 'No; the Is in the pound will provide for everything.'

"What did the Prime Minister tell the City Council's deputation? 1 would like to say quite definitely (said Mr Fraser) that on no occasion was it intended, nor had it been suggested, that the Social Security Fund should bear the whole of the hospital expenditure.'

"Permit me to deal briefly with the Prime Minister's reply to the main issue. He said: 'I can hold out no hope of an adjustment being made during the war to the system of hospital taxation so that the whole costs of the hospital would be met by the State." The State is the people. The Consolidated Fund is drawn from the people, as is the Social Security Fund. All contribute to the Social Security Fund, but all who contribute to the Social Security Fund do not contribute directly to the Consolidated Fund— therefore, many citizens in Wellington are contributing not twice to the Social Security Fund, but a third time, by the City Council's having to pay, as is the case this year, £1 of every £5 of the rates burden. And the Prime Minister uses the war as a stalking horse to perpetuate the practice of the State's taking £135,000 from the ratepayers. But the State uoes not need this money, and the Prime Minister knows it. When 1 pointed out thai the State had a surplus in the Social Security Fund on December 31, 1940. of £1,000,000 and at December 31, 1941, an increase to £2,500.000 and that about half of that surplus would relieve all local bodies of the double taxation by hospital boards, an official at the left side of the Prime Minister said that: surplus had been reduced to nearly £500,000. I said to myself surely that could not be true, and resolved to make inquiries. I found that the Prime Minister himself had stated three weeks before the council's deputation waited on him that for the financial year to March 31 last the people had contributed

£10,900,000 to the Social Security Fund and the contributors to the Consolidated Fund had parted with £3,600.000 to the Social Security Fund also, making £14.500.000, and that there was 'a balance at March 31 last of approximately £3,000,000.' (Mr Fraser's own words.) There was an estimated expenditure of £2.400,000 to meet increased hospital and medical services, and provision for 5 per cent, bonuses to the needy. If that were paid out of the surplus at March 31 (and it was not) there would be £600,000 left But there is the other side. The contributions to the Social Security Fund in April and May—the people £900.000 per month and the contributors to the Consolidated Fund £300,000 per month —would bring the balance back to about two and s half millions. There was therefore ample funds in the Social Security exchequer to relieve, not only the city of Wellington, but all the overrated and much-burdened local bodies —cities, town, road boards, and county councils—throughout the whole of the Dominion."