MINISTER'S REPLY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 116, 18 May 1944, Page 6

MINISTER'S REPLY

TEMPORARY OCCUPATION The Minister of Works (Mr. Semple) said today that if a representative of the association had approached the Prime Minister, who, as Minister in Charge of the State Advances Corporation, was responsible for the allocation of State rental houses, or himself, as Minister in Charge of Housing Construction, any fears the association had regarding the occupation of State rental houses by Service personnel might have been allayed. "The Returned Services' Association above all others," said Mr. Semple, "should understand that accommodation had to be provided for Service personnel in various categories when fee war broke out. Generally this was done by the erection of barracks. The Government, however, decided that in certain areas rather than erect barracks with no post-war use, it would be better to erect blocks of State houses and use them temporally as barracks, converting them to civilian use when no longer required by the Services. "The position regarding the occupation of these blocks of State rental houses is being very closely watched, and, as a matter of fact, at this moment arrangements are being made to transfer certain Service personnel ocupying State rental houses to other accommodation which has become available as the result of the vacation of certain camp sites. As a result 13 blocks of State houses will be available very shortly thereafter for occupation by civilians. Not every block of State rental houses occupied by Service personnel will be vacated, since many of them require to be accommodated reasonably close to the work they are engaged upon, and since the nation has not yet ceased to be at war. "All this information and much more would willingly have been made available to the committee of the Returned Services' Association had it made the proper approach before it submitted its report to the Dominion executive."