SALARY CUTS

Evening Star, Issue 21073, 9 April 1932, Page 10

SALARY CUTS

MINISTERS' SPECIAL SACRIFICE [From Odr Parliamentarx Reporter.] WELLINGTON, April 8. The only exemptions to the salary cuts of public officers prescribed in the National Expenditure Adjustment Bill are those of the Governor-General and any persons employed under specific contract for a limited period. The reductions list is headed by Ministers of the Crown, who will receive 15 per cent, less than the rates hiterto payable. Other cuts are as follow: The Speaker of the House of Representativcs. 12] per cent. Speaker of the Legislative Council, 10 per cent. Chairmen of Committees of Both Houses, 10 per cent. All other members of Parliament, 10 per cent. The application of the graduated system of reductions in the Public Service, including the railways, is on the following basis:—Where the salary at March 31'did not exceed £225, 5 per cent.; exceeding £225 and up to £720, 10 per cent.; exceeding £720, 12] per cent. These reductions also apply to overtime. Regarding the Education Service, the Bill provides that in grants to education boards and governing bodies of university colleges, secondary schools, the Minister of Education shall make reductions in grants for salaries so as to apply the provisions of this section already explained. Local authorities’ subsidies and grants, including those to hospital boards, municipalities, lire boards, and Rotorua Borough, are to be reduced 10 per cent., as from April I last. Officers or seamen of the King’s Naval Forces transferred to the Now Zealand Naval Forces are to be subject to the reductions prescribed, subject to the qualification that they shall not be proportionately greater than the reduction on pay they would have suffered had they remained attached to the King’s Forces. The Act is specifically applied to the High Commissioner for New Zealand, the Controller and Auditor-General, and Public Service Commissioners. There are the usual saving clauses, preserving the rights of superannuation to contributors who wish to pay on the basis of their former salary, and secure a proportionately higher retiring allowance. The power of the Governor-iu-Council to make regulations for the administration of this section includes regulations to provide for the adjustment of anomalies, or for the relief of cases of hardship.