MAJOR POLITICAL ISSUES.

Evening Star, Issue 22920, 30 March 1938, Page 10

MAJOR POLITICAL ISSUES.

Health insurance and national superannuation are the main problems on which the .Government is concentrating its attention' - at the moment. Each involves very heavy expenditure, and ev.eu our prodigal Cabinet has to proceed with a certain amount of caution iii carrying its proposals into effect. As a consequence a special . Select Parliamentary Committee was appointed to consider the schemes in detail. The Prime Minister' made it clear that Ministers were not asking the committee to find a policy for them. “We want all the interests to have an opportunity of enlightening themselves and submitting their comment.” Mr Savage remarked, and he then emphasised that the legislation was definitely going to be passed this session. This will be no easy matter. Two special sub-committees of Cabinet have already spent much time in considering the various complicated issues, and now the special committee is to carry on the good work. This body must submit its report within twentyeight days of the assembly of Parliament, presumably towards the end of June. Then the Government will have to consider the committee’s findings and embody its proposals in two Bills after having received endorsement from the party caucus. All this will take time amid the press of the normal business of the session, with the Budget and other vital matters to be brought forward. It has to be remembered, too, that the session cannot be unduly prolonged, for time must be allowed towards the end of the year for the General Election campaign. Probably the Government would prefer. to hold the health and superannuation measures over, so that they might be made an issue at the polls, but in view of the definite promise of the .Prime Minister that they would be placed on the Statute Book this year ' there would not appear to be any .excuse for delay. Our well-informed parliamentary representative in Wellington tells us that the two ■ schemes were discussed by a caucus of Labour members yesterday, and from his report it is possible to gain an idea of the Government’s aims. Mr Savage described this and other reports of a similar 'nature that have been published as mere guesswork, but it may be found that , their basis is not far from the truth. The statements about the details may not be borne out, for obviously there is a lot of work yet to be done in framing them, but the Labour supporters in the country would he profoundly dissatisfied if a scale lower than that mentioned in our

correspondent’s report was presented to them. There is one thing of which we can bo sure, and that >is that all prospects of reduction in taxation hare vanished, notwithstanding the fact that in stating the case for Labour before the last election Mr Savage said; “Increased and inequitable forms of taxation have reached breaking point.”

It is stated that in its present form the pensions plan involves an expenditure of between £16,000,000 and £17,000,000. To meet this huge cost the present employment promotion tax of eightpence in the pound would be increased to a shilling. That would not be sufficient in itself, and a deficiency of anything up to £2,250,000 would have to be provided from the Consolidated Fund. The benefits suggested would be an improvement on the present old age pensions scheme, it would be a fine thing, for those who have reached pension age and who had paid no direct contribution, but it would be unreasonable to expect that it would be equally appreciated by the rest of the community, especially the younger section, who would have to pay an increasing rate on their wages for perhaps forty years before they, received any return for their money. In this is wrapped up the philosophy of the whole matter. Somebody must pay, and the payers will be the younger generation. What is said of superannuation may bfe said of the proposal to provide a free health service for the whole community which must of necessity be very costly. The matter is summed up in a sentence: Can our small population, with its diminishing birth rate, stand the financial strain which the inauguration of these two services will impose on the community? Pity the poor taxpayer, for there is no certainty that the buoyant conditions now prevailing will not be subject to variation.