POLITICAL FAVOUR.

Evening Star, Issue 25618, 19 October 1945, Page 4

POLITICAL FAVOUR.

Members of the Opposition had sound reason to protest against the action of the Minister 'of Marine (Hon. J. O’Brien), in making political colour the test in an appointment made by him to, the Timaru Harbour Board. The case came under a clause of the Act which provides that when a vacancy occurs for a combined district, 'of a board, appointment shall be made by the Governor-General, or, in other words, the Government. The combined district was represented by the Waimate County Council and the Waimate Borough Council, both of whom nominated Major N. A. Rattray, a returned soldier of two wars and a valued member of the county council, for the position. The Minister preferred to follow the recommendation of two Labour Representation Committees, purely political bodies, and a trades council, although their nominee had neither overseas service nor service on a local body to make a claim for. him. Enough that he was a member of the Labour Party-and that his competitor, more qualified by experience for the position, was not. 'That is a method of making appointments to local administrative positions which _ deserved all the strictures cast by objectors in Parliament upon it. A case might have been made for putting party complexion first as a qualification if the vacancy had been of a difforeni kind. On all harbour boards except three, as on several other types of bodies, the Government has a nominee of its own to form a link between itself and that particular authority and protect interests of its own that might be concerned. It could be argued that such a representative would perform that function more surely if he were a member of the Government’s political party. But it was not a Government nominee’s placo that had to be filled. Actually tho Timaru Board is one of the three whose constitution does not provide for such a nominee, but it may be assumed that it does include Labour Party members. The Government might reasonably have considered that the strongest recommendation for an appointment to fill an extraordinary vacancy occurring there would he one that came, from other, more or less associated governing bodies, and that politics had nothing to do with it. But that is not the way of the Labour Government. Tho Minister was completely frank, not to say brazen, about it. When the Timaru appointment was first questioned he is reported to have said that the reason why the appointed nominee was preferred was because he was a Labour man. ‘‘ Whenever possible we endeavour to have men of our own party on public bodies.” And the Labour Party, as was seen at the last local body elections, would make party colour the test for such bodies of every description, from town councils to licensing committees, as if politics, whose right place is-in the law-making, had any natural connection with their administrative functions. It would have the Labour Party dominate everything,, if possible* That is not democracy ; it comes nearer to a totalitarian system. Mr O’Brien had something more to say than we have quoted. If he had known, he said, that the rejected nominee was a returned soldier that would have made all the difference. His inquiries might surely have been prompted on that point when the nomination was made for a major. Again, it was pleaded by him that the practice of putting political colour first in such appointments had been always followed by previous Governments. If that claim can be substantiated, two wrongs do not make a right. In this case the appointment made by the Government was to replace a member who had been appointed by the electors. At the County Councils’ Conference held in July a resolution was passed that the law governing such a case should be altered, and the appointment left to the local governing bodies. That would be the law if the member to be replaced had been the representative of a single constituent district and not of a combined one. It is the law that governs hospital boards 'and electric power boards. It should he the law in every case. ’