The Evening Star THUSDAY, JUNE 26, 1947. Work for Parliament.

Evening Star, Issue 26137, 26 June 1947, Page 6

The Evening Star THUSDAY, JUNE 26, 1947. Work for Parliament.

The interest normal in the opening of a new Parliament is heightened on the occasion of the first meeting of the twenty-eighth Parliament by the evenness of party strengths. With the Government majority absolutely dependent on the Maori members and with no Independents to be wooed, it can be expected that the whole period of this Parliament will be one of constant anxiety to the Government. Ministries have survived in worse circumstances. Mr Massey in the latter phase of his regime was virtually dependent on three Independents, and Sir Joseph Ward, with only about a third of the membership officially under his leadership, carried on from 1928 until his resignation in 1930 because the Labour Party on the cross-benches voted with him without sharing responsibility for office.

The present Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, is no mean tactician. He has used the recess to the best party advantage in the personal attention he has given to the Maori electors who ensured Labour’s survival in office last November. In these circumstances the Government seems to have thought it wise to restrict the legislative programme to a contentious minimum. The Bills forecast in the Governor-General’s speech yesterday included no surprises, and several, of them, such as two merging departments and another validating the elimination of the remaining sixpence in the pound of National Security Tax, are almost purely machinery measures.

On Bills such as those dealing with coal nationalisation, industrial arbitration, and review of war regulations, the Government can expect full-scale debates, but it is likely t 9 run into stormy weather long before it brings down its main legislation. The Opposition is in duty-bound to take the opportunity of the Imprest Supply Bill Debate to-mor-row and the later Address-iu-Reply and Budget Debates to impress on the Government the view of a large section of the community that it has been dilatory in comjng to grips with such realistically urgent problems as tbe power shortage and industrial unrest. Mr Fraser chose not to call Parliament together earlier than usual to discuss these issues, although there was ample precedent for a short, business-like session earlier in the year. But, now that Parliament is in session, the responsibility devolves on the Opposition, no less than on the Government, to approach these two particular problems in a spirit of constructive urgency. The Opposition several months ago propounded a plan for dealing with industrial lawlessness, and Mr Fraser admitted to the Labour Party ‘ Conference only this month his own concern on the subject. “ There may be some who believe that greater gains for industrial workers can be won by deliberately creating discontent, even under good conditions, and causing chaos, hoping they may further their own concept of revolutionary action,” he said. “I am opposed to them 100 per cent.”

In the cut and thrust of Parliamentary debate it is perhaps too much to hope that this issue and others of the kind will always be debated without vituperation and recrimination. ,But the country will look to this Parliament, with its infusion of new and younger blood, to try to approach its task guided by the public and not the party interest. It will expect, too, that there will be no unnecessary waste of time in dreary debate. There was an old theory that the first session of a Parlia- 1 ment should be devoted to settling down, the second to work, and the third and last to electioneering. On the Government’s promptness in introducing its Bills will depend largely the extent to which each of the three sessions can be devoted to> hard and constructive work. This is not to say, however, that Parliament can afford to immerse itself in domestic problems to the exclusion of world affairs. To-day less than ever before can a nation afford to live to itself. The welfare of each is bound up in the welfare of all. Nothing is more impressive in tbe GovernorGeneral’s speech than its emphasis on the part a comparatively small country like New Zealand is playing on the world stage. We are interested in the world at large because we must be. With scant progress yet made with formulating the peace treaties with Germany and Japan. New Zealand representatives will probably be obliged to travel abroad still more frequent.lv than in the recent past to ensure, as much as one country can, that war is effectively outlawed and that peaceful relationships, particularly in the Pacific basin, are reestablished on a basis guaranteeing international amity and national security.