Report From The Capital Contentious Bills To Come Before House

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 August 1947, Page 2

Report From The Capital Contentious Bills To Come Before House

WELLINGTON, This Day.

Members of Parliament will be fortunate if they can count on finishing the present session of Parliament before the end of October or perhaps even the beginning of November. In past years the first session of a Parliament has been looked upon as a settling down period, and the real working sessions have been the second and third. With the legislation before'the House, however, and with the promise of much more to come, members will have earned their £750 a year by the time this session ends in a burst of last-minute activity.

Probably the most contentious piece of legislation to come before this session is the amendment to the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, providing for compulsory secret ballots where strike action is contemplated, and the streamlining of the Arbitration Court procedure by the appointment of deputy-Judges. The Bill will give the Opposition the chance to range the whole field of industrial disputes and the Bill is bound to have a stormy passage.

Another major measure still to come is a Bill to nationalise all the coal mines in New Zealand. The Government already owns most of the large coal mines in the Dominion, with the exception of four in the Waikato, and early negotiations on these mines are expected. In this connection, it is interesting to note that Taupiri Coal ordinaries sold in Auckland this week at £.4 Is, as against £1 16s on February 18. A third piece of legislation which will arouse controversy is the pending amendment to the Workers’ Compensation Act, which will increase payments and give the State a monopoly of this class of insurance. Also on the list of coming legislation is a Bill giving better protection against forest fires, about which the forestry companies have been consulted, the adoption of the Statute of Westminster, which every other country of the British Commonwealth has done except New Zealand, and washing-up Bills such as Statutes Revision and Finance (No. 2), which may contain anything. The former is expected to contain some provision to deal with the compulsory letting of empty houses, while a superannuation scheme for members of both Houses of Parliament also will come in one or the other. A review of the wartime emergency regulations, about 360 in number, also will come this session. It is the opinion in the lobbies that only about one-third, at the most, will be revoked immediately. Also .to come this session is a discussion on the contentious Bretton Woods monetary agreement and the Royal Commission on Licensing. The report of the Gaming Commission is not expected to be presented in time for this session. Wheat Discovery

Tests made with a newly-evolved wheat, the product of seven or eight years of experimentation at the Wheat Research Institute at Lincoln, in Canterbury, reveal that the new grain has 2 per cent, higher protein content than the world’s best.

Announcing this, Mr F. R. Callaghan, head of the Plant Research Bureau of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, today told -me that the new wheat was better for New Zealand conditions than the best previously evolved —Cross 7. The new wheat will not be available for general use by wheat farmers, however, for possibly seven years, because it will take thai long, or more, to multiply existing stocks of grain. At present these amount to between 30 and 40 bushels, which will be used exclusively for multiplication purposes. Mr Callaghan indicated that though the new wheat, which has been named Hilgendorf, is a much better wheat than Cross 7, now constituting 70 per cent, of the whea» acreage planted in the Dominion, it would not necessarily increase the Dominion’s wheat yield. Nor could it be said that the discovery of Hilgendorf would help make the Dominion self-sufficient in wheat production. That, he said, was something

that the farmers alone could achieve. It was a matter of acreage planted. The world’s best wheat, up till now, has been Marquis, produced in Canada. Hilgendorf, under New Zealand conditions, is better. Building Ban Lifted Apart from a brief announcement in the House of Representatives that the “blackout” on the granting of building permits was lifted last week, there has been no official statement to explain the results of a period of over four weeks in which no further permits were issued. The reason for the temporary hold-up was to enable the housing authorities in Wellington to review the number of licences on hand, as compared with the amount of building materials available. There was truth in the crop of rumours which were flying around Wellington recently, that the Government might make some drastic changes in the allocation of building materials, but as it happens nothing has come of it. The facts are that after a comprehensive check-up, the Government has decided not to alter the present system of allocating building permits. The Minister of Works, Mr Semple, eannot makp a statement until a definite decision is made by the Cabinet, but home-builders can fake it that no change in the building permit system is contemplated. Pottery Developments

A recent arrival in New Zealand, Mr William Voce, has some good news for' the Dominion. He expects that important developments in tne use of New Zealand s natuial p® sources of clay for pottery and ceramic manufacture will occur in the next few years. Mr Voce, who is one of Britain’s leading authorities on ceramic research, arrived by the Rangitata to take up an appointment as director of the New Zealand Pottery and Ceramic Research Association. . In an exclusive interview he said that with her resources New Zealand should be able to meet the bulk of the requirements covering the whole of the ceramic field. He explained that some of the. most extensive deposits of clay useful in the manufacture of pottery and ceramic commodities were situated in the Auckland area. 1 Emphasising that there was a great future in the development of ceramics in New Zealand, Mr Voce said that the products made from clay could not be ousted by plastics. _ The part played by ceramics in radio and its allied industries had proved most important during the war. Most Sought After Member

In this session of Parliament, it is most unusual for either of the Government whips to be unable to trace the exact movements of each one of the 41 members of the Government in the House. The exception to the rule took place on Friday,, when a snap division by the Opposition was carried by the Government by only one vote. The member who did not vote was Mr M. Ratana (Government, Western Maori). Whether Mr Ratana was shopping in a Wellington store, or whether he had left Wellington by the 3 p.m. train still has to be proved, but the fact remains that he was not within the precincts of the House. After this narrow escape, the whips will be worked even harder in future. Bon Mot Of The Week

The words “pitching of worts in fermentation,” which were contained in a customs resolution put through on the night of the Budget naturally gave opportunity for members of Parliament to wallow in a play of words. Probably the definition of worts submitted by Mr J. Maher (Opposition, Otaki) . . . “The butterfat in beer,” stole the show.