PARLIAMENT BUDGET DEBATE CONTINUED IN HOUSE YESTERDAY

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 August 1948, Page 3

PARLIAMENT BUDGET DEBATE CONTINUED IN HOUSE YESTERDAY

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, August 27. Speaking in the Budget debate in the House of Representatives today, Mr W. W. Freer (Government, Mt Albert) said that employers should be as truthful in making out their own income tax returns as they were in making out the returns of their employees. It was peculiar, he said, that when the Income Tax Department sent inspectors to certain districts, there was an amazing increase in the amount of wages tax paid by employers on behalf of their staffs. Employers, apparently, took the tax out of their employees’ envelopes, and then paid it in when the inspectors arrived on the scene.

Mr Freer said that there was need for better farming practice in New Zealand. He advocated the intro-

duction of contour ploughing which had been responsible for the saving of large tracts of land in the United States. Our soil conservation efforts should be doubled and more attention paid to the regeneration of the land. Pacific Trade Mr D. M. Rae (Opposition. Parnell) said the most alarming fact arising from the exchange adjustment was that New Zealand was abandoning her very important and long-standing trade advantages in the Pacific to Australia. At present, Australia had representatives busy in the East and in the Pacific to open trade, and New Zealand should realise some day that she should have her share in the Pacific, but she had shown insufficient recognition of the value of that trade. Mr Rae insisted that, so far as the exchange adjustment was concerned, there should have been discussions and simultaneous negotiations with Australia. He deplored a development. which, he said, was • taking place through the attitude of some in the ranks of an ideological gulf in New Zealand which*, was becoming so wide that it would soon be difficult to bridge. Most employers were making a genuine effort to achieve better industrial relations, but the deliberately-maintained hostility of some elements was causing needless bitterness. Public Accounts Questioned Mr T. P. Shand (Opposition, Marlborough) said the Public Accounts should be presented in a simpler form and in a way that would be more readily understood by the public. No advantage had been taken of modern accountancy practice, and, in recent years, a great deal had been done to confuse the accounts and there was no need for some recentlyconstituted accounts to be outside the Consolidated Fund. The two most important accounts were the War Expenses Account and the Social Security Fund. The Minister could, at

will, make what transfers he liked between the Consolidated Fund and these other accounts, and so long as the Minister could do that, the surplus in the Consolidated Fund ceased to have any meaning whatever. The people were entitled to know the state of the country's finances as clearly as possible. The Government complained that the Opposition members were not stating clearly their attitude to return to sterling parity, but why did Government members refuse to state clearly their reasons for reaching this momentous decision? It was a habit of Cabinet members to announce policy decisions, affecting the whole country, without adequately explaining them. Mr A. G. Armstrong (Government, Napier) moved the adjournment of the debate and after the ActingLeader of the House, Mr VV. Nash, had indicated that the Budget -dis-

cussion would be resumed next week, the House rose at 5.15 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday next for the weekend adjournment.