PARLIAMENT SHIPPING COMPANIES AND INSURANCE: MINISTER’S CHARGE

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 August 1949, Page 7

PARLIAMENT SHIPPING COMPANIES AND INSURANCE: MINISTER’S CHARGE

WELLINGTON, August 19.—1 n the House of Representatives today the Minister of Labour, Mr A. McLagan, moved the .second reading of the Workers’ Compensation Amendment Bill. He said it increased the maximum payment for incapacity to £6 per week. Some injured workers were now receiving £5 10s per week, and some were still drawing £4 10s weekly, which was the rate obtaining at the time of their incapacitation. If the neyv rate of £6 were made mandatory on the passing of the Bill, three different rates would be applicable, and that was not desirable. However, it would inflict a hardship on some small employers if the rates applicable to the earlier cases were amended to £6. The State Accident Office, nevertheless, he said., had agreed to accept the full responsibility for paying the new rate in all of the cases with which it is concerned. State Departments, local bodies, and mutual insurance companies would do likewise, and he appealed to the generosity of the private companies, which were .still carrying a few cases, to follow this commendable example. Change Of Heart? Mr W. A. Sheat (Opposition, Batea) said he wondered- if insurance companies would appreciate an. appeal to their generosity from the Minister. Two years ago he condemned them. The exemption of the shipping companies from the State monopoly in workers compensation for which the Bill provided was welcome but belated evidence of a complete change of heart on the Ministers’ part. Two years ago, the Opposition pleaded for the same exemption, because shipping companies had their own insurance scheme, comprehensively the many risks incurred in the shipping industry. Shipping companies then gave to a select committee of the House, which was considering the Bill, overwhelming evidence to support their claim for exemption. Mr McLagan was then adamant against ’ exempting them. He had insisted that shipping companies must pay the premium to the State scheme, costing in the case of the Union Steamship Company up to £200,000 a year in premiums, which would be of no benefit to the company. He asked if it were a fact that, in subsequent negotiations on, fares and freights, the shipping com- ] panies had stipulated that this injustice must be corrected, or else any added cost would be passed on to the public in higher fare and freights. I “I am satisfied the Minister re- ! ceived a definite indication from the shipping companies that, ?f faced with this double premium expend!- 1 ture, they would pass the cost on to the public,” Mr Sheat added. He said the House was now required to cor- I rect what should not have been writ- j ten. into the original legislation in I 1947. Had the Legislative Council j done its job properly at the time, it' would have objected to this injustice i to shipping companies being written j into the Act. Mr C. H. Chapman < Opposition, I Wellington Central) said: “The Min- j ister has not changed his heart, but he I has been guided by fresh evidence j which the shipping companies have > brought forward to justify their claim for the exemption. The same exemp- | tion has been granted to the mutual | insurance schemes.” Wharf Difficulties Mr J. K. McAlpine (Opposition, Selwyn) asked what was the fresh I evidence that has been produced. He; asked if the Minister perhaps had been influenced by the fact that he had had difficulties to deal with on the waterfront. Mr McLagan, replying, said that ..the decision to exempt the shipping companies was made some months ago. It. was made before the recent waterfront troubles. But the legislation could not have been introduced into the House any earlier than it was. He agreed that private insurance companies had shown generosity toward workers on occasions in the past, but there had also been examples of scandalous treatment of the workers. , , The Bill was put through the committee stages and was passed.