FINANCE BILL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20634, 14 August 1941, Page 6

FINANCE BILL

CROWN AND RATING SOCIAL SECURITY LAW DEBATE IN THE HOUSE (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Resuming the second-reading debate on the Finance Bill, when the House of Representatives met last night, Mr. W. .T. Broadfoot (Nat., Waitomo), speaking of a clause in the measure under which the Crown assumes liability for the payment of rates on certain properties, said the position was becoming more serious every day for local bodies. He instanced one case where the Government had paid only £2OO in rates on the property that was assessed for £I2OO. The whole thing should be put on a proper basis, he said, and equity extended to settlers of the community. - The Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. W. E. Parry, expressed the hope that some day when peace was reestablished between nations, we would see social security established throughout the world on an international basis or, at least throughout the British commonwealth, and there would be reciprocal treatment of pensioners between nations. Mr. J. A. Lee (Dem. Lab., Grey Lynn) said he had no doubt that the social security legislation on the Now Zealand Statute Book was the most comprehensive of any country in the world. Speaking of the war debt, he said that if we put the world in pawn to debt and set about calling up debts as was done after the last war, then the people would again turn to miracle men, and once again the Hitlers would march. War could not be won only on the basis of beating Hitler.