PROCEEDINGS GET OUT OF HAND IN TENSE PARTY ATMOSPHERE AS SESSION NEARS FINAL STAGES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23042, 5 September 1949, Page 4

PROCEEDINGS GET OUT OF HAND IN TENSE PARTY ATMOSPHERE AS SESSION NEARS FINAL STAGES

Political Roimclafeiiii

(p.m

WELLINGTON, Sept. 5

The House of Representatives is getting so querulous that an early end to the session would be welcomed, but the completion of the financial debate, the passing of the Estimates, and the passing of several important Government measures not yet in sight are hurdles to be surmounted before the final date, which will probably be in the second week of October.

The strong party feeling and tense party atmosphere in the House is becoming serious, and proceedings get out of hand so frequently that pressmen have to ignore minor scenes because there arc so many major troubles to be recorded.

Exhortations and even threats from the chair fail to calm for long; the constant heckling- which has been a feature of the financial debate. ..Apparently no partisan statement, if effectively phrased, is going to be tolerated for 10 seconds without a retort or denial.

It lias been patiently explained by Mr. Speaker. Mr. R. McKeen, time after time that members have the right to speak and should await that opportunity but the elections are too near and far too many members show, by their attitude in the debating chamber, that they visualise a nation-wide electoral jury sitting around radio sets with interest as intense as if the broadcast were coming from South Africa during a Rugby Test match. Both Mr. Speaker and his deputy, Mr. Clyde Carr, lectured the House on decorum last week to little avail, as was seen towards the end of the week when the Minister of Rehabilitation, Mr. C. F. Skinner, a vigorous defender whose motto is that the best defence is in attack, was surveying Opposition arguments. His strong voice could hardly be heard above the barrage of interjections from opponents and the approving cries of his own colleagues. Mr. Speaker could get silence only for a minute or two by stern calls of “order." Whether he was sarcastic, or just tired out after a strenuous and disappointing week, he eventually exclaimed: “I ask honourable members to restrain their enthusiasm.”

chances of providing another whole day for private members’ bills are becoming more remote and one of the victims with Mr. Holland is Mr. M. Moohan (Govt., Petone), who has revived a measure for the registration of watchmakers.

The more important move in which Mr. Holland is concerned in his desire to take the view of the House on Mr. Speaker’s ruling which prevents discussion of the circumstances under which the Government came into the possession of private papers left by Cecil Holmes, a public servant. In a car parked in Parliamentary grounds. Here again it depends on the Prime Minister’s unfettered decision as to whether Mr. Holland’s motion can be debated this session.

Opposition opinion is that the Government dare not allow this incident to remain in the mystery sphere because the unofficial rumours current would, if true, be enough to wreck any administration if there is relay over permitting a full discussion of the incident.

The dominant reason would be that the Court of Appeal judgment in the Crown’s appeal against 'Holmes’ successful assertion of his right to remain in the public service has not yet been given. Education Discouraged .

The Speaker himself figured as an interrupter of a speech by the Opposition member for Mount Victoria, Mr. J. R. Marshall, after the latter had given his version of what he believed to be a friendly arrangement which caused a Communist candidate to be switched from his electorate to Mr. Speaker’s constituency where Labour’s anticipated margin was sufficient to withstand vote splitting without danger.

The Government member for Westland, restless over Opposition criticism, had the microphone in mind when he suggested that what came from the other side must be taken ‘‘cum grano salis.”

To the laughing chorus of Opposition members inquiring, “what’s that,” one of Mr. Kent's colleagues blandly translated it as epsom salts.

Mr. Speaker has no chance of participating in the debate and, therefore, promptly took the opportunity after a' preliminary apology to declare the statement entirely incorrect.

Mr. Speaker As Editor

Dominant Prime Minister The Leader of the Opposition, Mr. S. G. Holland, is in the delicate position of having to depend on the Prime Minister's goodwill for the further discussion of two important questions. His bill for the abolition of the Legislative Council appears daily on the order paper with the note that the debate on the second reading was interrupted. Before the House can divide on the second reading motion it would have to express itself on the Prime Minister’s amendment that the bill be read a second time in three months by which time all the partisans would be much busier on the electoral platform. As there are signs of an end-of-session rush —Wednesday afternoons are no longer devoted to discussing Ministers’ replies to questions—the

Mr. Speaker has not only to be exceptionally vigilant in maintaining order these days, but he is active in an editorial capacity. Members’ questions with the occasional party sting in the tail have to comply with standing orders to be accepted. The party sting in the tail does not get on the order paper. Of six questions asked in one afternoon last week the official censor severely edited three and totally eliminated one, a question from the Government member, Mr. Kent, advising the Minister of Labour either to educate the members of the Arbitration Court or immediately dismiss them, went into the waste-paper basket. An amiable inquiry from Mr. R. M. Algie (Opp., Remuera) as to whether increased tramway fares in Auckland was an attempt to use the Transport Board as an agency for recovering the high costs of socialism ended officially on the phrase “high costs.” There have been no complaints over the editorial repression because members are quite satisfied to make their point on the air and in the press.