SUSTENANCE RATES

Grey River Argus, 25 July 1934, Page 7

SUSTENANCE RATES

AS ORIGINALLY FIXED Mr Sullivan’s Bill SUPPORTED BY MEMBER FOR WESTLAND. When asking leave to introduce his Unemployment Relief Bill in the House on Friday morning, Air. I). G-. Sullivan stated the measure provided for the same rates of sustenance as were fixed in the original Act, viz., £l/1/- per week for a man, 17/6 per week for his wife, and 4/- per week for each child. He said that in Christchurch hundreds of men were forced to accept sustenance at a much lower rate than that provided for on relief work. He quoted a case whore a man, wife and five children were given sustenance of 23/- per week, out of which they would have to pay about 15/- per week in rent, leaving them less than 14/- per week to live on. Afr. R. Semple followed and stated that he had received information that Air. A r . Riddiford, one of the wealthiest men in New Zealand, had received a subsidy from the Unemployment Board, and that Messrs Duncan, Cameron and Levin, also three of the wealthiest men in New Zealand, had also received subsidy. A subsidy was also paid on the erection of AVoolworth’s building, and the, Hawke’s Bay Racing Club had received £2OOO from one of the Art Unions, which should have gone, to unemployed work-

Afr. S. G. Smith, Af.P. (New Plymouth) 'lefended what had been done by the Board, and criticised the Labour Party as having offered no practical suggestions to the Board. He, said ample facility was given to each Member of Parliament to obtain the fullest information of the activities of the Unemployment Board.

He was followed by Afr. J. O’Brien. Af.P. (Westland), who launched a fierce attack on the Unemployment Board and the Government, pointing out that while the Press featured such speeches as those of the Minister of Lands and Air. Smith, speeches from the Labour benches were boycotted. Herewith a verbatim report of Air. O’Brien’s speech:

Mr. Speaker, the honourable gentleman who has just sat, down has given us the usual reply to suggestions pu' forth that might relieve the poverty and misery rampant in this country. The Bill which the honourable member for Avon desires to introduce is framed to remedy an obvious injustice on the part of the Unemployment Board. The sponsor of the Bill has pointed out that a man with a wife and five children are expected to live on about 14/- a week, which is about 2/- a head. and yet as soon as he brings forward the measure, he is accused of trying to be the Corrector-General of the Government and of the Board. As soon as one appeals for justice, or perhaps a little mercy, from the Board and from the House, somebody on the otherside of the House—frequently the honourable member for New Plymouth—rises and says that we are out to smash things. The honourable member for New Plymouth told us that in his district, although he complained about the rates in the cities, the rates are far higher than in any other country district. He quoted the rate for Class A. 9/10, Class B men 19/9, and Class C men £l/9/7. Air. Smith: Did T say that? Afr. O'Brien; The honourable member did say that. But does he not know that in the country districts the average wages to men of the “A” Class amount to about six shillings a week? Does he not know that the “B” men, outside his own district, get only 14/9 a week, as against the 19/9 he says the men in his locality if they seven or eight children, get? And that the “C” men, even get only £l/2/3 compared with the £l/9/7 which they get in bis district? Does he not know these things? It seems to me that the honourable member has been particularly favoured in his locality to the detriment of others in country districts. When the honourable member was Minister, of Unemployment, it was his own Bill which he brought down that provided sustenance at the rate of 21/- a week ; should be allowed to a man. And he defended that allowance —he said it was the lowest on which a man could be expected to live; and he said that the wife of an unemployed man should receive 17/6, and that, in respect of each child there should be an allowance of 4/- per week. He defended these rates when he brought, down his Bill in 1930. To-day, he says it is impossible to give more than two shillings a week for a man, and the same amount for his wife and each of his children, and he criticises the, honourable Member for Avon for bringing down a Bill which merely asks for justice—charity, if you like —and that the sustenance rates once stoutly defended by the honourable member for New Plymouth should be paid to these poor people. But the honourable member has gone over to the other side, lock, stock and barrel! He asked whether we on this side, had ever offered practical suggestions. Th 3 answer is that we have offered many suggestions, but no notice is taken of them. I have brought many cases before the Board which required investigation, one in which a man had a very small farm and asked for some measure of relief, but the Board refused him more than £1 a week for twelve weeks, with the result that he had to go off his farm. As to getting information from the Board, it is practically impossible. Last year I asked the Board the Chairman and the Commissioner—and also the certifying officer in my district, to furnish me with particulars of the amount of re-

lief paid to each relief worker in my district. 1 was refused the information, and 1 have not got it yet. Will the honourable member for New .Plymouth inform me why the information is withheld from me? The Unemployment Board refuses to let me, as a member of Parliament, have the information asked for. On the 17th January last, I received a letter from the present Minister of Employment to the effect that when members asked for information which the Board itself has not got in detail, it is not easy to supply such information. But the information was available, provided I could get the Minister’s authority to have it supplied. That authority was not given. I have not got the information yet. On the sth March of this year, I received a letter signed by the Minister of Public Works, for the Minister of Employment, informing me that I should write to the head office for the information. That was in response to a letter from me point ing out that I could get no information whatever. The Mayor of the town, who was the Reform candidiate at the last election, can get. the information, but the Member for the District is not allowed to know! And yet the honourable member, who lias gone out of the House, has the impudence— Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. O’Brien; I will recall that word, Mr. Speaker: The hon. member must withdraw that word. Mr. O’Brien: I withdraw it, Sir, and shy that he has the arrogance to get up in this House and tell use that we i'an get full information! I have never been able to get information on anything connected with the building subsidy. If a worker wants to build, and asks for a building subsidy, he has every difficulty put in his way, and few workers have had any assistance whatever. Anyway, what would a worker get at say 33 1-3 or 50 per cent, on the labour alone? On a fiveroomed house the labour comes to about £l4O. Tn other words, he would get £7O, leaving him to provide £450 of his own money, and he has no chance of getting that amount. The Minister of Lands said that what we are saying here is purely political propaganda. The hon. gentleman did not say anything about the wealthy squatters and land owners that he criticised so severely a few years ago about their wealth and incomes. He quoted things about the sheep-farmer when he was attacking the Reform Party, vet he says nothing now, when these men are getting assistance from the Unemployment Board. T wonder what the hon. gentleman would say about the case of the prospector who goes out prospecting, and gets 30/- a week to keep himself and his family. T know of a case in which when the wife got the old age pension her hubband’s subsidy was cut down to 14/9. Another case was that of a man who took up 1000 acres of land and spent £5OO of his own money on it. When his money was exhausted he applied to the Unemployment Board for assistance, but could not get a penny. But the Riddifortls, the Duncans and the Camerons, according to the hon member for Wellington East, can get whatever subsidy they ask for! I have another case showing that even the Railway Department got assistance from the Unemployment Board. I In-ought before the Board and the Department the case of nine men who had been working for 21 months for

the Railway Department, doing all sorts of work that should have been done by men directly paid by the Railway Department, but they were paid out of Unemployment Board subsidy. Surely the Minister is not going to support that kind of thing. But we have been hearing of cases where men have to exist on a little more than 2/per head per week for the man, his wife and his family. We are tol 1 that there is no money. We are told that the sustenance allowance of 2/per week cannot be increased. But if the subsidies had not been paid to the wealthy farmers, wealthy squatters, wealthy builders, hotelkeepers, who could well afford to build their own premises, racing and sports clubs, then sustenance could have been paid to the needy. Already there is £450,090 in the Unemployment Fund, and if the Board had refused to subsidise its own particular Reform friends in an exceptionally lavish manner, there would have been ample Io have granted increased sustenance and relief pay to every worker in New Zealand, and yet we have this purely political graft defended by the two apologists from the other side. 1 can understand a Tory mind, but I cannot understand the apologist who will twist and turn with every political wind that blows, and the spectacle of these two members apologising for a system that has been so scathingly described by the honourable Member for Avon and the honourable Member for Lyttelton and others is disgusting; especially in this, the wealthiest country in the world insofar as it does not know what to do with all it can produce. Someone asked during this debate, if we had no money would we nil starve? It seems to me that the worst thing we have to deal with in this House is money, and that if there were not a sixpence or a shilling in New Zealand to-morrow we would soon find a way to get at the good things provided in this fertile land, and give the unemployed a much better deal than they are receiving at the present time. T hope the next speaker from the Government benches, if there is to bp one, will do something more than apologise for what has been done, ami will hold out some hope for the unemployed who are put on sustenance at the rate stated by the honourable Member for Avon, 23/- for a man, his wife and five children, and out of that pay rent. Will any member in this House get up and defend such a rate? I ask the honourable member for New Plymouth and the Minister of Lands to do so—if possible! We will see to-morrow that their speeches are reported while the speeches from these benches in favour of this Bill will not be mentioned by the newspapers at all. it is simply a boycott of what we say is happening in this country and the conditions under which the unemployed are working and living. New Zealand does not want her men, women and children to be forced into poverty, misery and degradation at 2/- per head per week, but the newspapers maintain a conspiracy of silence when we. mention it. Mr. Speaker; The honourable Member’s time is up.