Supply Bill. OPENING DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT ON ELECTRICITY

Grey River Argus, 28 June 1947, Page 5

Supply Bill. OPENING DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT ON ELECTRICITY

p.A. WELLINGTON, June 27. When Parliament met to-day, the Imprest Supply Bill was debated. Urgency for the measure was contested by the Opposition, but • the motion was carried by 40 vote-' to 38. Rev. C. Carr (Gcvt., Timaru) was unanimously elected Chairman of Committees, on the motion of Mi Fraser. , Mr S. G. Holland (Nat, Fendalton) debating the Bill, accused the Government of bungling in connection with the hydro-electric powei scheme. He said the position to-day was a striking monument of ineptitude of government. The Government had been warned years ago that this situation would arise unless preventive steps, were taken, and it had been recommended to plan for storage of more water to' provide foi such occasions. The situation had been bungled from beginning to end. It should never have happened if the country had a Government capable of understanding what was required. The Government had gambled on weather, and lost. It was only as soon as the Member for Avon was elected that cuts were made. If the Government .had taken precautionary steps earlier, people of the South Island would not have had to suffer inconvenience and loss of pay caused by cuts. The Minister, Mr Semple, had made no provision for emergency or stand-by plants. The Government had planned its production on the average supplies of water. It did not plan on minimum supplies. Mr P. G. Connolly (Govt., Dunedin West), said it was all humbug thus to accuse the Government of ineptitude, or bungling, or of making a mess of things generally. Every country to-day was- suffering the same shortages of electricity. The position when this Government came into office was that there had oeen no planning for any increase of power. To indicate that this Government had vision and foresight, it had pursued the policy of hydro-elec-tricity development which has increased the capital outlay on the schemes from thirteen millions in 1935 to thirty-four millions in 1947. Could the Government be accused of ineptitude or bungling in view of that? Had the Opposition forgotten that this country was at war for six years? Or was the Opposition just making political capital out of shortages of to-day? The debate was interrupted for the luncheon adjournment at 1 p.m.

Opposition Questions in the House

WELLINGTON, June 27. Questions were asked in the House this morning. fl'he Prime Minister said that the House would go into committee for the first time this session on the Imprest Supply Bill and it would be necessary to appoint a Chairman of Committees. He moved the appointment of Mr Carr, to whom the House gave unanimous approval.

The House divided on the question of urgency being accorded the debate on the Imprest Supply Bill. Urgency was accorded by 40 to 38 votes. Mr R. M. Algie (Nat., Remuera), asked the Prime Minister whether it was the intention of the Government to inform the Plouse at an early date as to the views and proposals- . the Dominion was to put forward at Canberra as a preliminary to the settlement of a treaty of peace with Japan. fl'he Prime Minister said that at present, apart from the fact that the Government was invited to attend the conference, nothing was known about it, except in a general way. The object of the meeting was to attempt to clarify ideas at the conference so far .as the interests of the British Commonwealth were concerned in the Pacific.

Mr Holland: The question is-—will the Government give us a lead on the matters to be put forward? Mr Fraser: The main thing is to see that Japan never' again becomes a menace.

Mr A. S. Sutherland (Nat., Hauraki) asked the Minister of External Affairs, Mr Fraser, if he would inform the House why it was considered necessary to wait three years before giving the public, through the press, any information as to the activities of the New Zealand Minister in Moscow. It was reported in the press that the principal works of the Moscow Legation during the past three years had been confined mainly to a mutual exchange of books and films.

Mr A. J. Murdoch (Nat., Marsden) asked the Prime Minister whether it was the intention of the Government to introduce legislation this session to provide for the prohibition of entry into this country of Australian agitators or other such undesirable persons intent on the disruption of New Zealand’s domestic affairs? He said the recent arrival of an Australian named Elliott, whose action and utterances had earned a well-merited rebuke from the Minister of Works, was responsible for (1) dereliction of duty on the part of Wellington Harbour Board employees, (2) wastage and heavy financial loss to shipowners and contractors, and (3) delay and interference with power schemes. Mr C. L. Carr (Govt., Timaru) rising to a point of order, said that the question contained debatable matter.

The point of order was upheld by Mr Speaker, who ruled that it would have to be revised before further presentation.

Discussion of the hydro electric power situation throughout the Dominion was continued in the House in the afternoon in the Imprest Supply Bill debate. Mr W. Sullivan (Nat., Bay of Plenty) said a commission should be set up to examine what he termed the power famine. The Government, while it had a distinct monopoly of production of electricty, refused licenses to local bodies to import and instal auxiliary generating equipment. A tangible ' scheme was required of the Minister, as well as information on how he was going to get the country out of “this terrible muddle.” People were tired O f

black-outs. They wanted to know what the Government's electricity policy was. Twenty-four hours after the Avon bye-election, power cuts were ' instituted. The Minister had not been prepared to tell the people during the election that the cuts were to be imposed.

MR SEMPLE SHOWS EFFECT OF RAIN

Hon. R. Semple replied to Opposition criticisms. He said it merely amused him that Mr Holland had demanded his resignation. “I will get out of public life when I like, and not before,” said Mr Semple. Mr Semple said Mr Holland , had claimed that rainfall had nothing to do with the power question. Yet, it had been possible, after one week of rain, to abolished the North Island cuts! In the South Island the cuts had been also partially abolished only after a few days of rain, and it was hoped to be able to reduce the South Island cuts still further in the near future.

The Minister said that repeated efforts had been made to obtain auxiliary plant from abroad. The schemes which were now in progress in the Dominion were handicapped by a labour shortage. Five thousand men could be given jobs to-morrow on the hydro schemes, if those men were available. The Waikato projects would solve the North Island’s powei problems. NEW’ HYDRO PRODUCTION

An example of the scale of the hydro undertakings was that housing had to be provided at Maraetai for three thousand five hundred people, and it had to be good housing. People just would not live in tents these days. At Coal Creek, in the South Island, four thousand people would have to be housed. The Coal Creek scheme was designed to generate three hundred thousand kilowatts. This would be the biggest hydro electric station in the Southern Hemisphere, and, because of its magnitude, unusual care had to be taken with the geological surveys. It was unlikely that the Coal Creek power would be harnessed before 1956, and, to meet the South Island’s shortage between the completion of the existing schemes and the completion of the Coal Creek scheme, a sensible thing would be to obtain auxiliary plant. Mr J. T. Watts (Nat., Riccarton) said the Minister’s reply to criticisms was very disappointing. The country would be very much concerned at lack of information given by the Minister. Jobs, homes and the livelihood of people depended on the power situation, planners and the Government had broken down under responsibility. Mr T. McCombs (Govt., Lyttelton) said the policy of refusing local, bodies the right to generate their own power was one which had been followed by the previous Governments, and it was not new. Equipment had been lost during the war in Sweden and in Belgium, and by the sinking of ships at sea. Mr Algie (Nat., Remuera) said the debate might have been titled: “Shortages of Socialism,” or: “The Planners Nonplussed.” There had been revealed to the country and inefficient planner. There had been avoidable hardships and inconvenience caused by recent cuts. It was questionable whether the public had been treated with that candour of information to which it was entitled. It was an absurdity that one department was increasing the load on the power system by the licensing of new industries and that another department was increasing the load by wiring up new houses, when there was not enough power to meet the existing load. The question was what had been done in the way of meeting a demand which the Minister had known was developing. The only policy had been one of cut, ration, restrict and reduce. PLANT ORDERS TO GO TO BRITAIN “You remember how intoxicated the members of the Opposition became last year on orange juice,” said the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, to a mirthful House of Representatives, in the evening, when he intervened breezilly in a flagging debate on the Imprest Supply Bill. Mr Fraser recalled that last year, spurious indignation was worked up by the Opposition about shortages of silk stockings and other commodities. Today there were plenty of silk stockings, but nothing had been said about it. Oranges were reaching the Dominion from the islands and from Australia, but this matter had not been mentioned.

Mr Fraser said that when he was in England in 1945, and was visiting the. firm of Metro Vickers, they said that they resented very much cables which reached them from this country. “You don’t know what we have done,” they said, and, at the same time they did not think it fair that orders had been placed elsewhere away from Britain.

“If it is humanly possible at all, I want orders to go to Britain,” said Mr Fraser.

He realised that the machinery for Maraetai was for a job which would not be finished for four years. But what a peculiar situation it was for the Government to be attacked for planning ahead! When the member for St. Albans (Mr Watts) talked of a shortage of power in the South Island, he, (Mr Fraser) considered there was one watt too-many. Mr Watts: One too many for you. Mr Fraser said that it was in New Zealand’s own interest to keep the British firms in work, and, after the conversations he had had in England he was quite certain that good relations would exist in future. Already orders for railway equipment had been placed in Britain to the extent of £1,300,000 without any quotation. Mr Gooseman (Nat. Waikato) said they must have reserve sources of power if they were to depend principally on a fluctuating output of a hydro system of generation. They could not depend on vagaries of rainfall or even on uncertainties of coal supply. He claimed that if equipment had been ordered sufficiently in advance from Britain it could have been obtained, as Britain was selling generating equipment to many countries.

Mr F. Langstone (Government) said that had there been no war and had the hydro electric schemes gone forward without interruption, there would have been ample power to-day. There may have been some

inconvenience with power shortages but this had not been done maliciously. He summed up the Opposition’s criticisms as “a verbal outburst and a political hymn of hate against the Hydro Electric Department and the Minister.”

Mr K. J. Holyoake (Nat Pahiatua) said the power shortage had added very considerably to the burden of housewives, particularly the family women. The Government had not at any time given the people the full facts of the power crisis. He predicted that there would be the same position year after year until the Maraetai scheme was in full operation.

Mr Hanan (Nat. Invercargill) making his maiden speech, with deliberation and clarity, appealed to the Government to replace the present power cuts with a system which had a basis of real equality of sacrifice. People of the South Island were in sympathy with the people in the North Island, bdc they hao been lulled into a sense of false security by the head of the State Hydro Electric Department. He was distressed that the Coal Creek scheme would not be complete until 1956. He recommended that the Minister examine the possibilities of a Hauroto Lake scheme, which could be completed in half that time. Mr’ Hanan was accorded an attentive hearing and was given a full round of applause from both sides of the House.

Mr Nash wound up the debate. It was shortly after midnight when, the House rose, after granting interest (two months’ supply) of £25,212,000 until 7.30 o’clock Tuesday evening.