NOXIOUS WEEDS CONTROL

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 9 April 1934, Page 4

NOXIOUS WEEDS CONTROL

LEGISLATION SUGGESTED. HAWERA COUNTY SUPPORT. A proposal has been made by. local bodies in Taranaki on the lines suggested at the conference in Stratford last month, that the Lands and Native Departments be compelled to contribute towards the cost of eradication >f noxious weeds on lands that have come into their hands and that local bodies be given full powers to enforce eradication regulations. Local' bodies, it was contended, should be given power to’ use money from ordinary revenue or to collect additional funds for the purpose of controlling noxious weeds, suck monies to bo subsidised by die Government to the extent of the present departmental expenditure and an amount equal to what was collected from private lands. in a brief discussion at the Kawera County Council meeting on Saturday! the chairman (Cr. J. B. Murdoch) said that it did not seem of any use to go on with the proposed Bill unless the Crown realised its obligations and agreed to pay what was asked. Cr. A 13. Death said that the present method of procedure was futile. The chairman agreed and added that, if local bodies were given powers to rate for the purpose, the Government would have to pay the .subsidy and, if necessary, provide stock to check the weed in the* rough country. The weed, he said, could be controlled in the open countrv; it was on the land outside this that the spread was taking p 1 ace. CV. Lander strongly approved of the proposal, stating that they had talked long enough and nothing had been done, and meantime the whole countryside was being spoilt. On the motion of Cr. Death it wfs decided that the council support the request of the Local Bodies’ Association to have the required legislation brought into force.