AN “EMERGENCY” SESSION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3441, 10 March 1932, Page 4

AN “EMERGENCY” SESSION.

Parliament has spent nearly three weeks over the “emergency” session, and the people are beginning to wonder why members have been called together. Notwithstanding the dire distress that prevails from one end of the country to the other, practically nothing has been done to deal with the situation. After the Coalition Government was formed it was stated that a programme would be formulated for putting the unemployed “over the fence.” In other words, the unemployed would be set to work to develop some of the tens of thousands of acres of idle lands and make them productive. Large blocks of land, the possibilities of which are doubtful, have been purchased, but the bulk of the men are still on work which will give no permanent results, and the taxpayers will be called upon to pay still further for these palliative measures. Outside committees have been set up to make reports to Parliament, but after Parliament had been in session for three weeks one of these reports has been laid before the House, while the other is just now completed. It would have been more businesslike to have appointed these committees immediately after the elections and called Parliament together when their reports were ready for consideration. Since Parliament has been 'in session nothing has been done but waste time on the Address-in-Reply debate, when there has been a wearisome reiteration of present-day facts which are well-known by everyone. This debate has brought forward nothing of a constructive nature. If members had the interests of the country at heart they would have cut this "debate as short as possible, so that the real business for which the session was called could be dealt, with in a business-like manner. It was expected that this “emergency” session would last two weeks. At the present rate of progress its term will be at least two months, with only further palliative measures to meet the serious crisis which the country is now facing.