MEAT CONTROL BILL

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4011, 4 August 1931, Page 2

MEAT CONTROL BILL

OBJECTION TO MEMBERS’ VOTES WELLINGTON. July 28. The close voting on Mr Lysnar’s Meat Export Control Bill last week gave point to an objection he raised in the House to Mr 1). Jones (Mid-Can-terbury) and Mr A. Hamilton (M alace) having voted on the second reading division. .Mr Lysnar submitted that both members were financially interested, in that Mr Jones i» chairman of the board and Mr Hamilton a member. He understood that Mr Jones, as chairman, received LtiOO per annum, that Mr Hamilton was paid an honorarium ol £2UO, while there appeared in tin 1 board’s accounts a total of £2,843 for members’ honoraria and travelling allowance. The member tor Gisborne quoted the Standing Order, which disallowed the vote of any member it the subject was one in which he is financially interested.

Mr Speaker replied that any question of a member being pecuniarily inlerestcd must he raised at the time ol the division or immediately at forwards. Mr Lysnar was too late in raising the question, but in passing he would also remark that, without passing judgment, it seemed that the remuneration was payable to the office, not to the individual, and the same principle applied to members ol Parliament. Otherwise they would ho debarred from voting on any question affecting their honoraria.

Mr Lysnar explained that he had not discovered that the members had voted until he consulted the division lists that morning, tor he had assumed that they had respected the Standing Order.