ORDERS-IN-COUNCIL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 261, 2 October 1940, Page 6

ORDERS-IN-COUNCIL

debate sought.

POWERS OF PARLIAMENT

(Bv Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 1.

The session was resumed with signs of Opposition alertness regarding several questions which have been occupying tue public mind. A request was made by Mr F. IV. Doidge (Taurauga) that the Government should set aside one day for a debate on Orders-in-Council and of which Parliament had no knowledge until they had become operative. In Britain, he added, there had-been four occasions in one week recently when members had criticised the Government for its regulations and had secured amendments in the emergency powers which had been exercised.

“Surely the member does not intend to convey that this House has been neglectful in its vigilance,” retorted the Prime Minister, who added that he would be pleased to give the opportunity for a discussion of the regulartions if that was the general wish of t'he House. It all depended on how long members would agree to stay and the importance they attached to these subjects. He was all the more favourable to this course because members were not getting the usual general opportunity of discussion afforded by the Address-in-Reply debate. A CONTESTED CLAUSE. .

The hotly contested claqse in the Statutes Amendment Bill in the recent short session which proposed to give the Arbitration'Court power to fix the opening and closing hours of shops reappeared in the House in the form of an amendment to the Shops and Offices Act.

‘-‘We have heard of it before,” remarked Mr Holland significantly, and the Leader of the Opposition asked if it was the same clause and whether there were any additions. “Quite just the same clause,” replied the Minister of Labour (Hon. P. C. Webb), “but it will go to the Labour Bills Committee for the taking of evidence.”

The Bill was read a . second time formally and referred to the Labour Bills Committee.

It seeks to empower the Arbitration Court to fix the opening and closing hours of all shops, but there is the additional provision for appeal to a magistrate for exemption from the closing hours fixed by the Court. Every occupier of a shop, whether employing assistants or not, is deemed to be an employer for the purposes of carrying out the provisions of the legislation.