LOCAL BODY INQUIRY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 73, 23 February 1945, Page 5

LOCAL BODY INQUIRY

COMMISSION DEMANDED

(Press Assn.) WELLINGTON, Feb. 22 Concluding its evidence before the Parliamentary Committee on Local Government, the New Zealand Counties’ Association “most forcibly asserted” that the investigation should have been carried out by an independent commission presided over by a Judge or Magistrate. The association expressed fears that the conclusions arrived at by the committee would be tinged with a certain amount of party politics and consequently would not reflect the true perspective of the various problems with their so lutions of adjustment, also that all matters on the order of reference would not be investigated thoroughly

The association said it could not visualise the sitting Parliamentary Committee devoting sufficient time to the profound consideration of' the problems involved unless a most searching investigation were made into the multitudinous items on tht> order paper. The association did not consider the committee as a whole would be competent to arrive at decisions that could he translated into palatable amending legislation. - "Only an unbiased commission with plenty of time at its disposal and by minute examination of the various departmental authorities concerned could satisfy the expectations and hopes of our county councils over a reform that has been delayed for years and years,” said the association. “If this investigation is a genuine attempt to improve local body government we feel sure the finalising in detail of the committee’s work must be left to a commission.”