GOVERNMENT COSTS

Northern Advocate, 19 April 1933, Page 10

GOVERNMENT COSTS

AUSTRALIA’S EXPERIENCE. NEW ZEALAND’S LIGHTER LOAD, CONTRASTING FIGURES. (Special to "Northern Advocate.’’) WELLINGTON, This Day. Australia, with its six Parliaments md State Governors, and the Federal Parliament and Civil List at the top of the edifice, is carrying an annual load of £1,155,65f) as the cost of its Parliamentary Government. To legislate for a total population of six and a half millions,* the Commonwealth Parliamentary machinery requires 24(3 members in its upper legislative houses and 419 in the lower, a total of 06f> members, while New Zealand, with its population of one and a half millions, manages with 102 members of Parliament, and secures, in the opinion of most people, more than enough legislation for current needs.

. The cost of government in the Commonwealth is very closely detailed in the Official Year Book of the Commonwealth just published. The items cover the equivalent of the Now Zealand Civil List, the expenses of the legislative branches and staffs, and electoral expenditure. These can be fairly contrasted with the New Zealand situ-, ation, for they exclude the expenditure on the public services, which differ so much in the various countries because of the varying demands for State activities.

On a cost per head basis, the Commonwealth official survey produces the folloAving interesting results:. Commonwealth .'. 1/.) New South Wales 2/ Victoria 1/4 Queensland 2/3 South Australia 2/10 "West Australia J/2 Tasmania 4/

Aii average over the whole group gives an expenditure for Parliamentary Government (excluding cost of public services) equal to 3/7 per head of population. This large figure lias been appreciably reduced of recent years, for the total was 4/5 per head in 1920, coming down to' 4/4 the following year, and then dropping heavily to the point above quoted. New Zealand’s cost of government, assessed on the same basis, shows a fairly , modest figure, the total being just over 2/3 per head of population. But tiie Dominion is satisfied with ten Ministers, while the highly-duplicated Commonwealth system requires a total of 09 Ministers, whose salaries, with expenses, amount to £87,000 per annum. The principal features of New Zealand’s cost of Government bill., are as follows: — . ■ ' Civil List . ..: £20,821' Parliament £113,420 .Klee torn I £29,000

Total £109,241 Tlic- expenditure for electoral purposes has been averaged, so as to produce a fair comparison. It amounted to £06,000 in 1932, but in the years when there is no direct expenditure on general elections, the cost comes down to approximately £IO,OOO per annum. The Queensland total of 2/3 per head comes nearest to that of New Zealand, but the comparison in our favour m heightened by. the respective population figures, Queensland’s cost being based on a total of under one million people, while the New Zealand figures are based on a population of one and n half million.