The Week In Parliament

Northern Advocate, 16 September 1941, Page 7

The Week In Parliament

(By Our Parliamentary Correspondent)

The week has been momentous in Par- ' iliament, as Bills of a far-reaching char- . j acter have, been before the House. One of these, the Crimes Amendment Bill, ! passed into law after comparatively little j debate, and thus, with- a surprising absence of violent controversy, far-reaching alterations to the Criminal Code have been effected. The other, the Social Security Amendment Bill, is still before the House, but its passage is a foregone conclusion. Its purpose is to bring the doctors into line—perhaps to bring them to heel would be a better term —so that after three years of collecting a specific tax and giving little or nothing in return, the Government can implement a major 1938 election promise in time for the election of 1941. * * * * BEARING ON ELECTION In political circles the immediate impression created by this Bill is that an election is now almost a certainty, for Ihe Bill is in fact less a piece of highminded social legislation than an astute political manoeuvre designed first of all to put the Government “on side” prior to the election, and second to put the Opposition “off side.” Obviously the idea of a free medical service has a wide popular appeal, and if the Opposition could be beguiled into opposing it, a good tactical point would have been scored. As far as can be seen, however, the Opposition is unlikely to fall into the trap; Mr. Holland, in his speech on Thursday night, indicated the Opposition’s grave misgivings concerning the practical wisdom of theBill, and presented an amendment urging that consideration of it be deferred until after the war; but nothing he said could ibe interpreted as opposition to the general principle of a free medical service, I and it may be inferred that the only division on the Bill will be on the Opposition amendment. * * * # A MEMORABLE OCCASION The opening of the most important phases of the debate made Thursday night a memorable occasion. There were only I three speakers—the Hon. A. H. NordI meyer. Minister of Health, who is in charge of the Bill; Mr. S. G. Holland. Leader of the Opposition, who had the I highly responsible task of attempting to I analyse it and survey its weaknesses; and ! the Minister of Finance, the Hon. Walter Nash. These are perhaps the best trio of debaters in the House, and Mr, Holland, in being sandwiched in between Mr. Nordmeyer and Mr. Nash, the very cream of the Labour Party’s debating talent, had no light task, but he performed it with distinction, and raised a series oi points which no one less than Mr. Nash, who is as much the architect of the Bill as Mr. Nordmeyer, could have been relied upon to handle effectively. If, disregarding for a moment the Bill itself, this opening phase of the debate proved anything at all. it was the Opposition’s good fortune in having a leader of Mr. Holland’s calibre to launch the arguments against the Bill. It was an occasion when a subject of great magnitude had to be surveyed, and demanding a certain technical knowledge as well as ability in debate. During his remarks Mr. Holland made the statement that he “owed his life to doctors.” It is not generally known that the Leader of the Opposition, after serving as a lieutenant in France in the last war. had’to undergo a very delicate chest operation, after which he was invalided back to New Zealand. and made a sufficiently good recov- 1 ery to be able to play hockey for the South Island.

ABOLITION OF DEATH SENTENCE By contrast with the Social Security Amendment Bill, which aroused Dominionwide interest, and had full benches and crowded galleries in the House itself, the Crimes Amendment Bill, abolishing flogging and the death sentence as legal punishments in New Zealand, seemed to have only perfunctory attention. The public was certainly apathetic about it. considering its great bearing on the social wellbeing of the country; and in the House The interest was so half-hearted that when the Minister of Justice, the Hon. H. G. R. Masno. rose to make the most important speech on the Bill, the number of I his own party present did not exceed 18 |out of a possible 50-odd, and three or (four of them were busy passing round a bag of sweets! The reason for this laxity—and surely it can only be described as laxity—perhaps lies in the Labour Party’s overwhelming majority. There is never any chance of the party being “caught out" on a snap division, and any measure which has its official backing must pass into law with almost the same majestic certainty as the rising and setting of the sun. Undoubtedly the party system is seen at its worst when one side or the other has a large balance of power, and perhaps it is for this reason that party leaders, despite their sense of temporary security, usually look on large Parliamentary majorities as a source of peril. # ❖ * EX-JUDGE’S WARNING Although the abolition of capital punishment has been in the Labour platform for years, it took the Auckland flogging case to focus the party’s attention on it, and cause the appropriate legislation to be framed. That the party had no great confidence in this “reform,” however, seemed apparent from Mr. Mason’s very anaemic speech in support of it. The examples he cited, of countries that had abolished capital punishment, were by no means convincing, and he prudently avoided any reference to the able letter to the Press in which Sir John Reed, for 17 years a Judge of the Supreme Court, drew from his ripe experience to warn against the danger of removing from the Statutes the most salutary form of punishment available as a deterrent in the more aggravated forms of sexual depravity against children. Even though Mr. Mason declined to be drawn into this argument, it is surprising that the two women members of the House, Mrs. Stewart and Mrs. Dreaver, failed to give it their attention. An interesting contribution was made by Mr. Coates, who deplored the Government’s action in bringing on such a controversial Bill at this stage. When an Opposition amendment was moved by Mr. Harker, however, the Government members rallied dutifully to the call, and by 35 votes to 18 the spectre of the gallows and the cat was removed from the dark places of the human heart. With four members overseas, the Opposition vote represented almost their full available vote. The same cannot be said for the Government, which has only three members overseas, and had about 15 additional absentees.