METHOD CRITICISED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 1 July 1943, Page 5

METHOD CRITICISED

APPOINTMENT OF MEMBERS MR HOLLAND’S SUGGESTION (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) Wellington, This Day. The appointment of persons to Ministerial rank without their having faced the electors was a subject mentioned again by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr S. G. Holland, speaking in the second reading debate on the Finance Bill No. 2 in the House of Representatives •yesterday. He said he thought it was time they returned to the principle of government of the people by the people for the people. Mr Holland said he wished to draw attention to an undesirable drift in our democratic form of Government. Three persons had been appointed to Ministerial rank without having undertaken the preliminary task of facing the electors. Mr Schramm (Govt., Auckland East) said that Mr Holland had consented to such a procedure when he was in the War Administration. Mr Holland said that throughout the negotiations he had objected to the inclusion of outsiders in the War Administration, and the Prime Minister would bear him out in that. Then it came to the appointment of one person, and he had said that they had given away a great deal, but rather than see the whole thing break down he would agree to that appointment under protest. Personally he thought the appointment of the Hon. W. Perry was a good one. Mr Perry had special qualifications and in war it was sometimes necessary to do things that were out of the ordinary. In the case of the Minister of Manpower, however, said Mr Holland, if they wished to ask him questions he was not present to answer them because he was not a member of the House. He would suggest that at the forthcoming general election the Minister should face the electors in one of the electorates.