MILITARY DEFAULTERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 3 July 1943, Page 2

MILITARY DEFAULTERS

QUESTION OF VOTING AT • GENERAL ELECTION DISCUSSION IN HOUSE (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) Wellington, This Day. If military defaulters are prisoners, should they be permitted to vote in the General Election? The issue was raised yesterday in the House of Representatives by Mr F. W. Doidge (Nat., Tauranga), who said there was a good deal of feeling in Rotorua over the possibility of these defaulters voting, and it was suggested that there might be enough of them to unseat the present Government member. “That’s a new idea,” commented the Prime Minister, who then dealt with several electoral questions which had been raised. Clean and representative rolls, he said, were necessary and instructions had been issued to this effect. The main rolls would close at the end of July and the supplementary rolls would be issued afterwards. He agreed with the suggestion that men m military camps should be permitted to vote in their own district, and this would apply also to men and women diverted from their homes to other places fer essential work. The lav/ which required persons to vote in an electorate in which they had resided for the las three months, would therefore have to be amended. As for defaulters the Prime Minister said he had not had time to consider the question, but. he added, smilingly “something must be done to protect the member for Rotorua. He was thinking of the big defaulters’ camp in his electorate.”

Mr W. S. Goosman (Nat., Waikato): “Are they not prisoners?” The Prime Minister.- “That is exactly the matter we have to consider.” Mr F. W. Schramm (Govt., Auckland East); “How can you get them out if they have not a polling booth in the camp?”

The Prime Mininster.- “Under the law as at present I do not see how they could vote, and I cannot see any reason for making any difference between the people who are under restraint in any sort of institution. They are lawbreakers.”