NATIONAL INSURANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18551, 8 November 1923, Page 9

NATIONAL INSURANCE.

AUSTRALIAN PROPOSALS.

UNEMPLOYMENT ) QUESTION. : [FEOiC OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] " ■;;; SYDNEY. Nov; J."/ : The establishment of a r system of national insurance against sickness and unemployment is rapidly entering the realm of practical politics in Australia. The Federal Government has set up » Royal Commission to inquire into the matter, and at the commencement of its investigations it received evidence from the Secretary to the Treasury that the Commonwealth had reached the "danger point'* in the matter of taxation. The pensions roll—invalid and old age—was rapidly increasing, apparently due to the fact that the prejudice on the ground that the receipt of such assistance savoured of charity was being quickly overcome as well as to increasing population. He recommended that any national insurance scheme should embrace the pension scheme, thus placing it on a financial basis under which actuarially-determined contributions from all section* interested would meet the prospective calls upon the funds established. This, of course, would onlv apply to futuro pensioners, as those ••dread eligible obviously could not come under the contributory scheme. . ~ : At the same time we have in New [South Wales a remarkable speech by the I Attornev-C.eneral, Mr. Bavin, indicating his conviction in favour of an unemploy- | ment insurance scheme. So far he has I merely dealt with the matter in the abstract, without intimating whether he will move' for the establishment of a State scheme, or whether he regards it as a matter of essentially Federal concern. He has put it forward as the only solution of the unemployment trouble. His view, is that modern industrial conditions necessarily engender a permanent though fluctuating body of unemployed. ■ Quite apart from the uiiemployabics, there must be ai reserve of labour which increases • and' decreases in sympathy with the barometer of trade. A period of activity in Gne branch of industry synchronises with slackness in another. •'.- -.'•■'■'•''"' \ '•'"!'''. : °..".' '-v'-

Various measures suggest themselves for ;...- /- reducing the mass of this: necessary reervo to the minimum, but the fact re- .:-;--i----mains, he contends, that whatever lis done such a reserve will always exist under the;: '■'.;, v > present system, and this being so, he regards its maintenance as a charge upon industry. ' ' "''.''' ;\j • -• i The Sydney Morning' Herald says, that f as long as an appreciable contribution is , . made by the employee—a contribution «£ surintr his' interest hr the :*&•**££*'>■ . its right working-the .»»fcJ^ : SS2gS&k discussing. _ .",.;;^/r- N SB