METHODS OF MR. LANG.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20900, 16 June 1931, Page 10

METHODS OF MR. LANG.

UNPRECEDENTED POSITION. STATE WITHOUT A BUDGET. [FROM OUll OWN CORRESPONDENT.] SYDNEY, June 3. A position unprecedented in the history of New South Wales has arisen as a result of the fact that although tlie financial year will end on June 30, no Budget speech will have been delivered on that dato. it has been explained by (ho Ministerial colleagues of the Premier, Mr. Lang, that in consequence of the Premiers' Conference in Melbourne, and the absence of the Premier, it would bo impossible to have the Budget presented this financial year. It was also possible that the Budget that had been drafted might have to be altered if agreement were reached on the financial issue before tho Premiers' Conference. It is known (hat the Premier intended (o forecast increased taxation ami an alteration in the incidence of the unemployment relief tax—a luxury, by the way, that already costs the wage-earners of the State one shilling in the pound on their incomes. It is believed that he intended to reduce the tax on lower wages and increase the rate on the higher. Tho announcement that no Budget speech would be delivered catno as an unpleasant shock to members of the other parties in tho Assembly., It was first made known when the acting-Premier, Mr. Baddeley, introduced in the House a supply bill for £2,648,800 to defray the expenses of the various Government departments and services of the State up to the end of Juno next. The bill was " gagged " through the House with little ceremony amid the protests of the Opposition parties. The Leader of tho Opposition, Mr. Bavin, said that they wero faced with an unprecedented position. For tho first time in the history of the State a financial year had practically expired without a Budget. Tho whole of tho finances oftho State and the finances of the public Service had been carried OrY wUhfiut'fiVopcr authority by appropriation. Neither Parliament nor tho public knew anything about the state of the finances.

The Leader of the Country Party, Mr. Buttenshaw, said that the gagging of the bill through the House after a little over an hour's debate illustrated the farce to which the present Administration had reduced Parliamentary Government. The Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Dunn, had recently admitted that the debit balance at tho end of the year would probably be about eight and a-half millions —the largest deficit of any State ih the Commonwealth. That was the unenviable record that the Lang Ministry hi>d given Now South Wales. Yet they could not even discuss it. .

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