BUSINESS IN GOVERNMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21874, 9 August 1934, Page 15

BUSINESS IN GOVERNMENT

Sir, —The sorry spectacle of Parlia- i ment's "marking time" for a month j or so because the Opposition decided to I cut the cackle is enough to make one j despair of parliamentary government. I A session of Parliament is the annual j meeting of New Zealand, Unlimited, but it is evidently called to assemble I months before the directors are ready I for the meeting. A trading company j issues its report and balance-sheet to ! the shareholders before the anitual I meeting, and also an agenda of the j business to be transacted, giving the j order in which it is to be transacted. As a result an annual meeting takes i only an hour or two. Jf Parliament ; followed the same course, if. when mem- j bers took their seats, they found on their desks the Budget, departmental ! reports, bills to be discussed and passed or rejected, if, in short, parliamentary business was carried on by business methods. Parliament could do its husi- i ness in a month much more effectively than it does now in four. Some years ago we were promised more business in Government; but no attempt has been made to fulfil that promise. A change of dominant party promises no reform; for though oppositions make capital out of the ineptitude of the "Ins," they slavishly follow the sainp ; practices when they become "Ins." What curse is there on parliaments i that prevents them from using common sense in their methods of transacting the business of the State? It is no wonder that Mr. H. G. Wells wrote that the business methods of parliaments were enough to make any sensible human being weep. A. Warbttrton.