HOUSE SURPRISED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23085, 9 July 1938, Page 17

HOUSE SURPRISED

MOVE BY INDEPENDENT COMPLICATED PROCEDURE TWO QUICK DIVISIONS NOVEL ALLIANCE OF PARTIES [BY TELEGRAPH— SPKCIAI REPORTER] WELLINGTON, Friday Complicated points of procedure arose in the House of Representatives today as the result of the moving of a second no-confidence amendment to the formal motion for the Address-in-Reply. Two divisions were taken in rapid succession and the position now is that a plain amendment of no-confidence without stated grounds is before the House. Tho original no-confidence amendment was moved a week ago by tho Leader of the Opposition, tho Hon. A. Hamilton, stating that the Government had forfeited the confidence of the House on seven specific points. Some surprise was caused this afternoon when Mr. A. C. A. Sexton (Independent—Franklin) moved a further amendment of no-confidence designed to remove all the grounds advanced by the Opposition and to replace them with the following: —"That the Government has made no legislative provision for the abolition of fixed political parties in this honourable House and for the taking of a free and impartial vote of the honourable members on all important matters affecting the safety, honour and welfare of this Dominion and of the Empire." Measure of Consternation

The moving of the second amendment caused a measure of consternation, aimed as it was at the abolition of the party system. It could hardly prove acceptable to either the Government or the Opposition, but the forms of the House provided that it had to be put in such a way as to cause a vote to be taken on part of the Opposition's amendment.

Mr. Sexton's amendment sought to remove all the reasons advanced by the Leader of the Opposition for lack of confidence in the Government and the first question put to the House bjf the Speaker, the Hon. # W. E. Barnard, concerned the retention or otherwise of these grounds. Obviously the Government had to vote in favour of their being struck out and its members went into the lobby with Mr. Sexton and Mr. H. M. Rushworth (Country—Bay of Islands), the result of the division being that the Opposition's grounds for no-confid-denee were struck out by 39 votes to 11. The Parties Join Forces The next question was whether Mr. Sexton's reason for lack of confidence, the rention of the party system, should stand. Mr. Sexton himself insisted on a division and into the same lobby walked Government and Opposition members. Shouts of laughter could be heard from members over this unusual alliance, to be drowned subsequently in the singing of the song "The More We Are Together," Mr. Sexton's amendment' was defeated by 47 votes to three, the only member voting with Mr. Sexton and Mr. Rushworth being Mr. R. A. Wright (Independent —Wellington Suburbs).

"We have just had a happy time together," said the Minister of Mines, the Hon. P. C. Webb, who rose to speak in the debate immediately after the division. " Jt is perhaps significant that it took a sexton to get us together."