UNDEMOCRATIC SYSTEM

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11296, 23 August 1922, Page 4

UNDEMOCRATIC SYSTEM

ELECTION OF POWER BOARDS MAJORITY VOTE SHOULD BE NECESSARY. CONFERENCE SUGGESTED. The question of the “present undemocratic system of setting up electric power boards,” was brought up in tire House of Representatives yesterday by Mr J. Oaigie (Timaru). According to the Electric Power Boards Act, stated the lion, member, a petition could he circulated round any borough or district and a power hoard could be set up if 25 per cent, of the electors or ratepavens signed the petition, while tile other 75 per cent, of them were ignored. In Timaru the borough council was very much divided on riie matter, and he thought had passed a resolution against a power board, but it had been forced upon the council. The Borough Council had passed a resolution that the Government be asked to abolish the present undemocratic system of setting up power hoards on the petition of one-fourth of the ratepayers, and to provide that the matter should be decided at a poll of the ratepayers. This resolution had been endorsed by a large list of municipalities and counties, It might he said, added Mr Oraigie, that rile power boards could not erect works or borrow money; but the Act gave them power to appoint a chairman, secretary, and engineer, provide offioe expenses and incur a great deal of expense, and when it went to the ratepayers they might turn it down. He understood that for establishing river boards a majority vote was required; and for establishing town boards, a three-fourths vote. MINISTER’S REPLY. PURPOSES OF THE ACT. The Hon. J. G. Coates replied that he supposed it was safe to say that the Electric Power Boards Act was on its trial. Some power boards, of course, had made a good deal of headway, and apparently were making successes of their undertakings. The Act was designed on the lines of the Local Railways Act. There had been quite a number of resolutions passed in different parts of New Zealand taking exception to the principle. That was all, he thought, they had mentioned. He did not propose to take any action at all, until after a suggested conference had taken place. At the moment he was in communication with all the power boards that had l been set up and those that were proposed to be farmed —where the formalities had been gone through—and they were practically unanimous that the time had arrived for a conference to discuss the whole matter; and the question referred to was one that he had put down to be dealt with at that conference. What they wanted, of course, was the practical working-out of the Act. Naturally, existing local bodies were somewhat antagonistic to new local bodies being set up; but the function of the power boards was simply to look after the reticulation of electricity and handle it in bulk or retail as the case may be.