TOURIST TRIPS BY BUS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22711, 25 October 1935, Page 4

TOURIST TRIPS BY BUS

DUNEDIN CITY CORPORATION EMPOWERING BILL AMENDED # (From Oue Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, October 24. A protest against the manner in which the Local Bills Committee had dealt with the Dunedin City Empowering Bill was entered by Mr J. W. Munro during the second reading of the Bill in the House of Representatives to-day. Mr Munro said the committee had chopped the Bill about in a way that was most unsatisfactory to the City Council. Clause 3, giving the council power to regulate, control, or prohibit traffic in certain streets near , the Public Hospital between 8 p.m. and G a.m., had been amended to remove the word “ prohibit," but whether the clause would prove acceptable in its amended form remained to be seen. His most serious objection to tbe action of the committee, however, was the deletion of clause 4 giving the council power without requiring the consent of any local authority to undertake the carriage of passengers by means of motor vehicles between Dunedin and any other place in the South Island. The position of the Dunedin City Council in that respect was rather unusual, Mr Munro said, for it was probably the first city council in New Zealand to run tourist trips and had done so for some years. In 1933, however, the Supreme Court decided that the City Council should not be allowed to carry bn its trips as it had been doing. What was now sought was permission to run ,iu those areas where it was allowed to do so without having to secure the consent of every local authority through whose territory the buses passed. Mr Munro stated that when the Bill was in committee he would move that the clause should be reintroduced. Mr Jones said he did not think the Dunedin City Council had been fairly jtreated, and in his opinion the licensing authority should have power to decide whether or not buses could run in the districts of neighbouring local authorities. A private transport company in Dunedin ran through neighbouring local bodies' districts without having td secure permission from them. Mr Ausell said he was sorry Mr Munro and Mr Jones wore not prepared to aci cept the Bill as amended, as in its original form it was simply a circumvention of the , Municipal Corporations Act. The council was seeking power to run from Dunedin to any place in the South Island without getting permission from the local bodies concerned, and he suggested that if there was a necessity for an amendment in that direction it should be done through the principal Act. Mr Jones had said that a private company in Dunedin could run through neighbouring districts without the consent of the local body, but he should remember that before licences were granted the licensing authority gave full consideration to any objections raised, and if local authorities had objections to any service they had an opportunity of placing them before the authority. When the Bill was in committee Mr Munro did not move for the tion of the clause «nd the Bill was put through all its stages and passed as amended.