THE PACE OF PARLIAMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23330, 23 October 1937, Page 12

THE PACE OF PARLIAMENT

Parliament has now been sitting for over six weeks. The Government, which controls the business of Parliament, cannot be congratulated on the progress that has been made with the wprk of the session. An observation concerning the duration of speeches which was made by the Prime Minister during the discussion on the Imprest Supply Bill on the third day of the session suggested that at the outset there was some desire on his part I to prevent a waste of time with superfluous verbiage. That fugitive impression has, however, been entirely dissipated in the sequel. Its quietus could not have been more effectively administered than in the dreary and unnecessary prolongation of the financial debate, which opened on September 30. Not less than three weeks has been considered necessary for the expression of the views of members of the House of Representatives on the Budget. To say that the debate has been dragged out unconscionably, like, to his own way of thinking, the demise of one of Britain's Monarchs, is to describe the procedure in mild terms. The deliberate protraction of the discussion has been the more noticeable, of course, because of the balance of parties in the House. The Opposition members are few in number, and they had finished their contribution to the financial, debate days ago. And yet the expenditure of forensic ammunition from the Government benches has gone monotonously on. Member after member of the Government has been seized with an irresistible impulse to occupy the attention of the House, which at this stage must indeed have been flagging to a discouraging extent, on questions respecting which the likelihood of the introduction of any fresh argument or point of interest had ceased to exist. Possibly a partial explanation of this was to be found in the Prime Minister's announcement of his intention of giving every member who desired it an opportunity of being heard on the air on the subject of the Budget. Whether Ministers or members are right in thinking that their speeches in the House are necessarily of interest to the public and are going to. win them support is another matter. An investigation of the reactions of the public to the broadcasting of the proceedings of Parliament might possibly be productive of evidence which would be disappointing to the Prime Minister and his colleagues. At the time of his assumption of office Mr Savage was anxious that the electors should understand that his Government was going to make Parliament a businesslike institution. Labour, he said, would introduce methods which would expedite parliamentary business. These methods have been singularly lacking in the Budget debate of the past three weeks. The leisurely pace of Parliament thus far in the session suggests, indeed, that the Government must have had its own reasons to be content with this dull rate of progress, probably because it has not been ready to place more important business before the House. It has brought down a few Bills, mostly of a non-controversial nature, but the days and nights devoted to a futile prolongation of the financial debate could have been profitably devoted, had it seen fit, to the disclosure and discussion of major legislative proposals which the Government intends to introduce. It is a reasonable assumption that the Government is not ready with its programme, and that Parliament has been conveniently, marking time to cover its unpreparedness.