WORK OF SESSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23331, 25 October 1937, Page 8

WORK OF SESSION

DEBATE ON THE BUDGET FINAL STAGE REACHED OLD THREADBARE ARGUMENTS (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Oct. 24. Moving at a dignified, if rather deliberate pace, the House of Representatives has now virtually reached the conclusion of the financial debate. For more than three weeks familiar arguments, now worn threadbare, have been hurled backwards and forwards across the chamber, and, although they have been given a slightly original twist here and there, not a great deal of fresh material has come forward to relieve the general tedium of the debate. Altogether there have been 56 speakers in the debate since the Budget was read on September 28 by the Minister of Finance (Mr W. Nash), and, naturally, by far the greater number of them have come from the Government benches.

The broadcasting of Parliament has undoubtedly been a contributing factor to the prolongation of the financial debate, since, even if no one else in the House is listening to him—and that is not a rare state of affairs —a member always has the knowledge that a good many of his constituents will be at their radio sets. Consequently there has been a flavour of electioneering about a large proportion of the speeches. There will undoubtedly be keen interest in Mr Nash’s reply to the debate, which is to be made on Tuesday night. The Opposition has raised several points of which the Minister is bound to take notice, and it is reasonable to expect that he will have something to say on such subjects as the use of public credit, on which point the two sides of the House seem unable to reach even a working agreement, the banking policy, the decrease in sterling funds in London, and the results of the guaranteed price scheme. Mr Nash may also devote some attention to a discussion of the methods by which the Government proposes to protect local industries from the effects of excessive importations now that the results of the Australian elections are known, and it is also possible that he will refer to the position brought about by the high price which has been ruling for some time for New Zealand butter on the Home market. In a statement issued some weeks ago the Minister estimated that there would be a deficit of £650,000 in the Dairy Industry Account on the first year’s working of the guaranteed price scheme, but it is possible that, in view of the rise in prices, this may be revised to some extent.

Tuesday afternoon is to be devoted to a discussion on one or more of the Bills which were introduced last week relating to defence and broadcasting control, and when Mr Nash has finished his reply to the financial debate the House will proceed immediately to deal with the first class of the Estimates. Some lively discussion may safely be anticipated on the Estimates, so that there should be some interesting moments to bring about the very desirable result of brightening up the work of Parliament.