OIL ROYALTIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23442, 5 March 1938, Page 14

OIL ROYALTIES

PAYMENT TO STATE ONLY OPPOSITION AMENDMENT DEFEATED ASSURANCE GIVEN MAORIS (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Mar. 4. No success attended the effort made by members of the Opposition in the House of Representatives during the past two days to secure for land owners at least half of the royalties payable on flow oil under the Petroleum Act passed last year. The Act provides that a royalty of not less than 5 ner cent, shall be paid to the Crown on all oil produced and, when the Opposition forced a division with the ,object of securing a portion of the royalty for the owners of land on which oil may be found, it was defeated by 44 votes to 16. - Because of the fact that the interests of East Coast and Taranaki Maoris are to a large extent affected, some significance is attached to the attitude of the Labour Maori members, Mr E. T. Tirikatene (Southern Maori) and Mr H. T. Ratana (Western Maori), who voted with the Government. Mr Tirikatene to-day repeated his statement of yesterday that he was satisfied with the Government's assurance that, if oil were found on land belonging to Maoris they would not lose by it. The voting was as follows: Against the Amendment (44) Anderton McDougall Armstrong Martin Barclay Mason Barnes MeacHen Barrel! Moncur Burnett, C. H. Nash Campbell Neilson Carr O'Brien Chapman <">sborne Christie Parry Coleman Petrie Cotterill Ratana Denham Richards Fraser Roberts Hodgens Robertson Howard Savage Hultquist Semple Jones Sullivan Langstone Thorn Lee Tirikatene Lowry Webb McCombs Wilson For the Amendment (16) Bodkin Holland Broadfoot \ Kyle Zoates Ngata Cobbe Poison Dickie Roy Forbes Rushworth Hamilton Sexton Hargest Wright Following the division on the Opposition amendment, there was further discussion on the general question of royalties, but this debate petered out early in the afternoon, and the Opposition did not press for another division. The debate in its later stages followed closely op the lines taken earlier, with Government speakers maintaining the right to secure the royalties to the State and Opposition members asking for equal division of the royalties between the State and the Native and European land owners. FAILURE TO ACT OPPOSITION MEMBERS CHIDED MR FORBES'S SPIRITED REPLY (From Our "Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Mar. 4. The failure of the last Government to proceed with legislation for the exploitation of petroleum deposits along the lines laid down in the Petroleum Act of last year was emphasised by the Minister of Mines (Mr P. C. Webb) in an interjection during the debate on the royalties issue in the House of Representatives to-day. Mr G. W. Forbes (Opposition, Hurunui) was speaking of the anxiety of the Opposition to see a full investigation made of the oil resources of the Dominion, when Mr Webb asked why it was that the last Government had not brought down a similar Bill. " You had one; I know that," Mr Webb said.

Mr Forbes: I was not Minister of mines then, and so I do not know what was the intention. Mr Webb: Your Cabinet would not agree to the Bill going to the House. Mr Forbes: I do not know about that, bul if any Cabinet of which I was a member had attempted to introduce any proposal to deprive landowners of their rights I would not have agreed. Mr Forbes caused a laugh also when earlier in his remarks he said that he desired to " pour water on troubled oil." He claimed that Labour had adopted a futile attitude in alleging that v political reasons coloured the views of the Opposition on royalties. Such a charge could be made, and had been made, oh any discussion in the House. He looked on the proposal to confine the payment of royalties to the State as a case of the State giving away legal rights to the people and then resuming those rights without compensation, merely because the State felt it must be done, but could that doctrine be adhered to in the present case without hardship? The Government was not perfect, and much that had been done in the past in the interests of the State was not necessarily right. Simply to plead the interests of the State did not, perhaps, justify the taking of these mineral rights and royalties. PRECEDENT SUGGESTED PURCHASE OF GOLD SUPPLIES MR BODKIN RAISES OBJECTION (Per United Press Association) AUCKLAND, Mar. 4. Denial of a suggestion by Government members that the royalties clause in the Petroleum Act was similar in principle to the action of the last Government in compulsorily acquiring the gold supplies in New Zealand was made by Mr W. A. Bodkin (Opposition. Central Otago) during the debate on petroleum royalties in the House of Representatives to-day. "An attempt has been made by certain members of the Government to suggest that this legislation is on all fours with the treatment the last Government accorded the banks by compulsorily acquiring their gold. Mr Bodkin said. " That is not so. The banks received the full New Zealand value of the gold." The Minister of Education (Mr P. Fraser): Did they think so? Mr Bodkin: What was laken from them was coin of the realm. The banks had paid only the coinage value for it. and that was the only value it had under the law of this country. " It would have been monstrous," Mr Bodkin added. " if the Government had paid any more than it had." Mr Fraser: Did they say it was confiscation? " They said that they should have the right to export it," Mr Bodkin concluded, " but the Government said: ' We are the masters of the situation.' "