LAND DEVELOPMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24697, 28 August 1941, Page 12

LAND DEVELOPMENT

ALLEGATIONS OF WASTE DISCREPANCY IN ACCOUNTS ROYAL COMMISSION SOUGHT (0.C.) WELLINGTON Aug 27. A demand for a Royal Commission to investigate the charges against the Government of wasteful expenditure on the development of farm lands and a discrepancy of £500,000 In the accounts, which, he said, had been disclosed by the member for Waitomo (Mr W. J. Broadfoot), was made by Mr F. W. Doidge (Opposition, Tauranga) during the second reading debate on the National Development Loans Bill in the House of Representatives tonight. “I ask the Government to face up to -the charges of the member for Waitomo and quit running from corner to corner throughout the debate like so many hypnotised rabbits,” said Mr Doidge. Called to order, he substituted the words “frightened members.” Use of Unemployed Continuing, Mr Doidge said that the Acting Minister of Lands had not only confessed that there had been waste, but had admitted that it had been wilful. He had admitted that much of the land which had cost £l5O to £l7O an acre to clear could have been cleared for £5 an acre with bulldozers. His excuse had been that it was better to use the unemployed on such work than to have them chipping weeds. . Actually, however, the work was not started on blocks quoted till 1936, when-the slump was over.

The Acting Minister of Lands (Mr J. G. Barclay): That is quite incorrect. Continuing, Mr Doidge said that the admissions made by the Minister in his speech represented a confession of administrative ineptitude. The Government was on trial for its life, and nothing was more pathetic than the reply by the Minister of Labour (Mr P. C. Webb), who ran away from every charge that was made and took refuge behind the stock bogy' of the depression years. “It is time that bogy was laid to rest,” he said. An Awakening to Come

“ I know there are members on the Government benches who believe that there is safety in stupidity, and that the people fools, but thy will find out at the election that the people are not so easily duped as they think.” Mr Doidge said. He also charged the Government members who persisted in referring to the last depression with using “ sob-stuff,” and said that clothes drives were in progress in New Zealand to-day. The Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr W. E. Parry): Who for? Mr Doidge read from two advertisements soliciting aid for poor people and children.