WASHING-UP BILL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24723, 27 September 1941, Page 8

WASHING-UP BILL

VALIDATING LEGISLATION OTAGO MATTERS INCLUDED (0.C.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 26. “ There are no landmines in this Bill," said the Prime Minister, Mr P. Fraser, when the Local Legislation Bill, the first of the annual “ washingup " measures to appear, was introduced in the House of Representatives shortly before it rose this afternoon. The Bill, which was read a first time, contains validating legislation in respect to several Otago matters. The Dunedin City Council made application for a renewal of the authorisation in respect of the waterworks supplementary loan, 1937, of £13,000. which expired in February, 1939. Fresh authority was necessary to the consent to raising the balance of loan amounting to £4300, but this authority was effective only from the date it was signed by the GovernorGeneral in Council and consequently any borrowing between the dates of expiry of the old order and the execution of the new Order-in-Council was illegal. A clause in the Bill validates the proceedings due to the inadvertent lapse. . , • , ‘ '. Another clause in the Bill autnonses the Otago Harbour Board to sell to the Dunedin City Council a certain area of land owned by the board, which is desired by the council for the purpose of adding to the Drainage Boardworks department’s yards. The action of the Dunedin Metropolitan Fire Board in making a compassionate grant of £250 to the wife of the late superintendent, Mr R. H. Price, who died suddenly early this year, is validated in another clause. Authority is given to the Balclutha Borough Council to close a portion of Hasborough place and sell vit to the Lower Clutha River Trust to enable that body to erect administrative offices, a wharf and other works. The street has a frontage on the river and that portion which has not been used as a public street has been leased as camping paddocks. _ The sum of £ls spent by the Oamaru Borough Council in sending the Mayor to Wellington as its representative to the Centennial Exhibition is also validated in a clause of the Bill. Among the genera] clauses is one extending the objects of the New Zealand Sheep Owners’ Acknowledgment of Debt to British Seamen Fund. It gives effect to the desire of the trustees to enable them to provide assistance to members of his Majesty’s naval or air forces and mercantile marine who serve in the present war and their dependents.