WAR PENSIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24773, 25 November 1941, Page 6

WAR PENSIONS

MOVE FOR INCREASE RETURNED SOLDIERS' PLAN A proposal to submit to the Government a redraft of the existing War Pensions Act to provide for increased pensions is to be discussed at the annual conference of the New Zealand Returned Services' Association in Wellington next May or June. In the meantime, it is planned that the views of the Dunedin, Oamaru, Gore and Invercargill branches of the association on the subject should be consolidated, and this scheme was approved last night at a meeting of the Dunedin association. , "If our request for an increase in the basic pensions should be approved by the Government, it will be one of the many fine achievements of the New Zealand' Returned Services' Association," said the secretary of the Dunedin association, Mr O. L. Ferens.

The following suggestions have been put forward for discussion: —(1) The consolidation of the War Pensions Act and its amendments; (2) the basic pension should be increased to £3 a week; (3) a wife's pension should be increased to £3 a week oh the death of her husband; (4) the pension for an orphan should be increased to 15s a week; (5) the pension for a widowed mother (wholly or partially dependent) should be increased to £2 a week; (6) the War Pensions Board should visit the four main centres and decentralise its work as much as possible to overcome the delay in granting pensions