NOT ACCEPTED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26214, 26 July 1946, Page 6

NOT ACCEPTED

MINISTERS’ EXPLANATION OPPOSITION LEADER REPLIES tFrom Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, July 25. Replying to the debate, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr S. G. Holland, said that when the matter first came to his notice he was profoundly shocked. He moved his motion and quite frankly felt that there was no answer to the allegations and that the Prime Minister would get up and say that a mistake had been made and get out of the difficulty as best he could. He was bound to confess, however, that after hearing the speeches of the Minister of Lands, Mr Skinner, and the Minister of Health, Mr Nordmeyer, he had some doubts, and felt that if what they said was the truth, then he had been misinformed. He made inquiries to see if the Minister’s statements were the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but he found that what they had said did not comply with that. Although at one stage he was uncertain, everything he had first said had been confirmed and the position was worse than at the start of the debate. ■

* Tactics Criticised

Mr Holland said that when the Prime Minister had to resort to the tactics he had adopted that night to prevent his opponents from being heard in reply, it showed that he did not want the people to hear the case exploded as he (Mr Holland) had intended to explode it. The Opposition’s case was that there had been interference with the course of justice, said Mr Holland. The Government said that that interference was justified. The Opposition said that there was a case for the removal of a magistrate or the chairman of a land sales committee provided a sufficient 1, offence had been committed, but even then only after a full and independent inquiry. The Government claimed that a Minister must be all-powerful—entitled' to dismiss a public man without trial or opportunity to explain things. The Opposition said that to remove a man because he did not give judgments sufficiently favourable to the Government was intolerable. The Government said that it was entitled to remove him for not giving those decisions that suited them and to replace him by someone who wouldThe Opposition said that no one should be condemned unless a proper accusation were made against him and he was given a chance to clear himself. It was a grave injustice to deny an accused person the right to state his case and defend himself. Valuations Increased

Mr Holland said that provision was made in the Act for appeal so that a lower court could not be condemned without a higher court first having been tried out. The Crown had appealed against valuations fixed by the Hamilton Committee in 11 cases, and in 10 of them the Land Sales Court not only had not reduced the valuations as the Crown asked, but had increased them. If the committee was wrong, how much more wrong was the court? But the Government did not dare to remove a Supreme Court judge. Mr Holland concluded by recapitulating the main arguments advanced by the Opposition in the course of the debate.