PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3768, 1 June 1926, Page 55

PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS.

HOUSING OF STAFFS

WELLINGTON, May 27. Preparations are to-day in evidence in Parliament Buildings for the housing of the reconstituted Prime Minister’s Department as arranged recently by Mr Coates. The permanent head of the new department will be Mr F. D. Thomson, C.M.G., the present chief private secretary to the Prime Minister, and a suite of rooms for the occupation of Mr Thomson and his staff is now being got ready on the ground floor of the pew portion of the Parliament House, adjacent to the new quarters which the Prime Minister and his staff will take up on the return of Mr Coates to Wellington on June 7. As the result of the new arrangement the Prime Minister should have more privacy than has been the lot of New Zealand Prime Ministers for years past, and so be able to give fuller attention to the important problems of State management that crop up from time to time.

It is expected that the demolition of the old wooden portion of Parliament House, formerly Government House, will bo commenced about October or November next. This will entail the removal of the Ministerial staffs who are remaining for the time being in the old building to new premises, and it is possible that they will be transferred to the back part of the library wing at present occupied by the district staff of the Public Works- Department. Arrangement* are being made for housing the Publio Works district staff in a building on Thorndon reclamation which has been taken over from Messrs E. W. Mills and Co. Once the old part of Parliament House has been pulled down the completion of the new southern wing of Parliament' House will be taken in hand. .

A live “selling force" controlled by a board of three members—the Minister in charge of tourist resorts and the representatives of the Tourist Department and private interests was suggested to the Prime Minister at Auckland on Saturday by a deputation from the New Zealand Tourist League as the best means of fostering the tourist traffic. Mr Coates said he was opposed to making the country a second Switzerland, and raised the question of accommodation, saying that the country would do itself a had turn if it attracted more tourists than it oould provide for.