MINERS’ WIDOWS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17911, 15 October 1932, Page 5

MINERS’ WIDOWS

PAYMENT OF PENSIONS ACT TO BE AMENDED ' (Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. An amendment to the National Expenditnre Adjustment Act dealing with the position of miners’ widows’ pensions will be shortly introduced into the House by the Government. Information to this effect has been received by Mr A. M. .Samuel (Coal., ■Thames), who, since the commencement of the session, has been pressing for legislation in fulfilment of a promise made when the law was altered last session. It is'Understood that the amendment will authorise the continuation of the allowances to widows concerned,. with a modification that each case will be subject to the same “means” test as applies with respect to old age pensions. The next payment to miners’ widows is due at the end of Octobci, and it is hoped that the -legislation will he passed in time to enable the allowances to be paid. Mr Samuel indicated to-day that/ apart from the allowances affected he had represented to the Minister the necessity of further the law to •cover cases of widows of miners who, while in receipt of pneumoconiosis pensions, lose their lives through accident or other causes, his point being that in all such cases the allowance should be .paid to the widow after the husband’s death. Also requiring attention was the position of miners who wore at present debarred from receiving pensions through a technicality arising ouit- of residential qualifications. Mi Samuel said he was hopeful that when the amending legislation came down the Minister would incorporate provisions to meet the two undoubted anomalies to which he had referred.