LOCAL BODY CONTROL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19336, 28 May 1937, Page 10

LOCAL BODY CONTROL

SCHEME OF MERGERS

MANY EXCUSES GIVEN

(Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, last night

“As long as local body amalgamation remains in the realm of academic discussion, everybody is agreed us to the necessity of pushing on with the job, said the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. W. K. Parry, in an address this evening to the Institute of Public Administration. “Hut when the question is faced and attempts are made to proceed with the work, all sorts of excuses arc made lo defeat progress. “Notwithstanding the fact that practically every newspaper and every local body has, within the last 12 months, agreed that reform is necessary, yet when it is applied to their own areas, almost, every local body has suggested that there is n’o need to alter the status quo its far as their area is concerned.

“I submit 'that New Zealand has reached the time when reorganisation cannot, he longer delayed. It is suggested. in some quarters, that there already exists in the statutes governing the various types of local authorities, provision to enable sueli reorganisation to take place, and that, therefore, any interference is unwarranted. “Every section of the community has admitted the need for reform, and yet that reform has not taken placet This of itsoll, is suliicient to prove that the present provisions are unsuitable for the purpose of national reorganisation. When my programme lias been carried out, there is no doubt, that the result will be that New Zealand will have a system of local Government second to none in the world.”