UNDER ONE HEAD

Southland Times, Issue 21835, 12 October 1932, Page 8

UNDER ONE HEAD

TRANSPORT COUNCIL LACK OF CO-ORDINATION COSTS PHENOMENAL (From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, October 11. The setting up of a Transport Council compulsorily co-ordinating all forms of transport in the Dominion was urged by Mr A. E. Ansell (C., Chalmers) in the course of his speech in the financial debate in the House of Representatives this afternoon. He said that the National Expenditure Commission’s recommendations that the Transport Department should be abolished as a separate department and combined with the Public Works Department was inexplicable. The Commission, he said, had expressed the opinion that there was no need for the Transport Department which could be quite easily combined with the Public Works Department, yet in another portion of its report the Commission urged greater co-ordination of road and rail transport. Yet it suggested that the Transport Department should be under the wing of the department that it condemned. Mr W. A. Veitch (C., Wanganui): Under the foot.

Mr Ansell; Yes, probably not under the wing.

He continued that it was quite apparent that the duties of the Commission were so widespread that it had had no time for a full consideration of the Transport Department, otherwise it would not have reported so. Figures showing the cost of transport were phenomenal. According to the last annual report of the Transport Department the cost of transport in New Zealand was £44,000,000 and the value of national production £97,000,000, so that the transport costs accounted for 50 per cent, of the value of national production. It was therefore absurd for the Commission to suggest that the Transport Department should be practically annihilated. Mr Ansell then dealt with the growth in values of production and the growth in transport costs. In 1914 the value of production was £60,000,000 and the cost of transport £17,756,000, so that there was a 63 per cent, rise in production values and 149 per cent, rise in transport costs. He would suggest that there should be one transport administration which would govern the whole of the transport operations in the Dominion. At present we had a Transport Board, a Railways Board, a Main Highways Board, the Public Works Department and Marine Department each governing various phases of transport with no semblance of co-ordination. It had been suggested that there should be voluntary co-ordination between these departments, but he would make it compulsory as the former course had proved a failure. The Transport Council should be formed composed of people specially qualified to deal with the subject and this would decide on such questions as the closing of branch railway lines and provision of alternative transport, the closing of small harbours and the class of goods which should be carried .on the railways only and not diverted to the roads. All questions dealing with the country’s transport could be referred to the central authority. Mr W. Nash (Labour, Hutt) followed Mr Ansell and agreed with his remarks, stating that there should be a Ministry of Transport administered by the Minister with that portfolio only. Then there could be a council of transport dealing with rail, road, water and air carriage.