MOTORS AND MINISTERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 688, 13 June 1929, Page 8

MOTORS AND MINISTERS

WHAT those responsible for its creation may regard as an epoch in the motoring history of New Zealand was reached yesterday, when the Transport Council met in Wellington. Unfortunately, the occasion served only to demonstrate that this remarkable body cannot possibly be endowed with real power where large national concerns are involved. In delivering the usual “well-chosen words” considered requisite on such occasions, the Minister of Transport, the Hon. W. A. Veiteh, found it necessary to regret that the Government had decided to defer consideration of the question of motor taxation. He imagined this might cause the council some little disappointment, and possibly it did, for the members in their freshness and enthusiasm might have imagined that they were to have some voice in such decisions. As the representatives of various sections of the motor trade and motor-using public, they may have thought, as many people think, that the whole question of motor taxation urgently needs reviewing. But if they imagined they would take their places with power to say that the scale of taxes should be reconsidered at once, they were sadly disillusioned. Mr. Veiteh himself occupies a curious position. He is head of the Ministry of Transport, hut not head of the Transport Council. The council in its wisdom may easily reach decisions directly opposed to the views held by the man supposed to frame the policy of his department. The confusion that would be created if the Minister of Internal Affairs, say, had an advisory council upon Internal Affairs, may easily be imagined. Either the Minister in this ease is a wholly advisory Minister, or the board is a wholly advisory board, and it is not easy to determine which is the least objectionable evil.

The constitution of the hoard is quite sound and representative enough to justify the wish that it could be given real instead of spurious authority. Its members could he expected to reach common-sense decisions, and common sense more than anything else is needed, yet has been lacking, in New Zealand’s attitude toward motor transport. The present effect of the deficiency is that several features of the motor regulations will have to be modified. The present system of registration, with its annual carnival of queues and crowding, cannot go on for ever. A eouneil that could display a little common sense in its treatment of such matters would he thi-ice welcome. Unfortunately, as tilings are at present, its decisions will be subject to examination and possible rejection by a Government whose primary need is money.