“DOLE” FOR UNEMPLOYED

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1027, 18 July 1930, Page 10

“DOLE” FOR UNEMPLOYED

OPPOSITION IN THE HOUSE REFORM RESISTS THE BILL MR. COATES WANTS BUDGET FIRST THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Today. DIRECT opposition to any form of “dole” in the Unemployment Bill was expressed in the House today by the Leader of the Opposition, the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates. He urged, instead, the sustenance and subsidising- of industries and the labour of the men employed in them, and said that the Budget should be brought down before the Bill was considered.

Mr. Coates said the Government had not been by any means frank, aud had not placed the financial position of the country before the House. The principle of a flat tax could not be discussed without knowledge of the financial position. Mr. Coates could not see hw far he could go unless he had before him the financial proposals of the Government. He said that was the opinion of the Reform Party. Instead of the Minister of Labour Indicating that the Bill should go to committee. Mr. Coates thought he would have been better advised if he had treated the measure as one of policy. and let It be discussed by Parliament. The Bill would probably be considerably altered on coming back from the committee. Mr. Coates stressed the need of a complete statement on unemployment from the Government.

Regarding sustenance payments, Mr. Coates said that under the provisions ot the Bill, the whole amount collected by the tax would be used v.p by those registered as unemployed. Today they could use tip £700,000 a year. Mr. Coates emphasised the need for avoiding anything that might, he termed a "dole.” It was a principle that never should be enumerated in this country. Rather should we adopt the principle of no work, no pay. One means of assisting in the relief of unemployment was by subsidising men and/or industries, both agricultural and manufacturing. Anything was better than the pernicious system of a "dole. ’ The House would be wise to avoid sustenance and see if it could arrive at a scheme of assisting the development of industries. Provision was already made for assistance in the Dominion by hospital and charitable aid boards. Mr. Coates expressed the opinion that the returned soldiers would not be pleased that the Bill was the best that could be dune in the way of rehabilitation, on which a special report and recommendations had been made. The Minister of Defence, the Hon. J. E. Cobbe, said more would be done than that. LABOURS ATTITUDE

The Deader of the Labour Party, Mr. H. E. Holland, expressed pleasure that the Government was doing something enabling unemployment to be dealt with. At present 10,000 men in New Zealand were denied the right, to work. He claimed that the only effective method of dealing with unemployment was to provide work. Mr. Holland said the Bill did not suit him or the Labour Party. It did present Parliament with an oportunity of dealing with an outstanding problem which should not he approached in a spirit of levity. It was too serious and too disastrous in its effect for that.

Mr. Holland thought the Bill was a palliative in effect only. for

it would not provide more work. The Bill should have a companion Bill to provide move work which would be of advantage to the people of New Zealand. The Labour Party did not agree with the flat rate tax, which would be paid in tlie main by the workers. The tax should be graduated. Women should he admitted to privileges, as they were in England. The Labour Party wanted four representatives on the Board of Unemployment, instead of two, as there were more workers than employers in New Zealand.

Mr. Holland wanted the sustenance to be continuous, and wanted the period of a man’s being out of work to be reduced to one week. He hotly combated Mr. Coates’s suggestion that sustenance was a “dole,” and claimed that it was insurance. Mr. Holland thought the rates of sustenance should be not less than 25s a week for a contributor, £1 for his wife, and 5s in respect of each child.