TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays FRIDAY, 10th APRIL, 1942 “ IN COMMITTEE ”

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4558, 10 April 1942, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays FRIDAY, 10th APRIL, 1942 “ IN COMMITTEE ”

IT was only naturally to be expected, in view of the exceptional nature of the business under consideration, that the action of the Te Awamutu Borough Council at its last two meetings in going into committee should have attracted more than passing comment by citizens. The general public, it seems, entertains rather vague ideas as to what the adoption of this procedure, rightly provided for in the Standing Orders, actually means. It may therefore be stated that to go into committee is a useful device for allowing greater freedom of discussion; it permits, as a method of procedure, a liberty of speech, particularly as to the number of times a speaker may traverse the motion under discussion, that is not, or should not be, possible in the formal debates of an ordinary session of the Council. This legitimate use of the method, however, is not usually meant by a proposal to go into committee: the purpose is to ensure absolute privacy., though it cannot be asserted that on these recent occasions that end was achieved by the Te Awamutu Council since the “ in committee ” discussions were “ town talk ” next morning. Of course there arise, at times, matters whose public airing could serve no good and might do positive and unnecessary harm. To concede this is none the less a very different thing from accepting as generally justifiable the private discussion of public business. The whole of the work of local bodies, after all, is of public interest, or should be; and resort to privacy ought to be very sparingly used by them. It may be argued that, having elected certain persons to care for its interests and manage its business, the public should , unprotestingly allow them to do it, at their discretion, in private. The argument proves too much: it suggests that, if they so desire, those persons may elect to do all their work behind closed doors, and that would be intolerable. There must be no turning of a resource meant for rare use into a refuge from public oversight at any awkward turn. Frequent resort to the practice would engender suspicion: local bodies should not court that by turning an exception into a rule.