HOSPITAL RATING

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 73, Issue 6284, 18 September 1946, Page 7

HOSPITAL RATING

GOVERNMENT AND LOCAL bv'Uli'iS THE POLITICAL ASPECT During the course of Monday’s meeting of the Waipa County Council a report was received from the New Zealand Counties’ Association on the recent conference, and the Council’s delegate, Cr Onion, gave a further resume of the discussions. The main topic at the conference, he said, had been the vexed question of hospital rating. Two hundred councillors had attended the conference in Wellington, when the Government had been asked to put into effect the recommendations of the Parliamentary Sub-Committee/ The conference had suggested that there be pledged united action by local bodies, but this had not been adopted. In the end it had been agreed that the Government be strongly urged to make effective the recommendations which the Parliamentary Sub-Committee had made, this year, instead of what the Government proposed to do next year.

In regard to a stabilised rate, it had not been clearly indicated what was intended, said Cr Onion. The Government had been approached and had ruled that a half-penny was to be the maximum rate, and lesser amounts could be levied. It became obvious as the discussions proceeded that the Prime Minister had put out what was a political challenge, the Government standing for hospital rating up to id in the £ and the Opposition standing for abolition of the hospital rate. The Government adhered to the princinle of local body responsibility. What, however, did emerge from the conference, said Cr Onion, was that all local bodies were concerned and alarmed at the rising cost of hospitals and the increasing local rating. .If the present Government remained in power the system of hospital rating would continue. However, said Cr Onion, one thing was certain: there would be no relief in the present financial year. Cr Russell remarked that if local bodies (wanted to gqt rid of -• this hospital rate they should have some more definite course of action indicated, and in that regard the Counties’ Conference h?>d failed to offer a guide. The question had been raised year after year, and the time for action to be taken had arrived. Cr Cunningham thought the counties were being side-stepped by the political heads of the Government. It might be that the rate would be stabilised at Id in the £, but it seemed the next move would be to order a general re-valuation, and on that basis what was conceded in one way would be recovered in another way.

As apparently no action could be taken other than await political de-, velopments, the discussion was not pressed at the present stage.