DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 October 1928, Page 8

DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS.

The protest made by Opposition members against the submission to Parliament of important reports in the last few hours of the session was entirely justified. The complaint is not a new one, but in recent years the tendency to delay reports seems to have been on the increase. The Minister of Education (Hon. R. A. Wright) was quite frank about the matter. Ministers and Parliament, he said, “bad to take the papers when they were issued by the departmental heads. He had placed them before the House as soon as he could.” For a Minister to make such an explanation shows the extent of bureaucratic rule in the Dominion. As was pointed out, such reports are presumed to be for the guidance of members so that they may understand the result of legislation or the necessity for its amendment. To receive such reports in bulk just a few hours before a Parliament ends is to make a travesty of parliamentary control of Ministerial policy. There have been many complaints of the extension of the system of governing the country by means of Orders-in-Council, in other words, by the permanent civil servant, but it is rarely that Parliament is so deliberately ignored as on Tuesday last. Everyone is pleased that the Civil Service has been removed from political control and that success and advancement are now decided as far as possible by merit and not by favour. At the same time, the Civil Service is not the Government of New Zealand, but only its staff. Such incidents as the one complained of in Parliament on Tuesday are inclined to make people doubt whether the distinction is always as fully recognised by heads of departments as it ought to be.