PARLIAMENT EXPEDITIOUS

Taranaki Daily News, 2 December 1933, Page 9

PARLIAMENT EXPEDITIOUS

PROGRESS WITH ESTIMATES threat of urgency effective. HEALTH REPORT TO BE DISCUSSED. GAMING AMENDMENT NEXT WEEK. (By Wire—Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, Last NightA threat of urgency, meaning that the House would sit until the fourteen classes of the estimates that the Government wished to have passed were put through, had its effect in the House of Representatives to-day. It was a big hurdle to place before members, but with the loss of the week-end respite possible they did not allow their criticism or views to delay proceedings unduly. The nett result was that ten minutes after the ordinary time for the Friday adjournment the whole of the Government programme had been completed and the spending of £9,477,123 had been authorised. Three minutes before, the adjournment the health and mental hospital estimates —always a subject for a good deal of discussion—were reached and it was possible that there would be a night sitting, but the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes) agreed, that facilities for discussing the annual reports of those departments would be afforded, and with that Mr. P. Fraser (Lab., Wellington Central), who had expressed a desire to speak on these subjects, was content to allow the estimates to be passed. The House did more than a normal day’s work, but there was Thursday’s waste of time to be made up, and even the passing of fourteen classes did not compensate for that. There are still over twenty classes to be dealt with, and members will still have an opportunity to show that they can be expeditious. Tuesday will again be devoted to the estimates and it is likely that a day will be devoted next week to consideration of Mr. E. F. Healy’s Gaming Amendment Bill.