WAR PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIV, Issue 22670, 25 August 1943, Page 4

WAR PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES

General Increases Proposed Onus Of Proving Disability 'N.Z.P.A.) WELLINGTON. Aug. 24. The Committee stages on the Statutes Amendment Bill were continued when the House resumed. Opposition members criticised the operation of rent restrictions in excluding owners from their homes. The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraseri pointed out that owners were not excluded unless possession would exclude someone else. There were anomalies in the legislation, but the only complete corrective was to make sufficient homes available for all. The Bill was put through the remaining stages and passed. An increase in war pensions and allowances in the Budget are provided for in the War Pensions Bill introduced to-night. It also provides for increases in lespect of the following:—Certain soecific disabilities, war veterans’ allowances. cases of total blindness, and in cases where two or more serious disabilities had been incurred. There is also authority for the payment of pensions in respect of children over 16 years of age whose education is being continued. Explaining the Bill the Prime Minister said that the improvements had the unqualified support of the Returned Services’ Asociation Dominion Executive. with which the Government had conferred. The measure was a consolidating Bill and would take the place of the former War Pensions Act. A brief memorandum to the Bill stated it was designed to replace the existing legislation relating to war pensions, and to replace it with a scheme that would be of general application, irresoective of whether the grounds for pensions had arisen in respect of past, present and future wars, or in respect of service in the New Zealand Forces in times of peace. The total disablement pension provided under the Bill for an exserviceman will be £3 a week, the present rate £2. The economic pension is increased from 34/6 a week to 35 -. The allowance for a disabled man’s wife remains as at present at £l. and that for each child is increased from« 10- to 10/6 a week. Under the new’ rates unmarried and married ex-sevicemen will receive pensions as follows, the present rate being in parentheses: Unmarried man £4 15 - (£3 14 6‘; man with wife £5/15-'-(£1 14’6); man with wife and one child £6 5 6 (£5 4 6>: man with wife and two children £6/16/- (£5/14/6). . Widows’ Pensions In the case cf a soldier’s widow without children the statutory pension is increased from £l/10/- to £2. and the economic pensions from 17 3 to £l, making a total of £3 weekly, compared wi f b the existing rate of £2/7/3. The total pension for a widow with two children is increased from £3/14/4i to £4 16 - weekly as follows, the present rates being given in parentheses:—Statutory pension £2 10(£2), pension for two children £ll- - economic pension £1 5'- (14 4? ). These rates relate to privates in the Army and the corresponding ranks or ratings in the other services. Where the rates of pensions payable under the existing legislation to the commissioned ranks and their dependents are in excess of the new rates payable to those of non-commissioned rank and their dependents, no increases are provided for. Snecific Disabilities The fourth schedule to the Bill sets out the percentage of the full pension payable in respect of certain specific disabilities. The number of increases in the percentages has been made. For example, the percentage of disability for amputation of the right arm through the shoulder joint, which was previously assessed at 85 per cent, has been assessed at 100 per cent. An amputation of the leg through the hip joint, previously assessed at 90 per cent, has now been assessed at 100 per cent. Various other percentages have also been increased. The maximum rate of clothing allowance payable to those exservicemen who have to wear artificial limbs or other artificial appliances has been increased from £8 to £l6 per annum, while the maximum allowance payable in respect of an attendant has been increased from £3 to £5. The weekly rate of pension for orphaned children has also been increased from 15 - to 20 - a week. The question of attributability is also dealt with in the Bill. It is laid down that the onus of proving that the disability is associated with war service, shall not be on the claimant, and the War Pensions Board and the War Pensions Appeal Board are to give the claimants full benefit of all presumptions in their favour. The war veterans’ allowance is increased from 30 - weekly, plus 5 per cent bonus, to 32-6 weekly for the veteran himself. whi’e the 5 per cent bonus previously payable in respect of wives and children has now been included in the allowance. Pensions to members of the Emergency Reserve Corps have been increased in the same manner as war pensions to ex-servicemen. Provision is made for increased pensions to be paid-in cases of.total blindness, and also in cases where two or more serious disabilities have been incurred. Similar adjustments and increases in pensions and allowances for members of the Mercantile Marine are provided for in the War Pensions and Allowances (Mercantile Marine) Amendment Bill, which was also introduced and read a first time. Detention allowances, according to the tonnage of the ship in which the men w’ere serving when detained, have also been slightly increased. Urgency was accorded the passing of the Supplementary Estimates and the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill, and the House went into Committee of Supply to consider the Supplementary Estimates.