BANKING BILL

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVII, Issue 23215, 31 May 1945, Page 6

BANKING BILL

Move To Financial Dictatorship Strong Criticism By Telegrapn—N z Press Assn -Copyright 17.30 p.m.) CANBERRA. May 30. Proposed changes In Australian banking practice threatened the lives and liberties of every citizen a former Prime Minister, Sir Earle Page (Country Party) said in the House of Representatives when the second reading debate on the ■ Banking Bill and Commonwealth Bank Bill was resumed. The Banking Bills were again before the House after the Soldiers Reestablishment Bill, under the application of the guillotine had passed its third Reading amid uproar. Dr. Earle Page said the Government's banking proposals sought to establish a financial dictatorship outside the control of Parliament, and went far beyond altering the banking structure. It was proposed to replace the independent Bank Board with a governor and an Advisory Council of civil servants, whose policy could be reversed by the Treasurer without reference to Parliament. The Bill also empowered the Treasurer to prohibit- by regulation the import or export of any article. Changes under the proposed legislation would be steps to inflation, with no parliamentary control to check them. Not only taxation but also individual savings, whether deposited at Government or private banks would be placed at the unrestrained whim of the Government of the day. Political Aim “These changes are not changes to improve the working oi the-banks.” declared Sir Earle Page, “but are political changes necessary to implement’ the Labour Party's policy of allout socialisation. This, in effect, is simply highway robbery, and confiscation of what someone else has earned ” Sir Earle said the Treasurer, without reference to Parliament, could impose import and export embargoes. Surely any emergency sufficiently great to necessitate the exercise of such extraordinary power which might destroy whole industries not only in Australia but in friendly trading countries was sufficiently. great for the immediate calling together of Parliament to ratify that action.