PROGRAMME CUT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 257, 29 October 1931, Page 7

PROGRAMME CUT.

Important Business Only ir Parliament. THE FINAL SESSION. (Special to the “Star.”) WELLINGTON, October 28. Except for financial matters, including the Estimates ,the Finance Bill and the Customs Act Amendment, the final legislative programme before the appeal to the country has been settled and is cut to the minimum. Another policy measure which the Government desires to have passed before prorogation is the Radio Broadcasting Bill, as the agreement with the present company expires in January. It may be taken for granted that the Government is unfavourable to the formation of a company to conduct broadcasting, and that it prefers to follow the British lead in regard to a Public Broadcasting Board, in which no element of private profit exists. It is also intended to deal with the Unemployment Act Amendment Bill, Building Construction Bill, which awaits the committee stage, and the Mortgagors Relief Bill. Transport Bill to be Dropped.

The most important measure which has to be dropped under the circumstances is the Transport Licensing Bill, as it involves a complicated subject and Parliament has already had fuli experience of the difficulty in handling this problem on equitable lilies. However the Bill will take first place in next session’s programme if the Coalition Government is returned, as avoidance of waste through duplication of transport services is part of the plan for the country’s financial rehabilitation. Parliament’s Rush Tactics.

Unmistakable signs of the session’s rapidly approaching end appeared in the House to-day when members facilitated the passage of no fewer than s.x Government Bills and reduced the order paper to a skeleton of its former self. This acceleration followed an intimation by the Prime Minister that from to-morrow the House would sit from 2.30 p.m. until midnight daily, the arrangement to include Saturdays and Mondays. Mr Forbes’s estimate of the end of the session fixed the closing date at Saturday, November 7, and there now is every indication that his forecast will be borne out.

The Bills passed to-day were the Stamp Duties Amendment, providing for the taxation of steamer tickets and lottery tickets, the Air Navigation, Land Transfer (Hawke’s Bay), Earthquake Relief Funds and Native Land and Native Purposes Bill. The two last-named measures contained 676 clauses, concerned mainly with the compression, consolidation and clarification of numerous existing statutes. The committal of the Building Construction Bill was deferred.

The House rose at midnight and will consider the Estimates at Thursday’s sitting.