Mr Forbes Replies.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20458, 9 November 1934, Page 6

Mr Forbes Replies .

Check on Funds.

Statement Made About A dmin is tration. (“Star” Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, This Day. 'J'HE ADMINISTRATION of the Unemployment Fund was warmly defended by the Prime Minister in the House of Representatives yesterday, when replying to statements during the Native affairs debate made by Mr E. J. Howard (Labour, Christchurch South). Mr Forbes said that the statement had been made by Mr Howard that if the Unemployment Fund were investigated one •would see a bigger scandal than the Native affairs business. Mr Howard: T did not The Prime Minister said Mr Howard had described it as a fund in which there was no check and had suggested the likelihood of scandal. Mr Howard: I said there was no more check than in the Native affairs. The Prime Minister: And we would have to face another oosition in regard to it. Mr Howard: No. The Prime Minister: You created the impression that everything was not right Th»* administration of the Unemployment Fund is admittedly a fair target for Opposition criticism, but I don’t think any suspicion should be raised that the men who arc running it are not worthv. Mr A. S. Richards (Labour. RoskilH : What about the prosecutions in Auckland a year ago? No Reason For Charge. The Prime Minister: There have be~n prosecutions in Government departments, and you cannot avoid them: but that irno reason for creating the impression that the administration of the Unemplovment Fund is not carried out properly by Government servants. Mr Forbes asked Mr Howard what he meant by his reference to absence of check, because on the administration of the Unemployment Fund there was the check of the Auditor-General, the check of Treasury and the probity of the men who were administering the fund. Complaining that the Prime Minister had misrepresented him, Mr Howard quote! from Hansard to show that his statement was: “I suggest that this might happen again. I suggest seriouslv that it is happening now in other deoartments. that there is looseness in other departments and other branches as there has been in this department, where it has been found out ” The Prime Minister had interjected. “In what department?” and he had answered “The Unemployment Department for one The department spending four millions of money has no check. There is no more check, on it than on the Native Department.”