BUDGET DEBATE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 250, 21 October 1937, Page 8

BUDGET DEBATE

POLICY OF GOVERNMENT SPEECH BY MINISTER OF PUBLIC WORKS [ Per Press Association. ] WELLINGTON, Oct. 20. The debate on the Financial Statement was continued when the House resumed at 7.30 to-night, Mr. A. G. Hultquist (Bay of Plenty) making a plea for nationalisation of electricpower supply on the East Coast. The Minister of Public Works, Hon. R. Semple, said logical criticism of the Government was justified but the Opposition’s attempt to convince the country that it was on the road to ruin and chaos was departing from the truth and was damaging to the country as a whole. He replied to the statement by Mr. R. A. Wright on the previous evening to the effect that the Government did not represent a majority of the people, by stating that no party in the House had ever been returned to office with the number of votes which had been registered in favour of Labour at the last election. The last Government had not been returned to power on the votes of the people but by political juggling. Mr. Semple refuted information that he had countenanced public works officers entering private property in the course of their duties without reference to the owners of such property. The Government had been criticised by the member for Central Otago for wasteful expenditure, but ere was no member of the House who asked for more for his constituency than that honourable gentleman. If he had granted all Mr. Bodkin had asked for it would have cost £1,500,000, said Mr. Semple.

Mr. Minister went on to refer to a recent request by the member for Central Otago to the Minister that he (Mr. Semple) should provide money to build accommodation, either temporary or permanent, for a man in his electorate who was under notice to quit his residence. Mr. Semple said he had enquired into the matter and had found out that the member for Central Otago was himself the owner of the house from which the tenant had received notice to quit. Suppose the Opposition or the Press had got hold of a story where he, as Minister of Public Works, had used public funds for a tenant of a member of the Labour Party who had received notice to quite a house. Mr. Bodkin: Why not tell the House that I gave the man a £5O section free to build a house.

Mr. Semple: I don’t know what the honourable member gave but I do know that the documents prove my statement and I am prepared to show these documents to anyone who wishes to see them. Mr. Bodkin: You never came to me for all the facts. Mr, Semple continued that he agreed that more provision should be made to give access to hack-country settlers. Road Services Mr. Semple said they had been criticised for building roads which were speedways throughout the country, but he would point out that New Zealand was the second highest motorised country per head of population in the world and proper motor roads were primarily essential for the safety of the people. After provision of these roads the next essential was the proper control of that traffic itself.

The Labour Administration, he said, had no intention whatever of gobbling up, as it had been put by members of the Opposition, of all the transport services of the country, but he did not think that licences should ever have been issued to services which were competing directly with the railways. A total of £75,000,000 had been spent on roads in the Dominion and nearly £70,000,000 in railways. Was it a fair and reasonable thing, he asked, for the Government to allow private individuals to enter into direct competition with the railways and threaten a service in which £70,000,000 of the country’s money had been expended? The Government had been accused of unfairness in absorbing such compeitors, but he could assure members that it was concentrating on services which were in direct competition with the railways. But, he said, the Government was to play the game and not injure anyone’s business unduly.

In conclusion, Mr Semple said that the Government’s objective was to have a monetary policy which would give effect to the needs of the people. On the conclusion of Mr Semple’s speech, Mr Bodkin rose to a point of order, stating that the Minister had completely misrepresented the position with regard to Walker, the occupier of the house mentioned by the Minister and himself. The Minister had been referring to a time when the house which Walker was occupying had been sold, but Mr Bodkin said he had given him a section valued at £5O adjoining that property and had promised to endeavour to secure money under the Government’s housing scheme to have a new residence built for Walker. Walker had endeavoured to rent a vacant married men’s tent from the ,Public Works Department to house him and his family, but his application’had been refused. However, he believed Walker had now secured possesion of two single men’s tents. Mr Bodkin said he would come out of an investigation into the matter in a much better light than the Government, which had failed to assist an old employee of its own.

Mr H. G. Dickie claimed that he had also been misrepresented by the Minister, who had said that he (Mr Dickie) had attempted to lay at the Minister's door the responsibility for public works surveyors entering private property without permission. He said he did not mind the Minister’s vulgarity, but Mr Savage also rose to a point of order, asking if the member was allowed to refer to the alleged vulgarity of another member of the House. On a request from the Speaker, Mr Dickie withdrew mention of vulgarity. Mr Semple said that he had not accused Mr Dickie alone of the imputation to which he had referred, nor had he been responsible for any vulgarity. Mr Semple continued that as far as Mr Bodkin was concerned, he had documents to prove his statements. Mr Bodkin: I ask for a full investigation. Mr. D. McDougall (Indept., Mataura) said he was satisfied that Mr.

Coates was the only man capable of leading the Opposition. Referring to taxtion, it would have been better if past Governments had taxed more and borrowed less. The country was paying millions of pounds to “Uncle Moses” which was not necessary. There had been a lot of talk about socialism, said Mr. McDougall, but how could anyone be a Christian without being a Socialist? The founder of Christianity had preached socialism. “I'm not too pleased with this 5s 9d a bushel for wheat,” he said. “For I maintain that a man who cannot grow wheat a 4s 6d doesn’t know his job.” He hoped the Government would go on with the job of making laws to help those who were down and out. The Prime Minister was the only one who had done that since the days of the late Richard Seddon.

The Minister of Mines, Hon. P. Webb, referred factitiously to the fact that only three members of the Opposition were in their seats in the House when he rose to speak. For a while he said he thought he must be addressing the House after the next election. He went on to refer to the service which the Minister of Labour had given the country in reducing unemployment, and he asked the Opposition to be fair and give the Government credit for tackling the problem in the way it had. Mr. Webb continued that with the rapid development of motor traffic, surely it was a reasonable and sane thing to do to develop roads for that traffic and he wished to congratulate the Minister of Public Works on the work carried out by his department in that direction. He also referred to the work that had been done in the direction of river protection work. The Government was spending a lot of money on this objective to protect farms from flood damage. He appealed to members of the House and local bodies to co-operate with the Government in having reading schemes put right into the backblocks. The debate was interrupted by the adjournment at 10.30 p.m.