EXPENDITURE ON GOVERNMENT TRIPS OVERSEAS QUESTIONED

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 November 1950, Page 5

EXPENDITURE ON GOVERNMENT TRIPS OVERSEAS QUESTIONED

WELLINGTON. Last Night (PA).— Mr. Nash, speaking to the vote for Ex. ternal Affairs, in the House of Representatives today, said more than £lOO,000 was provided for overseas trips this year. This was more than last year’s vote and was an extraordinary sum in view of past criticisms of such expenditure by members of the present Government when in Opposition. Mb, McCombs (Opp., Lyttelton) said that during the election campaign members of the present Government criticised the size of New Zealand staffs at various overseas posts. This year the staff was shown as 282, compared with 342 last year but the reductions were only nominal ones, many of the staff in London and elsewhere having been transferred to the payroll of other departments. The Government, to give nominal effect to its election promises, had effected a paper reduction in the staff of the External Affairs Department by playing draughts with them, and by hiding them behind curtains. It was a piece of chicanery, for the actual reduction was eight and not. 60 as indicated. Cooks, chauffeurs and others employed at overseas posts were no longer included in the number of staff, but they were still employed. The Minister of External Affairs (Mr Doidge) said there was no chicanery; nor did the vote hide anything. There had been savings in many directions and increased expenditure involved in others, since the devaluation of sterling. In addition the first year's charges for the Paris Legation were included in the vote. The High Commissioner’s office in London was a replica of all the Government offices in Wellington and the officers in London, in accordance with the practice adopted elsewhere in the estimates, had been included in the staff figures of the departments they represented.