VOTE INADEQUATE

Waikato Times, Volume 195, Issue 22448, 8 September 1944, Page 2

VOTE INADEQUATE

MENTAL HOSPITALS OBJECTION IN PARIAMENT (By Telegraph.—Press Association) WELLINGTON, Friday The question of passing votes which were not adequate for the purpose set out was discussed when the House of Representatives went into committee of supply on the estimates this morning. The Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser, moved for urgency for the first item but undertook not to continue the debate long enough to interfere with members’ week-end travel arrangements. Mr W. J. Poison (Opposition— Stratford), who is a memebr of the public accounts committee, said that some of the estimates should not have been approved by that committee. For instance, the war damage fund, out of which £478, had been paid last year, stood £12,400 for this year. That was purely a guess because it was to meet war damage which was now unlikely to occur. It had been said that it was also to meet earthquake or other disaster, but the House was being asked to vote for this before there was any legislation providing for it and no reinsurance against such damage. In the vote for the Mental Hospitals Department, said Mr Poison, where the officers wanted to make certain improvements, including rations and condtions, the vote had been arbitarily cut by the Treasury, such items as bedding, stores, drugs and rations being among those cut. Cut for Rations Rations had been reduced by £12,000 although the officers of the department knew that at least the original figure of £109,000 would have to be spent. That cut made the estimates farcical. The officers who were forced to make the cut to meet the Treasury knew that the figures were wrong and would have to be exceeded. Guesses in the estimates were sometimes the only possible figure, and as long as the guess was reasonable there could be no objection, but where there was deliberate misrepresentations of the expenditure a department intended to undertake it was useless placing such figures before the committee for consideration. Mr Fraser said the matter raised was not an exception. Similar methods had been followed for years. The Minister wanted to make certain expenditure but he was confronted by the Treasury with the demand that the figures be brought into conformity with the money available. The Minister naturally tried to get money to make improvements, but if money were not available cuts had to be made. Nothing Sinister in Cut He was not going to defend the cuts in rations, said Mr Fraser, but he was not going to criticise the officers who had to make those cuts. They had never had the men or material to make the mental hospitals as good as they would like, and they should make such hospitals the last to be cut. Improvement in diet did not necessarily mean increased rations. It was more a matter of better balanced rations. There was nothing sinister in the cut and he was sure the only explanation for consent to such a cut was the belief that it could be replaced in the supplementary estimates. The vote had been adapted to the money available, but with the mental reservation that the system had always worked and there had never been anything sinister about it.

Mr Poison: I am not suggesting this is sinister, only that it is misleading. Mr C. M. Bowden (Opposition— Wellington West) said the effect was simply a farcical juggling with figures to comply with a Treasury demand. Procedure Long Followed

Mr T. H. McCombs (Government — Lyttelton) said the procedure whereby a department asked for all the money it wished to spend but the Treasury looked over the estimates to elect economies was common knowledge and had long been followed. It resembled the procedure followed in most private concerns. Mr McCombs said that in any case if the expenditure on rations for this year remained at the rate which had obtained during the first four months, the expenditure would exceed the revised estimate by only £4OOO and a reduction by two-thirds of the £12,000 would then be justified* In any case, every member of the House would agree that every penny necessary to provide the best available rations for mental hospitals should b;* spent. Estimating this item was difficult because the department was a bulk buyer of many supplies, including imported items such as tea, the arrival of which depended on the uncertainties of shipping. Mr G. H. Mackley (Opposition— Masterton) said it was unfortunate that the Government was trying to justify the procedure which had been followed in this instance. The procedure was wrong and that should have been admitted. The DirectorGeneral had told the Public Accounts Committee more than once that at least the original estimate of £109,000 would be needed for rations this year. Minister’s Explanation

The Minister of Finance, the Hon. W. Nash, said there was to be a new and better ration scale for mental hospitals and no member of the public accounts committee had suggested that patients would go short There was no evidence that £109,000 would be required. Expenditure for the first four months had exceeded the estimate of £97,000 by £I3OO. If it continued in that way it would be £SOOO beyond the vote. The departmental officer had been required to reduce that total vote and he might have reduced the wrong items, but as long as expenditure was kept within the total, a variation between items would not matter. The officer had said it could be kept within the total.

Mr W. S. Goosman (Opposition— Waikato), said that the Minister’s explanation showed that the accounts were false and had been falsified in that the amount for -rations was less than the department intended to spend. Mr A. S. Richards (Government — R.skill), rose to a point of order, and after some discussion the chairman of committees, Mr R. McKeen, ruled that the words “false and falsify” were not unparliamentary in that they were used in the sense that the amount was incorrect and not as levelling a charge against any Minister or any member of the House. Mr McCombs asked for a Speaker’s ruling and the committee divided on the question that a ruling be asked for. This was carried and a long discussion on- the matter followed.

The Speaker, the Hon. F. Schramm, said the word “falsify” was full of odium and where it referred to a document it meant to alter fraudulently. Therefore it suggested dishonesty. It did not matter what the member had in mind. The word was out of order and he ruled accordingly. Mr Goosman withdrew the words.

The discussion was interrupted by the lucheon adjournment.