NATIONAL INSURANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 227, 25 September 1928, Page 8

NATIONAL INSURANCE.

AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT'S

SCHEME.

TREASURER SAYS 1,600,000

WILL BENEFIT.

COMPULSORY AND VOLUNTARY

CONTRIBUTIONS

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, September 20. The new Insurance Bill now being discussed by the House of Representatives is meeting with a mixed reception from, both Government supporters and members of the Opposition. The bill provides benefits for the sick disablement, widowhood, orphanhood and superannuation on a scale, the Government claims, more liberal than any other national insurance scheme ever formulated by other administrations. Dr. Page, the Federal Treasurer, who is sponsoring the bill, emphasised that the benefits of the new scheme would be derived from a direct cost from wages of only one shilling a week in the case of male w, -kera and sixpence a week in the case of female workers. In administration, the basis of the British scheme will be followed with certain modifications. The principle of enabling insured persons to control their otgi affairs, within the measure of the Act, will be adopted, and any body of insured persons, numbering not le3S than 1000 in the whole of the Commonwealth, will be permitted to constitute themselves a society under the meaning of the Act, with extensive powers of self-government?, subject to exacting tests as to the audits of accounts and the valuation of liabilities and assets. Controlled by Boards. The central control of the national insurance scheme will not rest with the Government, the new bill proposes, but with a specially appointed board, having a maximum number of five and not less than three members. The president of this board, it is proposed, shall be a life appointee by the Government and in each State there will be a commissioner and an advisory board. The bill provides for two classes of contributors—industrial or compulsory contributor and voluntary. Persons not engaged in manual labour and receiving more than £416 a year would not be brought under the compulsory provisions. Persons engaged in some regular employment on which they are mainly dependent, while being outside the compulsory division, will not be admitted after they have reached the age of 45 years. Dr. Page explained to the House on Monday when the second reading of the new hill was before members, that the clauses of the bill provided for equal contributions from employers and employed under the compulsory conditions, and the means of collection would be the fixing of stamps by the employer to the pay cards of the employee. It is proposed that the insurance board shall invest one-half of the funds received and hand over the other half to approved societies, also for investment. Males Will Benefit Most. Taking into account the exceptions and exemptions of the bill, it is expected that if it comes into force on July 1, 1929, the number of employed contributors for the year ended June 30, 1930, would be 1,600,000 persons, the majority of whom would be males. It is also estimated that 23 years later this number will have grown to 2,400,000. Voluntary contributors are expected to total 50,000. The Government hopes to benefit by the new scheme from the saving in invalid pensions and old age payments, which now make a big draw on the Federal Treasury. Various members of the Government have spoken in support of the new bill while others have been equally-emphatic in their opposition to it. Opposition members are unreservedly against, as they state that it is only another slug on the wage earner. The general opinion is however, that several modifications will be made to satisfy Government supporters, but that the bill will pass the Thirl reading and go to the Senate unaltered in its essential details. The Senate is not expected to interfere with it, and it is probable that the scheme will be in working order by the time the new Government takes office after the elections in November.