LOCAL BODY CRITICISED.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 227, 25 September 1929, Page 11

LOCAL BODY CRITICISED.

"SCANDALOUS CARELESSNESS" LABOUR, MEMBER'S CHARGE. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. The new Transport Bill now before Parliament will give the opportunity of considering the control over the issue of motor driver's licenses, as the fees are to be collected in future, not by local bodies, but by the Post Office. When the Bill was introduced Mr. McCombs (Lyttelton) asked if ifc would contain provision for the supervision of the issue of drivers' licenses. Some local bodies, he continued, were doing their duty conscientiously and well. "Some of them are failing to do their duty scandalously. They are issuing certificates to drive motor vehicles in their districts because some individual comes in and nominally qualifies, by staying at an hotel for a week, giving it out that he is going to stay' six months. _ "In one particular district it has become notorious that incompetent motor drivers can get certificates, and the matter is very serious indeed; I can give the Minister a case where people got their certificates because they wanted to go to the races that day, but instead of getting to the races they got to the morgue." Members: Where is that? Mr. McCombs declined to let the House further into the secret, but he repeated that some local bodies were not doing their duty. The Prime Minister: It is provided for in the bill!