R.S.A. Help For Civil Defence

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31087, 16 June 1966, Page 1

R.S.A. Help For Civil Defence

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 15. The Director of Civil Defence, Brigadier R. C. Queree, today called on the New Zealand R.S.A. to help bolster civil defence efforts. “Your aid is appreciated, but you can do even more,” he told the annual meeting of the association’s Dominion Council.

Brigadier Queree asked district associations to put pressure on local authorities for sound civil defence schemes. He said that R.S.A. mem bers had many talents and appealed to them to join and take an interest in district civil defence plans. There were already many returned servicemen in civil-

defence organisations and areas where they were prominent seemed to function more smoothly. Public apathy was a big hurdle.

The president of the Auckland R.S.A. (Mr N. F. Gardiner) said there was a weakness in “farming out” civil defence to local authorities.

“It should be a job for the central authority to face up to the cost, not the ratepayer,” he said. Mr Gardiner said it was time to have a look at the Earthquake and War Damage Fund.

There was so much money there that some could be spent oh civil defence. He said that the R.S.A. could be more helpful if given civil defence targets. “If we get these, we will do the job.”