SOCIAL SECURITY

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 104, 27 January 1943, Page 4

SOCIAL SECURITY

New Zealand Officials To Advise Australia COMPREHENSIVE SCHEME Complying with a recent cabled request by the Federal Government of Australia. the New Zealand Government is sending Mr. H. Digby Smith, chairman of the Social Security Commission, and Mr. A. O. Von Keisenberg, Secretary of the IlealtfTDepartmeut, to Canberra, to explain to the Australian authorities the methods of administration and working of the New Zealand Social Security Act. The Australian Government contemplates a comprehensive social services scheme, and newspaper cables last week stated that it involved an expenditure by the Federal Government of fG0,000,000 in the next three years. The principal items in the proposals were as follows: (1) Improved repatriation rights, including pensions for servicewomen : (2) Sustenance for servicemen between demobilization and civilian re-employment and higher service pensions; (*D National health and medical services? (-.1) -Maternal and child welfare services and pre-natal and post-natal payments to mothers; and (5) Unemployment benefits and a national housing plan. "New Zealanders, who have so well and deservedly benefited by the social security legislation will be deeply interested in the social services scheme the Commonwealth Government has under preparation,” said the Minister of Social Security, Mr. Parry, yesterday. He added that Mr. Digby Smith and Mr. Von Keisenberg, had had wide experience in the monetary and. medical benefits sections respectively of the Social Security Act. In executive association with Mr. J. H. Boyes, Public Service Commissioner, the first chairman of the Social Security Commission, Mr. Digby Smith had rendered valuable service in the working up of the organization which had brought the Social Security Act into operation in New Zealand, while Mr. ton Keisenberg had been responsible for the administrative working of the medical and hospital benefits of the Act since its inception.