REST HOMES FOR AGED

Hokitika Guardian, 8 November 1929, Page 7

REST HOMES FOR AGED

A NEW DEPARTURE

POVERTY NO MISDEMEANOUR

WELLINGTON, Nov. 0

Designed to provide • authority ft;) the establishment of institutions where unfortunate old people may be placed, so that the necessity of committing them to gaol or a mental hospital may be obviated, the Resl Homes Bill was read a second time in the House of Representatives today. When the measure was under considcralion in committee two Words, “destitute persons,” were deleted from tin’ front of ifs title, some niembois taking exception to the original description of the Bill. Mr Parry (Auckland Cenftral) said it was indeed tragic that old persons who had done their, best for the nation in days gone by should be thrown on to the dust heap like a wornout boot. This Bill was long overdue. It was shameful that old folk should be sent to gaol for no other reason than .that they were poor. “I don’t care about this word 'destitute,’ said Mr Parry.

The Minister of Health,* the Hon. A. J. Stall worthy i 1 can give an undertaking to alter that.

Mr Parry: Thank you. I would like to see that word withdrawn, because I abhor destitution and all the causes which create it.

Mr Mason (Auckland Suburbs) was curious to know why if the Government was so well-intentioned it had not long ago gazetted an island in Hauraki Gulf as a iprison and having done that used the island as .a rest ifomc. Had that been done many unfortunate old people would have been saved twelve dreary months in a gaol, where they did not properly belong. Mr Holland, leader of the Labour Party, hoped that old people would no longer bo charged that they wore rogues and vagabonds simply because they were destitute. The term rogues and vagabonds belonged to the Middle Ages and should be dropped in all proceedings against unfortunate old folk. Mr Holland believed this Bill would be welcomed through New Zealand. AIR HOWARD DISLIKES THE BILL. A discordant note was struck .by Air Howard (Christchurch South) in the midst of this harmonious chorus of praise. “Let us make it a Rest Homes Bill and leave it at that and not have all these provisions which will make these homes nothing more or loss than gaols,” he said. “It would be interesting to know who was the author of this Bill. I don’t think the Alinister in charge of it was the author of it, but I think it was simply shoved into his hands and

lie never knew where it came from.” (Laughter.) There wore prison clauses in , the Bill, said Air Howard. The Bill was full of them. . One clause, for instance, said that if any person took any undue steps to obtain the release n f an inmate, “if ho did not dot his ‘i’s’ and cross his ‘t’s’ and go by a round-about way to some official,” that person could he made a criminal. The Alinister was given power to do this a.nd that in the matter of the release of inmates. But why should the Alinister have to be given that power? Air Howard believed this Bill must be a baby left over by the Reform Party. (Laughter.) It contained gaol clauses which would have the effect of locking up old persons, male or female, who . had been guilty of nothing save the crime of poverty. ' “I repudiate the whole thing,” said Air Howard, “and whoever was the author of it, I sav to him it is not much, anyhow. (Lauglit.r.) It is not what it pretends to lie.”

The leader of the Opposition, Air Cuites, crossed the floor of the House at this moment to talk to the Alinistor of Justice, the Hon. T. M. Wilford.

“Yes, there go the friends” shoutqd Mr Howard. “They are getting together. They sec the joke of the whole thing, and I suppose they are hoping and praying they will not come under the Bill.’’ (Laughter.)

Air Howard declared that this was nothing but an extension of the gaol system, and it made poverty a crime. It was writing into the law of New Zealand a punishment for poverty. “Even, though mine be a voice crying in the wilderness, I shall protest with all the strength at my command against writing into our laws provision for punishment of poverty,” concluded Air Howard. THE MINISTER AAIAZED.

“I am amazed at the utterances of the member for Christchurch South and his vicious attack on the Bill,” declared the Hon. A. J. Stall worthy, Minister of Health, in his reply. The critic, lie went on, showed no enthusiasm, and it was doubtful if he had read the Bill, otherwise ho would find in Clause 14 that one of the express provisions was, that old persons brought before a Court, for no crime other than poverty should not be, even charged. The present position was -that a Alagistrate could only send them to gaol or an asylum, but under the new legislation he could send them to a rest home without any coil-, viction and without any hearing for. a-misdemeanour. So he was amazed at the misconception in Mr Howard’s mind, and would earnestly ask him to make himself familiar with the provisions of the Bill. It was regrettable that any member should designate those rest homes as gaols or asylums, That was the very thing which Sir Joseph Ward and the speaker, in preparing the Bill, had been anxious to avoid. The Bill had not been forced on the Government; it had arisen from the necessity of the poor old men and women who were being very harshly and inhumanly treated. It was a genuine attempt to make for better conditions on the lines of modern sociological treatment. Tt was an entirely new Bill, and no Departmental officer was responsible for its origin.