THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY. WEDNESDAY. & FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 1922. POWER BOARD ANOMALY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4409, 3 May 1922, Page 2

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY. WEDNESDAY. & FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 1922. POWER BOARD ANOMALY.

Under the Local Bodies' Trading Act and the Secret Commissions Act, various restrictions are'placed on the members of a local body doing private business with that body ; if these ordinances are not complied with, then a member renders-himself liable to forfeit his seat. With one exception, such a person may immediately stand for re-'election, and, so long as the public is convinced that the breach of the law has been a merely technical one,, he is generally -re-elected at the ballot box., ,The law’, though somewhat exacting, is considered necessary in order to keep out of the Dominion's private life such undesirable things ■as bribery and general corruption or “graft,” though it sometimes has the effect of keeping capable business men out of public life, which is a loss to the community. But the member who is unseated’under this legislation has at least the satisfacth n of being able to stand for re-election right away, and so having his honour vindicated by the vote of the electors. The solitary exception to this procedure applies to electric power boards, a member of which, if unseated under the law, is not again eligible for re-election until a period of three years has elapsed. , Why a distinction should be made in the sole case of power boards is beyond the wit of ordinary humanity to imagine, but so it is. This is a matter which should certainly be brought before the conference oi the power board representatives in ,Wellington, with a view to bringing pressure to bear upon the Government to have the anomaly removed. Cases might easily occur in which, quite innocently, a technical and trivial breach of the law may force entirely upright, honourable and outstandingly capable men to resign their seats, in which event the ratepayers would be deprived of that continuity of control and experience which is so essential a factor in the successful management of power board affairs. With the right to stand for re-election immediately, it would be safe to leave it to the electors, as in the case of all other local bodies, to decide whether or not the member merited continued confidence as the trustee of their publicly-owned concerns.