CONTROL OF OPTICIANS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 116, 6 August 1927, Page 12

CONTROL OF OPTICIANS

BILL AGAIN INTRODUCED REGISTRATION PROPOSALS (THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Friday. The Opticians Bill, over which there was such a. spirited controversy last year that the Government allowed it to drop, was introduced to the House of Representatives to-day by Gov-ernor-General’s message and read the first time. The Bill, which, if passed, will operate from January 1 next year, provides for the appointment of an opticians board, comprising the registrar, two persons engaged in the practice of optometry in New Zealand, to be appointed at the recommendation of the Minister of Health, and a registered medical practitioner to be appointed by the Governor-General for three years.

In order to qualify for registration an applicant must satisfy the board that he has been engaged in the practice of optometry in the Dominion for three years immediately prior to the operation of the Act, which is to come into force on January 1 next, has received satisfactory training as an optician and is the holder of documentary evidence of qualification recognised by the board, or has passed an examination under the Act in both theoretical and practical optometry, after a course of three years’ training in New Zealand. Applications under the first head must be made within a year of the Act coming into force.