“GISBORNE FIASCO”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 202, 15 November 1927, Page 11

“GISBORNE FIASCO”

HUGE SUM SUNK IN HARBOUR WORKS CALL FOR CONTROL (THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON. Monday. ‘‘This Gisborne fiasco js an object lesson to the whole of the Dominion," ! said Mr. T. D. Burnett, member for j Temuka, In the House of Representa- j tives this evening-, when the Public Petitions Committee, presented its report on a petition, in which 669 ratepayers of Gisborne asked for the appointment of a commission to investigate the past and present expenditure on Gisborne harbour works. The committee recommended that the petition should be referred to the Government for consideration, and a commission of inquiry should be held into the harbour works already carried out by the board to decide whether further expenditure is justified. Though he was sorry to have to say so, Mr. W. D. Lysnar. Gisborne, expressed the opinion that more consideration would have to be given to affairs in the Gisborne district* There was less water in the harbour now than ever there was. Mr. Burnett said that no district in New Zealand was more justified in making an attempt to develop its shipping facilities than Gisborne. The position now was that £616,000 had been spent, and not even a full inner harbour scheme was accomplished. For this vast expenditure only a smiV slipway had been constructed and the rest of the works were more or less in the air. "There are too many amateur engineers on our boards," said Mr. Burnett. “This money, that is so easily raised, and in a measure so easily spent, requires the watchful eye of sonle Dominion headquarters.”