EXTRAVAGANCE DENIED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 203, 16 November 1927, Page 11

EXTRAVAGANCE DENIED

COST OF NATIVE AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT EMPHATIC DENIAL (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. Charges of extravagance were made against the Public Service Commissioner in the Legislative Council today by the Hon. V. H. Reed, and indigmantly refuted by Sir Francis Bell, Leader of the Council. Referring to the balance sheet of the Native Trust Office, Mr. Reed said it was a glaring case of extravagance in the department being allowed by the Public Service Commissioner. If there were similar cases of extravagance in other departments it was very questionable whether the commissioner had not only not been saving money, but had been permitting extravagance. The balance sheet spoke for itself. The functions of the office had not changed and its operations had not been extended since its inception in 1921. In 1921 the net revenue was £19,208 and the total expenditure £5,729, while last year the revenue was £17,405 and the expenditure £11,876. Thus while there had been a decrease of nearly £2,000 in the revenue in six years, the total expenditure had doubled. The net profit six years ago was over £13,000, and last year only £5,528.

There had been gross neglect on the part of the Public Service Commissioner in allowing this to occur. Under the present system Ministers had no power over their departments. The power was entirely in the hands of the Public Service Commissioner. He was put there to keep down expenditure and to get efficiency and in this case at least he had entirely failed to do so. Sir Francis Bell said he had never in his long experience in the Council Yieard any comment so inconsiderate. The whole of the native reserves throughout New Zealand were vested in the Native Trust Office, which administered and managed them in the interests of the natives, yet Mr. Reed had taken the salaries amounting to £ 8,000 odd and said that that represented extravagance. This office was under the control of a board, of which the Native Minister was chairman, and its functions could not be performed by a clerk and a boy in an office. “Why, sir,” said Sir Francis Bell, addressing the Speaker, “I don’t often feel called upon to defend the Government in such an emphatic way, but I am moved to astonishment by a member of the Council failing to inform the Council of the immense duties of the Native Trustee. Would the Council like to entrust the native reserves to the administration of a department whose salaries were less than £B,OOO a yekr? The revenue from the interest and rents of the native reserves have no more to do with the Public Service Commissioner than with the equator. The revenue has nothing whatever to do with the salaries paid.”