The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 1929 THE MUCK-RAKE IN POLITICS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 737, 9 August 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 1929 THE MUCK-RAKE IN POLITICS

SEVERAL members of the mediocre House of Representatives are trying to earn their wages by raking through the dustbins of party politics. It is never a pleasant occupation, but some politicians seem to prefer it to a better class of national work. There was a great deal of such scavenging done yesterday during the continuation of the debate on Sir Joseph Ward’s long, but shallow, Budget. One Minister and two members on opposite sides of the House apparently had so little in their minds concerning the real and serious problems before Parliament that they used the muck-rake on alleged Ministerial extravagances in providing home comfort for the preceding Prime Minister, and also for the renovation of the pleasant rooms of the present Ministers. Reference also was made to the old cry about “spoils to the victors” and to the vanity of many past administrators in seeking and obtaining titles. The Government Party’s member for the Southern Maori district who, it is said, can always be depended upon to raise a laugh when addressing the House—a reputation that usually leads nowhere—provoked silence on this occasion by referring to the number of knights in the late Mr. Massey’s Cabinet. Finally, Mr. Speaker had to rebuke Mr. Makitanara for indulging in such cheap talk. It is true that the Reform Government possessed more than the usual proportion of titled Ministers and members, but then it was in office for some sixteen years. And it ought to be noted that its first great leader did not hanker after such decorative rewards for service and actually refused the offer of the distinctive honour of becoming New Zealand’s first political lord. As for the Hon. E. A. Ransom’s assertion that the maintenance of the State residence which the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates occupied while Prime Minister had cost £10,500 in three years, it is possible that the outlay represented extravagance, but that, in the absence of detailed expenditure, must be a matter of opinion. Judging from an outside view of the Prime Minister’s residence in Tinakori Road, it certainly looked as though it required a great deal of renovation. But why have Ministerial residences at all? It would be much preferable both for their occupants and the taxpayers to make a reasonable house allowance to all Ministers of the Crown and let them, like the less exalted people, secure and maintain residences in accordance with their ideas of comfort and attractiveness, and with their artistic standards. If Ministers and members really desire to reveal extravagance, let them study the latest Budget and the Estimates of expenditure for the current year. They would have no difficulty in discovering such proofs of Ministerial and departmental profligacy with public money as to cause them, as ordinary men familiar with the common need of rigorous economy, to shudder at the waste of national wealth. It would be interesting to know, for example, how much money has been spent by the present Ministry and its secretaries on travelling allowances since December of last year. Had they been obliged to pay their own expenses the passenger traffic of the Railway Department would have been a less doleful record at the end of the financial year. Then, it Would be infinitely more beneficial to the taxpayer and the overburdened country as a whole if the Government and members of all the parties were to direct their costly talk on the Budget debate toward a plain explanation of the lamentable fact that, in fifteen years, the number of departmental staffs, representing only about one-fourth of the total public employees in New Zealand, has increased 84 per cent., while the total population increased only 30 per cent, during the period. It would be useful, too, if two or three of eighty politicians at least could devote an hour in the course of the Budget debate to the essential task of revealing why the greatest political financier in New Zealand, to say nothing about other countries, has been unable to fulfil his promise to reduce taxation, but has been compelled to increase direct and indirect taxation by £1,500.000. These are but a few of the questions which call for serious attention. Let Parliament abandon muck-raking and party recriminations and justify its expensive upkeep!