FINANCIAL DEBATE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 August 1939, Page 7

FINANCIAL DEBATE

POINTS IN YESTERDAY’S SPEECHES CHARGES OF POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM. MINISTER OF PUBLIC WORKS ON SAVINGS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Six members, one of them a Cabinet Minister spoke in the Financial Debate in the House of Representatives yesterday. An important report presented was that of the Controller and Auditor-General, Mr J. H. Fowler. This official submits his report on the public accounts direct to Parliament and not to the Government. The Opposition speakers included the Minister of Finance in the last Government, Mr Coates (Kaipara). He said that it had been very noticeable that members of the Government had referred to anything but the Budget. The Labour Party, he added, was a party of political opportunists who were always waiting for something to turn up. The Government stressed the need for increased production and called on the nation for increased effort, but it did nothing itself to assist in this increase. Examples were given by the Minister of Public Works, Mr Semple, of savings of money and time in the construction of public works by the use of machinery. He said that though approximately £24,000.000 was allowed in the Budget for public works expenditure only about half that sum was under his control, the balance being subject to the control of other Ministers of the Crown. A speech during the evening which aroused interest was that of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Housing, Mr Lee, who attacked the present debt system. He was followed by Mr Allen (Opposition, Hauraki), who suggested that Mr Lee had advocated a policy of repudiation and default which should be disowned by the Government without delay. The House rose at 10.30 p.m. till today.