BUDGET DEBATE
OPENED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
OPPOSITION LEADER’S
CRITICISM.
MANY QUESTIONS RAISED.
(By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day.
The Budget debate began in the House of Representatives last night in the presence of a large attendance of the public. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Holland, opened with a speech which occupied about 90 minutes. He was followed by the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, who also spoke for 90 minutes. The House adjourned at 10.32 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. today.
Though relief had been expressed that there was no increase in taxation as well as satisfaction with some features of the Budget, there had been surprise, disappointment, and dissatisfaction among the public when its contents were known, said Mr Holland. Among the points giving satisfaction were the increase in war pensions, which was long overdue and which were the rates he had personally advocated. The increase of Is a week in the age benefits would assist the recipients to meet the rapidly rising costs. Disappointment was felt because though there was a surplus of £4,200,000 in the public accounts for last year no relief in taxation had been given.
FAILURES NOTED
No taxation concessions had been made to the poorer classes, to superannuitants and the thrifty people on fixed incomes, and no reduction of war damage insurance. The apparent reluctance of the Government to effect economies and to make provision for checks on expenditure to ensure efficiency gave rise to disappointment. The utmost surprise had been caused by the way the question of rehabilitation had been brushed aside in a few lines in the Budget. There was no reference to land settlement and manpower, both of which were important.
Mr Holland said he must acknowledge the magnificent help of Great Britain in remitting the cost of equipment lost in Greece and Crete, which meant that the British people had contributed £30,000,000. The Dominion's liability under the Memorandum of Security had been estimated at £46,000,000. but actually it was only £15,000,000, of which £8,000,000 was outstanding. , “The Budget is remarkable not for what it discloses but for what it conceals and covers up,” continued Mr Holland. The question being asked was if the money being raised was being spent wisely under proper supervision and efficiency. It was not possible to get during war time the efficiency in control of peace time. The dangers of inflation could not be exaggerated and had been publicly admitted by the Prime Minister, but in the Budget another £14,000,000 was being pumped into circulation, making the position worse. It was futile to condemn inflation while practising it.
CHARGE OF UNFAIRNESS.
“While I have a voice I will raise it in protest against the gross injustice of the Government’s misuse of the people’s broadcasting service for its own political ends,” said Mr Holland. He complained that the Budget speech made by the Minister of Finance was broadcast from seven stations', but that night he, the Leadei’ of the Opposition, was being broadcast from only one station. This was in line with Government policy, which used the radio for Government propaganda but denied equal facilities to its political opponents. Mr Holland alleged also that the Government was making unfair use of telegraph facilities to get Ministerial statements into the daily papers, whereas speeches by National Party members were cut down to a minimum.
OVERSEAS REPRESENTATION.
The public, Mr Holland maintained, had a right to have the full facts regarding the past and intended representation of the Dominion in Canada and the United States. Was Mr Nash going back to Washington or was he being replaced? Mr Holland asked also whether the Minister of Civil Defence (Mr Wilson) was going to Canada, whether Mr Wilson was to be replaced in his present post by the secretary of the Labour Party, Mr Moohan, and whether Mr James Roberts was to be sent to represent the Dominion in Moscow.
DEBT & STABILISATION
With the increase of £68,000,000 proposed this year, Mr Holland said, the public debt would total £531,000,000. If the figure of £66,000,000 for lendlease were also added, as it should be, the total would be £597,000,000. Since the Government came into power there had been an increase of £294.000,000 in the public debt of the Dominion.
One of the worst features of the Budget was the paucity of information in it about the War Expenses Account. No details were given. War funds were unquestionably being used for purposes for which they had no right to be used. Millions of pounds of war funds were being used for domestic purposes. Fifty per cent of the subsidy on sugar was borrowed money. Even the sugar in the beer consumed today was subsidised from the War Expenses Account. The stabilisation of income, said Mr Holland, was recommended in October, 1940, but the Government had dillydallied, backed and filled for two precious years before it did anything.
NEED OF ELECTION.
A general election was necessary, Mr Holland observed, because the Prime Minister was not master in his own house. Mr Fraser believed that they should have a united Government to administer the war effort, but he lacked support from his own party. The attitude of the Opposition had never varied. It held that there could be no full war effort without a truly non-party national Government. If elected, and there was a possibility of that, they would attempt to form a non-party Government on the simple conditions that every effort should be made for the war, that no contentious party legislation was introduced and that there was no outside domination. Mr Holland said that a National Efficiency Commission should be appointed with wide powers to root out inefficiency wherever it was found.
Thousands of pounds could be saved in Government expenditure. Discussing land settlement and rehabilitation, Mr Holland said one of the things the soldiers were fighting for was the right to own their own farms, homes or businesses, yet the Government was determined to deny them the right to own their land. The Opposition would give the men the right to freehold or leasehold if they preferred it. He thought it was time they dropped conscientious objectors from the Rehabilitation Board. It gave offence to returned soldiers that the conditions of .their hehabilitation should be determined by people who would not go away and fight.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAITA19430609.2.27
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 June 1943, Page 3
Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,054BUDGET DEBATE Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 June 1943, Page 3
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Wairarapa Times-Age. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.