PARTY POLITICS

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20512, 31 May 1938, Page 11

PARTY POLITICS

“BLOT ON PARLIAMENT” INDEPENDENT CRITICISM LEGISLATION OF THE PAST (By Telegraph.—Press Association) WELLINGTON, Tuesday “it is high time party recriminations ceased; they could be well replaced by higher objectives and nobler aims," stated Mr H. Atmore, independent M.P* for Neison, in an address from Nelson last evening, which was broadcast by the National stations. "1 am enabled to vote in Parliamentary divisions entirely on the merits of the question before the House, and I am not forced into the position of voting as though one party is always right and the other one always wrong,” he continued. "No member would seriously contend that either party in the present Parliament has a monopoly of humanitarian ideals, or is entirely lacking in a desire to so carry out their Parliamentary duties that the be6t interests of their constituents will he served, and yet in the clash of party warfare those interests are frequently overlooked, and mean decisions are reached.

In 1931 the Forbes-Coates-Hamilton Government, by abolishing the graduated land tax relieved our wealthiest institution, the Bank of New Zealand, of taxation amounting to £16,000 per annum, and all other similar institutions and large firms were proportionately relieved. The same Government early in 1932, proceeded to reduce old age, widows’, soldiers’, miners’ and miners’ widows pensions, and the family allowances; and the Opposition (then the Ldbour Party) and the Independents, opposed these reductions. Many divisions took place and in every one the Forbes-Coates-Hamilton combination voted steadily and carried the reductions. Both the clause which benefited the banks and the clauses which penalised the pensioners were debated and became law on party lines. The party system has been aptly and accurately described as a blot on Parliament.

Mr Atmore said he knew no member of the Labour Party who was disloyal or anti-religious. The heavy taxation and nationalising legislation of the Government might be properly criticised, but its humanitarian measures were more in keeping with the tenents of true religion than were the callous reductions in pensions by their predecessors. He criticised the former Coalition Government for its reduced expenditure on education and commended the present Minister of Education, the Hon. P Fraser, for his efforts.