The question which I addressed to the Minister to-day and the subject of which I want to raise to-night was as follows—(Question 24, and reply, Col. 1887, read). I raise this matter because I think the question involved is one of very great importance and because I think the principle behind the Order made by the Minister is quite unfair and unsound. I am not so much concerned with the rights of members of this House in this connection, although I think it is an important consideration also, as with the rights and the giving of the fullest possible fair play to claimants for old age pensions. I submit that there is enough hardship and injustice associated with the administration of the Act without increasing that hardship and the disabilities under which poor people labour in order to sustain their claims. At the outset, I would like to say what I have said more than once in this House and that is that I believe the decisions of the deciding officers in the Local Government Department are invariably quite fair. I have had personal experience of that over and over again, and I think it is the experience of every member of this House, but I believe, and I have some experience of what I say, that very often the facts connected with the old age pensions appeals are not properly presented to the officers I have referred to. I assert that many pensions officers in the country, whatever their instructions, are apparently setting themselves out to secure the rejection of as many old age pensions claims as they can. I say that from my experience of a local pensions committee and from the fruitless work that that committee has had to embark on time and again in order to do their part in securing justice for claimants to old age pensions. The consequence of that position is that the facts are not fully put before the Department from the end that the Department must, for the future, in consequence of this Order, rely on solely. I felt that it was very important that personal representation could be made in cases of this kind, because from questions and answers arising out of the statements in the hands of the deciding officers a good deal of information in connection with the claims could be elicited and invariably a fair decision could be arrived at. It is particularly true of cases where the question of age is involved.
I can anticipate the argument of the Minister that the case I am making will give an unfair advantage to the old age pensions claimants who will be able to secure the interest of members of this House in their cases. My answer to that is that the present operation of the Old Age Pensions Act in many parts of the country is so obviously unfair that every possible facility ought to be afforded to reduce hardship and unfairness to the minimum number of cases. Again, I think if the administration of the Act was changed considerably the need for making personal representation in the cases I have mentioned would disappear entirely. Some years ago, in this House, I asked the Minister for Finance if he was prepared to lay on the Table of the House the instructions issued to pensions officers. That request was declined. It seems to me that this regulation made now looks at any rate like an attempt to enshroud the whole administration of the Act in secrecy. I am quite willing to say that there is a great deal in connection with the Act that will not bear very much investigation. I speak altogether of what is happening in the rural areas at the moment.
The Minister made some concession in response to these supplementary questions that we addressed to him to-day. He said that he had made arrangements to enable verbal representations to be made to an officer of his Department. An arrangement of that kind will be satisfactory, if that officer, when taking verbal representations of that kind, is enabled to discuss the cases and by an examination of the facts as he finds them on the records before him, to help in coming to a decision that would be fair to all concerned. I am quite willing to admit, and I know it has been the case, that the presence of a large number of members of this House in that particular branch of the Local Government Department would be embarrassing to the deciding officers, but there is, I submit, an unanswerable case to be made for the giving of facilities to members of this House by the selection of an officer or officers who would be prepared to continue the practice of hearing verbal representations and of being able by question and answer, if necessary, to elicit the facts in cases before them. The Minister suggested that it would be unfair to allow personal contact with the deciding officer in cases of this kind, that the deciding officer would assume the functions of judges. In the courts people are entitled to be heard and they are entitled to be heard through their advocates. I want to ask the Minister if, in making this regulation, he has recognised the position that illiterate people down the country, in an endeavour to sustain their claims, have to rely on the advocacy of their claims in this form or in some such form, and no amount of correspondence will give the deciding officers the facilities that they can get by personal contact with people knowing the facts in arriving at the decision. I want to say that in cases that I have personal experience of very often I was asked— sometimes at least—what my opinion was about particular cases. My opinion sometimes was adverse to the claimant because I wanted to be fair and honest in connection with the whole case. Again, I submit that it would be in the best interests of all parties concerned that personal contact in cases of this kind should be maintained.
I only want to say, in conclusion, that if the Minister is not in a position to make a more satisfactory arrangement than he has indicated in his reply to-day I can see no other way of calling attention to cases of which I have and will have personal knowledge than by putting down questions in this House, and by raising, night after night, here on the adjournment, individual cases which I can stand over and which I believe would not be dealt with in the proper manner otherwise.
I hope that we are going to have from the Minister some assurance that the fullest possible facilities will be given in any cases of this kind, and that the rigour indicated both in these regulations and in his answer to-day will be relaxed in the interests of all concerned, with the end in view of giving a full, complete and satisfactory hearing to the people who are concerned in cases of this kind, and who have no other way to make the representations necessary in order to sustain their applications.
