I move that the Bill do now pass.
Customs (Amendment) Bill, 1945—Fifth Stage.
Before the discussion on the Fifth Stage of this Bill is entered upon I wish to refer to certain statements made last week in the House, on the preceding stage. In those statements there appears to be an implication that Government amendments, as distinct from amendments by Private Members, are examined by the Chair or by the officers who advise on such matters on differing principles. I think I do not need to assure the House, if such an implication were intended, that there is no justification for it. Over the years there have been very many Government amendments ruled out of order—not in every case formally in the House but in preliminary conference—and I feel confident if Government was asked for its views on that aspect its grievance against the Chair on that count would appear as great, but would be just as well or ill-founded, as grievances of Private Deputies.
During the week in which the Customs Bill came up for Committee several Bills, to which a very considerable number of amendments were tabled, reached that stage also that week. Examination of the amendments to the Customs Bill was somewhat hasty and perhaps perfunctory— perfunctory because the other Bills seemed to contain in greater degree the elements making for difficulty from the point of view of the Chair's consideration — and the effect of the Customs Bill amendments was not fully appreciated in a necessarily rushed examination.
I may say that had a point of order been made against admitting what I may term the "offending" amendments when those amendments were being moved, the decision of the Chair in the light of the submissions made last week would have been to treat the point of order as well taken and to uphold it.
In anything I have said, I am not to be taken as suggesting that the Minister acted wrongly in offering the amendments at the stage he did, since the question as to the admissibility of an amendment to an amending Bill has frequently to be decided on fine-drawn lines of distinction, and the onus of examining and deciding that question rests entirely with the Chair. My sole purpose is to dispel the idea, if it exists, that differing standards of ruling are applied as between Government and other amendments.
As well as I recollect there was no charge made against the Chair except this, that it was an oversight to admit the amendments. I take it that what the Chair has just said refers to the point raised by Deputy Costello. I repeat that there was no charge made against the Chair.
All I want to say on this measure is that, whatever the Minister's sin against justice or his reason for putting the offending amendment into this Bill, it is only a small matter compared with presenting the Bill to the House as a whole. The fact that the Bill is now made a temporary measure tempers the situation a little bit, but I am still opposed to this measure. I am gratified, at any rate, that the Minister has seen fit to make it a temporary measure so that it can be reviewed in the light of what the Government has to deal with during the next five years.
It has been pointed out to me that there is a typographical error in page 6 of the Bill, as amended. In Section 5 (1) (f) the word "of" is omitted. If the House has no objection I should like to amend the Bill to this extent—in page 6, Section 5 (1) (f), line 31, before the word "facilitating" to insert the word "of".
Agreed.
I do not really see why there was such opposition to this measure as was taken to it by some sections of the House. There is nothing novel or new in any section of the Bill. There is no new principle of law introduced in it. It is a Bill that was made necessary by the changed circumstances of the last 12 years or so, but it is only in the emergency that a measure of the kind became urgent, because there are so many items on the list of goods that are prohibited to be exported from the country, much more than was the case before the emergency. Even before the emergency there was a considerable number of goods on the list of articles prohibited to be exported from the country. Some of them could be exported by licence but, without licence, exportation was prohibited. Quite a respectable number of goods was on the list, and a law of this kind was necessary. We were obliged, as Deputy Costello pointed out on the previous stage of the Bill, to use the roundabout way of the Scrap Iron Act. We had to use that Act to prohibit the export of eggs. It was a roundabout and an unsatisfactory way from every point of view, and it was necessary that we should have a law of the kind proposed here. There is nothing novel, nothing strange, nothing in it that is not already in existence in the customs laws of this country with regard to smuggling into the country. We needed the same powers in regard to smuggling prohibited goods out of the country. I met the case made by the leading members of the Opposition who spoke on the Bill to a considerable extent—a greater extent than Deputy Mulcahy admits. I met the case by making the Bill a temporary one, to exist for five years, and I think the House is fully justified in accepting the Bill in its present form, at any rate, for that period.
Question put and declared carried.