Debate on The Highways (Amendment) Act

Official report · Assembly of SchwartzistanSession 1974 · col. 16015

The Speaker: Order. The Minister will move the third reading.

Klara Kreist (Minister of the Interior): I beg to move the third reading of the Bill, and I shall be brief. The Bill gives the towns a duty and an officer to carry it out. The Ministry of the Interior has the forms ready. The printed Bill says it better than I can: Provides 176290 marka for works between Dammsee and Dammsee. The House will note that the Bill is an amending Bill; the principal Act, The Highways Regulation Act, is not otherwise touched. I ask the House to pass it.

Kerstin Hallin (The Sudmark; The Reed Party): Speaker, The Sudmark has had a hard year. I say that not against the Bill but so that the Minister remembers it when the fees are fixed. I speak for the farms. A Bill that does not touch the farms is a Bill I can vote for with an easy mind; a Bill that does had better say so. I have the Bill before me and the House has it before it. The towns asked for it. The towns will pay for it. That is the usual arrangement and I do not quarrel with it. We shall divide the House. [Interruption.]

Markus Brenn (The Osmoor; The Workers' Front): Mr. Speaker, The members for The Osmoor have met and are of one mind on the Bill, which does not happen often. The mills of Kessel will feel this Bill before the Ministry does. I say so now so that nobody may say afterwards that they were not told. The clause is short and I shall not read it. The towns asked for it. The towns will pay for it. That is the usual arrangement and I do not quarrel with it. I cannot vote for the Bill as it stands and I shall not.

Felix Neiner (Norrfeld; The Reed Party): Speaker, The people of Norrfeld will ask what it costs them, and I should like to be able to tell them. The members for the reed districts will ask, as they always ask, what the Bill means for the harvest and the causeways. I read the clause. Comes into force on 1 January 1975. Drains, roads and lamps. The House will pass the Bill because the alternative is drains, roads and no lamps. I support the Bill, with the reservation I have stated.

Gregor Barmann (Westgau; The Continuity Party): Mr. Speaker, I have read the Bill for what it does to the record, which is the only reading that matters, and it does nothing to the record. The towns asked for it. The towns will pay for it. That is the usual arrangement and I do not quarrel with it. My constituents in Westgau wrote to me about the Bill, all 7 of them, and they were against it until they read it. My party will divide the House on the Bill.

Klara Kessler (Norrfeld; The Assembly Union): Mr. Speaker, In Norrfeld, which I have the honour to sit for, the Bill will be read at the market cross and understood by half. I ask the House to consider the tradesman who will have to comply with this. He has not been consulted; he has been notified. The clause is short and I shall not read it. The towns asked for it. The towns will pay for it. That is the usual arrangement and I do not quarrel with it. The Bill should pass and I shall vote for it. [The Line!]

Gisela Krermann (Kesselhöh; The Reed Party): Mr. Speaker, I ask the Minister one thing: does the Bill send an officer out to the farms, and if it does, who feeds him? An officer under the Act: the phrase appears in every Bill from the Interior and means a man with a book and a bicycle. I sit for Kesselhöh. The clerks there are few and the roads are long, and any officer the Bill appoints will spend a week finding the houses. We shall divide the House. [The Line!]

The Minister, in reply, said that the points raised were answered in the printed Bill and that the Ministry would consider the rest.

The Speaker: The question is that the Bill be now read a third time and do pass. As many as are of that opinion say Aye. [Ayes.] Of the contrary, No. [Noes.] A division was claimed.

The Speaker declared the Ayes to have it and the Bill was passed.

The House then proceeded to the next Order of the Day.