XN000022-1974-03-14 — Page 6

5.

Thursday, March 14, 1974

GOVERNMENT MUST PROTECT MAN IN THE STREET

From Profiteering, Says Mrs. Symons

The government has a duty to protect the ordinary citizen from

being fleeced by unscrupulous profiteers, the Hon. Mrs. Joyce Symons,

said today.

"While the government may not be able to bring in rigid prico

control of ordinary household commodities in daily use, there is the urgent

need, I feel, to ensure that there is no profiteering on the sale of rice,

cooking oil, flour and sugar, to mention only a few essential items," she

said during the resumed Budget Debate.

Mrs. Symons pointed out that members of the public have often

been hoodwinked into paying more by profit-seeking. shopkeepers, and suggested

instant 'hot lines' to City District Offices so that shoppers could report

concrete examples of flagrant profiteering.

"These reports," she suggested, "could perhaps be tabulated and

checked when the present inspectors from the Department of Commerce and

Industry go round to collect figures which now are used in government statistics."

Mrs. Symons also advocated enlisting the responsible co-operation

of the man in the street in the campaign against inflation.

This could be done by co-ordinating them into mutual aid committees

which were so well represented in the anti-litter and anti-violent crime

campaigns.

/"After all,