S55

 -So says the Memorandum, but I would like to say that the proposals for the
Unification of the-Public Services are not an integral part of the recommendations
of the Standing Closer Association Committee (which for convenience I will refer
to as the S.C.A.C.). In fact, the S.C.A.C. Report finds only one proposal in the
report of the Commission on the Unification of Public Seivices which it accepts as
workable. I refer to section 101 of the S.C.A.C. Report which reads as follows :-
 Our-task in relation to this matter is much simplified by the availability
 of the Report on the Unification of the Public Services under the
 Chairmanship of Sir Maurice Holmes. For the- purpose of this part of our
 own Report, we invite attention particularly to Chapter V of the Holmes
 Report regarding the Public, Service Commission and Chapter VI, which
 discusses from the point of view of the Holmes Commission the advantages
 of Federation over Unification "
 Here.'we see that the only proposal adopted by the S.C.A.C. is that for a Public
 Service Commission simply because it would be essential under Federation The
 only suggestion made by the Holmes Report is that centring around the Public
 Services Commission; and my Resolution today is based on Chapter VI of that
 Report.
 It is remarkable that this Report that came out without any summarised
 recommendations and which in this respect is the queerest Report I have ever
 seen, -says, under Section 23, that the reason why there is no summarised
 recommendation is that if they attempted to summarise, the whdle thing would be
 misleading.
 Now, when in this Council Chamber I appeared before Sir Maurice Holmes, I
 told him that the whole question bristled with difficulties, so I am not surprised
 that the Commission have presented a Report which, if they attempted to
 summarise, would be misleading. If the summary of the Report would be
 misleading, we must take it then that the Report is misleading, and again, I say,
 that the S.C.A.C. could find only one recommendation, and that is for the
 appointment of a Public Services Commission to work as a consultative body to
 assist the Federal Government.
 There is a difference between Unification and Federation, and the Commission
 found it necessary to call attention to this in paragraph 4 of Chapter I of their
 Report, which reads :-
 "A large number of our witnesses assumed that the unification of a
 service was the same thing as its federation. This of course is not the case.
 The latter expedient presupposes the existence of a federal Government and
 a decision to make the service in question a federal one. The control of such
 a service is vested in the federal Government and the service is so organised
 and directed as to carry out, not the several and maybe divergent policies of
 the constituent Governments, but the single policy of the federal
 Government. Unification is a very different matter. It involves no
 constitutional changes. It leaves the Governments of the several colonies
 free to pursue their individual policies, and derogates from their powers only
 in so far as such-functions as fall to them.in regard to recruitment to, and
 promotions and transfers in, unified services are taken out of the hands of
 the individual Governments and transferred to a regional executive
 authority."
 What I realise is troubling the minds of the. Civil Servants is that they think
 that this Resolution aims at producing conditions inimical to their interests. But
 if we turn to Section 105 of the S.C.AC. Report, we find this statement :