House of Representatives
7 March 1946

17^th Parliament · 3^rd Session

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
QUESTION
- MOTION OF WANT OF CONFIDENCE
ADJOURNMENT
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
SPECIAL ADJOURNMENT
MOTION OF “WANT OF CONFIDENCE.

Mr. Speaker (Hon. J. S. Rosevear) took the chair at 2.30 p.m., and read prayers.

page 58

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS

Mr SPEAKER:

– I desire to inform the House that the Right Honorable Lord Winster, -United Kingdom Minister for Civil Aviation, and Lord Knollys, K.C.M.G., M.B.E., D.F.C., members of the House of Lords, are within the precincts of the House. With the concurrence of honorable members, I shall invite them to take seats on the floor of the House beside the Speaker’s chair.

HONORABLE Members. - Hear, hear !

Lord Winster and Lord Knollys thereupon entered the chamber and were seated accordingly.

page 58

QUESTION

MOTION OF WANT OF CONFIDENCE

Debate resumed from the 6th March (vide page 49), on motion, by Mr. Menzies -

That the Gove rumen t .does not possess the confidence of this House.

Mr SCULLY:
Minister for Commerce and Agriculture · Gwydir · ALP

– I wish briefly to support the contention of the Prime Minister (Mr. Chifley) that the Commonwealth Government has done all that has been humanly possible to fulfil the whole of its obligations to the United Kingdom in respect of the supply of food. Not from any cause over which the Government has had control has it deviated from its- contractual obligations to the Motherland. It is generally conceded that the heart of the Labour party beats just as loyally and ‘ sympathetically as the heart of any other party. It has been heartening to me, as the Minister for Commerce and Agriculture, to receive from time to time acknowledgments from the former Minister for Food in Great Britain, as well as the present Minister, Sir Benjamin Smith, of the contributions of food that have been made by Australia for the relief of the people of the United Kingdom. All the members of the Government appreciate the unselfish attitude that has been adopted by the Government of the United Kingdom to- the food problems of a devastated world. The whole of the food that we contribute is distributed by the Combined Foods Board. The British Government has intimated to the Australian Government that it can best assist by forwarding wheat and flour to places to which the board directs that they shall be sent. Practically the whole of our exports of wheat and flour has -been distributed in those countries that are closest to the Australian market and are most sorely in need. I shall give a factual picture of the food position, and of the contribution that we have made from time to time. This season’s wheat crop, the (greater part of which will be sold in 1946, is estimated at 144,000,000 bushels. There were no restrictions on production, and the rising prices provided every incentive to growers to sow to their full capacity. A greater crop was not secured, however, because of the drought, which persisted in many wheat areas until well past the normal sowing period. The drought continued almost throughout the season in areas in South Australia and Victoria; and there was a lack of sufficient fertilizers throughout all wheat areas. Other factors, such as inadequate machinery and lack of man-power, also served to reduce the total crop.

Because of record crops two years in succession in the United States of America and heavy harvests in Canada, expert and general opinion up till eight or nine months ago was that there would be no world shortage of wheat. As late a§ October, no great anxiety was displayed regarding possible deficiencies, and the allocation to importing countries of a proportion only of their requirements was not considered necessary. Failure of crops in southern Europe and northern Africa and lower returns than had been anticipated in other parts of Europe led to unexpectedly high demands from those countries. Lower production of other foodstuffs increased the demand for cereal products, and, in India, bad seasons stimulated demands in that country to an inordinate degree. Altogether, it is esti mated that the net import demand for wheat, and for flour in terms of wheat, for the year July, 1945, to June, 1946, - reaches 1,200,000,000 bushels. The net annual import demand before the war was less than 550,000,000 bushels. When it became evident at the end of 1945 that there would be a serious world shortage, all wheat-growing countries were apprised and asked to do everything they could to increase exports. Australia, as a southern hemisphere producer, was, with Argentina, asked to ship everything possible in the first half of this year, so that the gap would be narrowed as much as possible in the months before the 1946 crops in the northern hemisphere became available.

The Government acted promptly and. after a rapid survey, laid down that all wheat thai could be brought to the seaboard up to the 30th June should be made available, together with all flour that could be milled and transported. In conjunction with the Australian Wheat Board, the Government has taken every precaution to ensure that all flour mills throughout Australia shall be kept working to their full capacity. Immediately prior to the last harvest, the mills had, owing to the drought, reduced operations to one shift a day; but at present, with rare exceptions, they are being employed to their full capacity. To provide the extra wheat needed to do this, 5,000,000 bushels of wheat allocated for feed for stock was made available. This was later increased to 7,000,000 bushels. If anything further were required to make full use of all transport available, it wa’s arranged that the risk be taken of calling upon stocks - already below normal - earmarked for carry-over to the 1946-47 season. We have done everything possible. A total of 30,000,000” bushels of wheat was set aside this year for stock feed in Australia, but, as the result of representations made by the Prime Minister of Great Britain to the Prime Minister of Australia, we reduced this allocation by 5,000,000 bushels, and it has been arranged that this quantity shall be. despatched to destinations nominated by the United Kingdom. Even after this we received further representations from the Prime Minister of Great Britain asking us to make still more wheat available, even if it meant jeopardizing the position here in regard to stock feed. The wheat was to be used chiefly for feeding pigs and poultry, and the Government of the United Kingdom, even though it recognized how urgently supplies of eggs and bacon were needed in that country, urged us to reduce still further our allocation of wheat for stock feed. We have now cut the allocation for stock feed to 23,000,000 bushels, and there have been reactions from stock-owners in Australia; but we believe that we must take a risk. VII the flour mills in Australia are working three shifts a day, and this will make available increased quantities of bran and pollard. This will make up the leeway to some extent, but it will not completely meet the demand for feed for pigs and poultry.

Mr McEwen:

– Will the Government compensate producers who are involved in loss?

Mr SCULLY:

– That point will be considered. Whenever a contract has beenentered into by the Government as a result of which primary producers have suffered ‘loss we have compensated them wherever possible. Our efforts to export as much wheat as possible before the 30th June have placed a tremendous strain upon the railway systems of some of the States, particularly that of Western Australia. My assistant in that State, the honorable member for Forrest (Mr. Lemmon), has done an. excellent job in co-operation with the Government of Western Australia,, arrangements having been made for the transport for 13,000 tons a week. Difficulties have arisen in some of the other States, also, but the railway departments have risen to the occasion because they realize how urgently necessary it is to export as much food as possible for the relief of.starving people overseas. Information, has been received from the Government of the United Kingdom that the present food shortage is likely to continue for a longer . time than was originally expected, and a period of eighteen months has now been’ mentioned.

Seasonal prospects are at present exceedingly good, and the Government is urging farmers to produce as much as possible. It is expected that, with the demobilization of servicemen, the position in regard to labour will improve. There will still be, however, a shortage of fertilizers, and that is to be deplored. The Government of the United Kingdom, through the Fertilizers Board, is assisting in the distribution of superphosphate. Some States - or portion of States are practically dependent upon fertilizers to obtain satisfactory crops. Recognizing the importance of fertilizers, the Government has sent abroad expert officers with instructions to do their best to increase the quantity of superphosphates to be allocated to Australia.

The honorable member for Kew England (Mr. Abbott) also referred to the shortage of tractor parts. It is true, a3 ho said, that there is a shortage of supplies of farming machinery throughout the Commonwealth. The Government ment’ has done all in its power to relieve the situation, but the shortage is hot peculiar to Australia; it is world-wide, because most of the huge plants which in times of peace produced agricultural machinery switched over to war production. Later in the debate the honorable member for Ballarat (Mr. Pollard) will give to the House full information on this subject.

Mr McEWEN:
INDI, VICTORIA · CP; LCL from 1940; CP from 1943

– Permits to import agricultural machinery were not granted.

Mr SCULLY:

– That is not so. On a number of occasions the Government has sent officers to the United Kingdom and the United States of America with a view t.-> obtaining additional tractors, but despite all that has been done the demand still exceeds the supply.

– The honorable gentleman should have more sense. I have in my hand a copy of the official report of a debate on the world food shortage which took place in the House of Commons on Wednesday, the 14th February last, in the course of which the British Minister of Food, Sir Ben Smith, said -

I intend to take every opportunity to augment our supplies of vegetables anil fruit by imports as far as this is consistent with undertakings to home producers, although the tight position of refrigerated tonnage is very difficult. If I could have another ten refrigerator ships, I could make a good deal of change very quickly in this country, but, unfortunately, I have not got them.

Those remarks corroborate what I have just said with respect to the shortage of refrigerated shipping space. We do not 1blame Britain, because I suppose that it entered into the contract in good faith. We. all- know, however, what fresh fruit means to people who have suffered as the people of the United Kingdom have in these terrible years. Australia is anxious to rise to the occasion and supply the British with the food they need. Whereever Mr. Mills went, the orchardists were more than anxious to work long hours and under difficulties to ensure a pack of apples of export standard.

It is estimated that 115,000 tons of dairy produce, butter, cheese and processed milk will be shipped this year, as against the average annual shipments for the three years before the war of 112,000 tons. Owing to the good seasonal prospects, this estimated figure for 1946 is better than the export in the war years. ‘ The Government, by the payment of heavy direct subsidies - the estimated amount for 1945-46 is £5,250,000- by preferment in service releases, by concessional prices for cereal feed, has clone everything possible to stimulate the dairying industry, and the figures this year show that, with a good season, the results are very much better. Another aspect is that the war-time stimulation of other industries such as eggs, green vegetables, and potatoes has taken to a certain extent from dairying output. Also the dairying industry is very dependent on labour and suffered severely through lack of man-power during the war years. Butter is rationed locally to 6 oz. a person a week. In the absence of other fats such as margarine, this is recognized as exceedingly low. During the war, a,ll table margarine was taken by the services of the United Kingdom, United States of America and Australia, and none was made, available for civilians in Australia. With the close of the war, there were, surpluses and these were offered to the United Kingdom. They were declined, however. Recently, they were again offered and a reply is awaited. The surplus of butter and cheese has been sold to the United Kingdom until June. 194S. Assurances have been received that insulated ships will be provided for all butter made available for export.

Estimated shipments of eggs this year show a tremendous increase over pre-war years. The estimates for 1946 are 1,000,000 cases of eggs in shell, plus egg pulp equivalent to 500,000 cases of shell eggs. The average for the three years immediately before the war was 400,000 cases. The Ministry of Food has indicated it will take the lot and expects to find the shipping. There is much uneasiness at this end, however, as to whether this large quantity of eggs will be got away. Full volume of output is not reached until August, and, in order that the eggs may arrive in sound condition, the last shipment packed in December should be made by January. This will involve, from August to December, approximately a ship a week from Sydney and Melbourne, and at least two or three a month from other main ports. These facts have been pointed out to the Ministry of Food, but definite assurances that the ships will be forthcoming have not yet been received. No doubt the details are being examined and replies to the questions raised will be forthcoming shortly. This great expansion of the egg industry was brought about by the government policy of guaranteeing prices and providing feed at concession prices.

A long-term contract has been made for the disposal of dried fruits, and growers will now have the advantage of a reasonable price for a considerable time. With the recent rains, the dried vine crop suffered a reverse and the output for the season will not be known for about another fortnight: A review will then take place with the object of considering whether the allocation to the United Kingdom can be increased beyond the normal figure. This will involve some curtailment of supplies for the local market, and of the requirements of other purchasers.

During the war years, Australia’s total output of rice was distributed amongst the Allied services, particularly those employing native labour in the Pacific areas. Issues were also made to hospitals and other institutions in Australia, but none was made available to Australian civilians. This year, with the heavy reduction of Army demands, it was proposed to make rice available to the civilian market. Now, in view of the position in the United Kingdom, this has not been done. The surplus of about 20,000 tons, after service requirements and other priority demands are met, has been offered for sale to the British Ministry of Food. The Ministry has accepted the offer.

Australian production of sugar declined during the war. The average annual prewar production was about800,000 tons. The 1945-46 crop yielded about 660,000 tons. Pre-war exports to the United Kingdom totalled 364,000 tons. This year, they should reach 200,000 tons. Manpower difficulties and shortages of fertilizers during the war were primarily responsible for the reduction of output, and, in order to maintain exports, the rationing of sugar within Australia was instituted and is being continued.

The general food position is all that could be desired.

Mr Anthony:

– That is not so.

Mr SCULLY:

– Yes, the general position is all that could be desired.

Mr Anthony:

– Desired by whom ?

Mr SCULLY:

– By those recognizing the circumstances. Before I became Minister for Commerceand Agriculture, production had notbeen planned, and members of the Australian Country party are guilty of arrant hypocrisy when they say that my predecessors formulated longterm plans, or plans for increased production. We began from ““bare boards “, as it were. What planning did the right honorable member for Cowper (Sir Earle Page) do? He was always planning the overthrow of his political rivals, and devoted most of his time to that purpose. But he was left “ almost standing” when the “ outsider “, the right honorable member for Darling Downs (Mr. Fadden), romped home into the leadership of his party, leaving two very disgruntled persons in the positions which they now occupy.

The response which primary producers have made throughout the Commonwealth has been marvellous, despite the croakings of some people who, for political purposes, have endeavoured at all times to dampen their ardour and enthusiasm. The primary producers have co-operated wholeheartedly with the Government. Of our political opponents, only the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Australian Country party have shown willingness to cooperate with the Government in its endeavour to increase primary production.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order ! The Minister has exhausted his time.

Mr HARRISON:
Wentworth

.- I shall make no comment whatever upon the extraordinary statement by the Minister for Commerce and Agriculture (Mr. Scully). I propose to leave the honorable gentleman to the tender mercies of my colleagues in the Australian Country party, who, I have no doubt, will deal with him most effectively as this debate proceeds. If there was ever a time in tho history of this Commonwealth when a. motion of want of confidence in the Government was warranted, this is the moment. Never before in the history of this Commonwealth has there’ been on the treasury bench a government so inept as is the present one. Honorable members may wonder why we have not set out in detail, as is the custom when a motion of want of confidence is moved, the various subjects on which we propose to challenge the Government. For good and sufficient reasons, we have not done so on this occasion; in fact, we could not find a pen capable of writing the corrosive criticism which can be levelled against this Government’s policy of bungling, waste, mal-administration and cowardly retreat from all problems associated with production and arising out of the industrial anarchy that prevails in Australia to-day. On any one of the matters which have been mentioned during the debate by speakers on this side of the chamber, the Governnent deserves censure. Neither the Prime Minister (Mr. Chifley) nor any other Minister has been able to refute the charges levelled against the Government. Let us examine the puerile answer made by the Prime Minister to the statements of the Leader of the Opposition about the Netherlands East Indies turmoil. The Government should blush with shame to think that a body of wharf labourers has been allowed to formulate the foreign policy of this country, and to challenge one of our allies whose fleet stood between us and theenemy not very many months ago. To permit these individuals to write into the history of this country a policy such as they have enunciated- they have even refused to allow mercy ships to be loaded at Australian ports with supplies for the Stricken people of the Netherlands East Indies - is to place a blot upon the escutcheon of the Labour party which cannever be erased. I come, now to another matter which is of great moment to Australia’s future. It is astounding that a Government sworn to uphold the laws of this democratic country can pass so lightly over the practised form of industrial anarchy that is common in Australia to-day. I for one shall not be silent on this matter-.

Mr James:

– The honorable member has driven our distinguished visitors out of the chamber.

Mr HARRISON:

– The honorable member’s interjection is quite in keeping with the manner in which honorable members opposite approach their public duties. This is not a matter of little moment; it is a matter of vital importance to Australia - vital to the security and indeed to the development of this country in the post-war period. There can be no return to normality, no expansion of industry, no fulfilment of the responsibility of private enterprise, no adequate rehabilitation of ex-servicemen or other members of the community who have been displaced due to war-time conditions, and we cannot take advantage of. the opportunities that are offered to us b the establishment of war-time -industries in this country, until the Government decides to honour its obligations to our democratic way of life, and to govern this country in accordance with its laws. I shall not he fobbed off by statements such as those made by the Prime Minister yesterday in an endeavour to answer the charges levelled at his Government by the Leader of the Opposition. Indeed, the right honorable gentleman’s reply seemed only to establish more securely the policy that has been pursued by the Labour Government in regard to all the industrial unrest that we have suffered in this country. Referring to the Indonesian problem, and to the waterfront dispute in Sydney which has prevented the manning and loading of mercy ships destined for the Netherlands East Indies, the Prime Minister said he would not interfere lest all work on the waterfront be held up. I ask honorable members to endeavour to grasp the full significance of that statement. Here we have a handful of industrialists who have taken the government of this country into their own hands, and are shaping Australia’s policy towards our neighbours in the East; yet no less a person that the Prime Minister says in this chamber that the reason for the Government’s failure to exert its authority, and to ensure the sending of aid to those who came to our assistance in our time of peril, was that such action might lead to a hold-up on the entire waterfront. That is characteristic of the cowardly retreats of the Government whenever the big stick of militant unionism has been waved over its head. We have seen similar happenings on the coal-fields, and in the metal trades unions. There is also the classic example of the Port Kembla strike and all that resulted from it. All this has occurred because the Government has not had courage enough to enforce the law, and say where it stands in regard to industrial matters. In every instance, it has capitulated, eventually falling back on excuses such as that offered by the Prime ‘ Minister in this chamber yesterday. Compare that excuse with the brave statement of a former Prime Minister, who referred to such incidents as sabotage and anarchy, which would detrimentally affect many of those who were placing their bodies between the Japs and ourselves. The present Prime Minister says, “ Well, boys, the real facts are these: They are too strong for us. If we do this, they will hold up everything. So the best thing to do, lads, is to appease them, give way to them, and let them have their own way “. If that is Labour’s idea of government, then preserve me from Labour. I have mentioned the strike at Port Kembla. I regard that as the foulest blot upon the industrial escutcheon of the Labour party of Australia. We are in a pitiable position when every Minister, from the Prime Minister down, is -acting as a mere cipher. What we now have is not government by the elected representatives of the people, but government by trade unionists-cum-Communists. That is the method of government under which this country is functioning to-day. The Government is submitting to the pressure of the Communist-controlled trade unions of Australia. The Prime Minister says, “ I dare not interfere, or they will take other action Therefore”, every Minister has beat a cowardly retreat before the threats of these Communist agitators. The Government must not imagine that this policy of masterly inactivity will provide a solution of our industrial problems. On the contrary ; because the more you appease, the more likely will the unions be to take advantage of such appeasement, and the more you retreat the further will they advance into your stronghold.

I share the wonder of the people of Australia as to whether that is actually the policy of the Government, or whether its aim is to encourage industrial anarchy in order to bring about unrest in the major industries of Australia. I ask honorable members to note the reaction of the coal-miners whenever there is industrial unrest in their industry. Immediately the cry is raised: “ Nationalize the industry, and you will have peace “. I put it to the House that there may be something sinister behind the Government’s cowardly retreat from industrial problems. Indeed, the intention may be to encourage industrial unrest in order to establish circumstances that would be conducive to the imple-mentation of that plank of the platform of the party which provides for’ the socialization of the means of production, distribution and exchange. We have just passed through a big strike, about which I propose to say something. Are the circumstances .to-day different from those that existed a few months ago? Of course they are not. At page 11 of one” of the Sydney newspapers of yesterday is to be found a damning example of the present industrial recalcitrance. In three columns there are reports of no fewer than four different industrial disturbances in Sydney, and another has been reported to-day. The four are: the brewery strike; the closing down pf the Crown Crystal Glass works, which will result in the dismissal of from 600 to 700 employees; an inter-union dispute among 100 men employed at the Royal Australian Navy ammunition depot, Homebush Bay; and a strike by 200 employees of Enoch Taylor Limited, which has caused a stop-work meeting of 5,000 boot and shoe workers. To-day, the employees of Lysaght’s Newcastle works are again on strike, with the result that 700 men are being thrown out of employment. A close analysis will reveal that whenever industrial stoppages occur similar factors prevail. That can lead to’ only one conclusion. In every instance, Communist-controlled unions are involved, and the strike takes place in complete defiance of the law of the land. There is no justification. No principle is involved, and there is no question of victimization. There is nothing but a desire to upset the existing industrial conditions on any pretext. The Government has abrogated its responsibility to the electors by failing to uphold the principle of a duly constituted legal authority, and by aiding and abetting the strikers in their attitude of anarchy.

The notorious forerunner of a shameful period of industrial chaos was the strike of ironworkers at Port Kembla. I believe that that was. the culmination of a premeditated plan. by Communist-controlled unions, and that it was a test strike to determine the effect on and the reaction of the general community, and above all the reaction of the Government. There- fore, it is advisable to place on record the whole of its shameful history. The strike occurred at Port .Kembla on the 23rd September last. Within a .week, it had involved 7,000 men, the members of fifteen unions. The strike spread to Lysaghts and the Commonwealth Rolling Mills. On the 30th October, Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited had to lay off a number of men at Newcastle because of the shortage of coal, due to a series of stoppages on the coal-fields. A week later, a further 7,000 men were either on strike or out -of employment. On the 18th November Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited announced that a resumption of work was then possible. By that time, however, the men had increased their demands. The first stage had been passed, and the second stage in the plan to cause industrial anarchy had been reached. On the 3rd December, the miners’ federation and the Seamen’s Union held stop-work meetings, and called on their members to strike in support of the steel workers. By the end of December, it was estimated that the strike had caused this great wastage to Australia’s national economy : Loss of employment by approximately 500,000 workers; loss of wages, approximately £15,000,000; registration for unemployment relief by- 42,500 applicants in Sydney alone ; loss of export trade through ships being held up; and loss of at least 500,000 tons of coal. Honorable members are aware of the restrictions that were imposed upon householders in Sydney, and the reaction of those unfortunate people to the extraordinary- circumstances that then existed. It will be noted that the unions involved were Communistcontrolled. To those unions the Prime Minister applies the same tactics that he revealed last night when he said that he would not take action because it might precipitate further trouble, which he would not be capable of handling. That is the only inference that can be drawn from what he said. The right honorable gentleman announced that he did not want a general strike, and for that reason refused . to intervene. The Communists, in certain of their statements, have expressed the same opinion. They consider that the time is not ripe for a general strike. As boys, our description of parties to a dispute who acted in that manner was ” one is cocktail, and the other is not game “. I apply that description to the Government. In the Sydney Domain on the 2nd December, while the strike was proceeding, and the people were suffering untold miseries for which the striking recalcitrants were responsible, the- president of the Communist party said -

The Communist view is that a general strike should only be called when there is a revolutionary situation and the workers are ready to take part. I have been working all my life to prepare them for that, but the time is uncertain. It is not now.

That statement was made during one of the greatest industrial upheavals Australia has ever experienced. A general strike, we are told, is not to be called by the Communists yet, because the time is not propitious. The Prime Minister, in admitting that he was afraid to take action in circumstances where threats were being applied, was guilty of a cowardly retreat. Common Cause published the following statement on the 10th January: -

Let’s keep the powder dry and see that there is plenty of it ready.

There will be no industrial peace, no increased production, no post-war reconstruction until there are substantial and. farreaching increases in living standards, reductions in hours, and real economic security. 1 pause at this juncture to inform honorable members opposite that in Great Britain at present there is a Prime Minister who has emphasized the great need’ for increased production in order to provide increased living standards for the workers, and he has made it clear that those conditions can be obtained only by increased production. But do we find members of the present Commonwealth Government making a statement that cuts across the ‘Communist-controlled trade unions? Ministers remain silent, although they realize that ‘ as long as strikes are allowed to continue the productive capacity of the country must be seriously reduced. There can be no harmony in industry until a lead is given by those who profess to be leaders in it. In handing leadership over to the Communists, as the Government has done, it has sacrificed the respect of all decent people in Australia. According to the lip-service given in this chamber from time to time by members of the Government, they are concerned about the Communist interference, but they are not prepared to challenge the Communists. The quotation from Common Cause concludes -

Profits will have to be disgorged for workers’ betterment, accumulated funds spent on modernizing, control broadened for wider democracy.

The zero hour approaches foi- the fulfilment of our economic demands. Nothing has been gained in the coal-mining industry without intense campaigning, agitation, and struggle.

Honorable members opposite are not so much concerned about national security as they are about retaining their seats in this Parliament ; otherwise they would challenge the statements of the men who control the trade unions.

In a joint statement made in January last, the secretary of the miners federation, Mr. “Wells, the acting national secretary of the ironworkers federation, Mr. McPhillips, and the general secretary of the Seamens Union, Mr. Elliott, declared that important principles had been won in the course of the coal and steel strikes, which should set a firm foundation for the struggle which the trade union and labour movements must wage against the employing class in the next few months, and in the next few years. What were the important principles? Those officials made .that statement following the formation of the alliance between the three Communist-controlled unions. - That triple alliance said, “ We will combine to see that these things are done in the newyear “, leading up to the stage where they could precipitate a general strike under revolutionary conditions.

There is a great deal of irony in the matter to which 1 am now about to refer. Probably I should give to the coal-miners some credit for humour in their makeup. The official organ of the miners federation, Common Cause, pointed out towards the end of last month that the miners who had played a big part in accomplishing victory deserved recognition, and that the nation should recognize the debt it owed to them by issuing a special stamp. Can anybody imagine a more farcical statement than that a special stamp should ‘be struck to commemorate the great job which the coa.miners. did during the war? I could design a stamp of a very telling nature to commemorate their action. I would strike a stamp depicting a miner rampant on ia field of industrial unrest, with a sickle and hammer prominently displayed in his hand. He should be shown standing astride an unfortunate civilian victim of his maltreatment.

The spirit of industrial lawlessness ii such that the trade unionists have become a law unto themselves. Men who had been discharged for thieving precipitated a strike at. the State abattoirs in New South Wales, and Until they were replaced no stock was slaughtered. When men are dismissed because of their failure to observe the common decencies of the industrial code, stop-work meetings are immediately held, and a strike is staged until dismissed men are placed back in their jobs. Even when the national security regulations with regard to breadzoning were withdrawn, the trade unionists were not concerned with the fact that pre-war conditions were to be reverted to, but they declared that they would not deliver bread in areas other than the zones .prescribed under war conditions. Apparently no action oan be taken by a government -to enable the ‘ country to revert to conditions that formerly operated. As long as the Government carries out the policy of appeasement enunciated by the Prime Minister last night, it will fail to restore the rule of law in this country. . The Government deserves the censure of this House. I believe that it will be suitably censured by the people when it next appears before them, and I am in favour of helping the people by hastening the demise of the Government. Therefore I urge honorable members to support the motion before the ‘House.

Any one of the charges levelled against the Government from the Opposition side is sufficient to warrant the carrying of the motion. We have heard from the Minister for Post-war Reconstruction (Mr. Dedman) about the bungling that has occurred in the rehabilitation of exservice men and women, but he did not tell us that a monster protest meeting sponsored by the Queensland exservicemen’s organizations was held in the Brisbane City Hall on the 6th February at which over 3,000 people were present. This meeting condemned the Government’s bungling and ineptitude in dealing with the problems of ex-service men and women, and carried with applause the following motion : -

That the Minister for Post-war Reconstruction. Mr. Dedman, be requested to como to Brisbane immediately and meet the representatives of ex-servicemen’s associations present at to-night’s meeting for the purpose of dealing with matters relating to problems of ex-service personnel, and that Mr. Dedman be given a (leadline date of fourteen days - i.e. 12th March, 1046 - to come to Brisbane, and that all federal members and senators ‘be written to, urging them to prevail upon Mr. Dedman, to accede to our request within the time specified in this resolution.

Do honorable members opposite think that there are no grievances in regard to rehabilitation which would warrant a branch of the returned soldiers league passing a resolution of that kind? The mere fact that there is so much unemployment among servicemen would be sufficient to move any responsible organization to protest. In January, more than 35,000 discharged persons were out of employment - 33,239 men and 1,875 women. This is the position which exists even after the passing of the act which the Government described as the returned soldiers’ “ Bill of Rights “. The Government’s attempts at rehabilitation are farcical. It should be remembered that in the case of ex-servicemen we are dealing with the most combustible of human material. Those men will take further action against the Government if they are denied their rights. Yesterday, in answer to an interjection, the Prime Minister said that there were no manpower controls now, and that he did not blame demobilized men who had some money and wanted a spell. His suggestion was that discharged men were not trying to obtain employment, that they were seeking to have a holiday, that they were, using their deferred pay and their gratuity money, if they could get it, to spend .on a holiday. Everybody knows that the unfortunate returned men are seeking to obtain employment, but are being denied work by the bungling of this Government. Of a total of 19j456 applications received for full-time rehabilitation training only 9,247 had been accepted up to the 31st January last, according to the DirectorGeneral of Rehabilitation. Is that how the Government proposes to find jobs for returned men? I have here particulars of a man who, before he entered the Navy, had served his time as a refrigeration engineer, and had studied at,a technical college. When he applied for a job after his discharge bc was told that he would have to join the union, but when he applied for admittance to the union, he was told that the union books were closed, [f that is how the Government proposes to treat returned soldiers it will not find them so easy to manage as were the returned soldiers of the last war. It will be forced to give the men the conditions for which they fought.

The, Government has also failed to discharge its obligations in regard to exservicemen’s wives who are still overseas. I have before me a list of applications, and it makes heart-rending reading. In some instances,, men have had to use their war gratuities in order to purchase sterling, for the support of their wives overseas, because the payment of allotments had been Stopped. They had been promised that their wives would obtain passages in December last, but now there is no hope of their getting out of England within six or, perhaps, nine months. Some wives and children are being evicted from their homes in England because they have no money with which to pay rent, and no help is forthcoming from Australia House. Here are a few typical cases -

Taken prisoner of war after marriage - seventeen months in Germany. No relatives in Australia. Solely dependent on wife’s companionship for mental rehabilitation, particularly after being prisoner of war.
2w> pay awaiting allowances under reconstruction training scheme, which anyway will be insufficient to maintain two homes.
Because of ill-health, representations made by commanding officer of Yaralla Hospital, by Australian Bed Cross and by Returned Soldiers’ League for immediate priority .passage, but wife has heard absolutely nothing from -Australia House after one month.

The Minister for Immigration met representatives of the servicemen in a deputation, and told them that sustenance would be paid to their dependants, but nothing has yet been done in that way. Some time later he repeated the promise, but still nothing has been done. The problem is quite easy of solution. The Government can charter ships, and bring these people to Australia.

Mr Lazzarini:

– Alice in “Wonderland !

Mr HARRISON:

– The Minister is so immersed in his housing blue-prints that he merely smiles when a really practical proposal is placed before him. It must be evident to every honorable member that this Government is not worthy of the confidence of the House.

Mr WARD:
Minister for Transport and Minister for External Territories · East Sydney · ALP

– When an Opposition in Parliament moves a censure motion against the Government we can only assume that it is putting itself forward as an alternative to the Government in office. Therefore, although the Opposition has quite recently changed its name once again, I think it must be generally recognized that it is really the same old gang of tories under a different name. I think it was the office boy of the Opposition party, the honorable member for Falkiner (Mr. Holt), who, in one of his franker moments admitted in Western Australia that the new Liberal organization was made up of the members of the old United Australia party under a new name. Now that we have listened to the bombast of that embryo dictator, the honorable member for Wentworth (Mr. Harrison), let us consider how the present Government came into office. It came, not as the result of a general election, but because in October of 1941, during the most critical days of the war, the then Government, the present Opposition, proved its utter incapacity to govern the country. The Labour party was the only political organization capable of forming a stable government. Members of the Opposition are now seeking to parade their patriotism, but it may be well to recall events at the time when this government came into office. Listening to honorable members opposite one might imagine that the present Government had failed to organize the nation for its defence. A few years ago, I made certain charges in this House and elsewhere against the governments which preceded the Labour Government, and as a result there were demands from the Opposition that the charges should be inquired into. I had charged the Opposition, when in office, with having actually contemplated plans for the handing over to the enemy of large sections of Australian territory. I remember the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Menzies), after the abortive royal commission which had been appointed to inquire into only a minor phase of the matter, demanding that I should be kept under suspension because ho was not satisfied to let the matter rest where it was. When the report of the royal commission was tabled, and the time came for a debate on the subject, I naturally assumed that the Leader of the Opposition would demand that a parliamentary committee be appointed to examine the charges I had made. As a matter of fact, I have never withdrawn any of those charges. However, the evening before the matter was due to come on for debate, I was amazed to hear that the Leader of the Opposition had caught the train for Melbourne. And the honorable member for “Warringah (Mr. Spender), who had been very . outspoken . in his condemnation of our Government, had also left for other parts. They were not in their places when the subject was debated, and when they would have had an opportunity to express their views, if they had had any to express. It is evident that the Leader of the Opposition did not really want the matter to be inquired into, just as he did not want an inquiry into the Malayan campaign, although, in a speech delivered inthe Parliament of the United Kingdom, aspersions had been cast on Australian troops in that theatre of war. I can understand the right honorable gentleman not wanting an investigation of what took place in this country when anti-Labour, governments were in power. He was frank enough to tell us yesterday that he was making a pre-election speech, but if his effort was the best of which he is capable the Labour Government has no need to worry. However, I shall not be too hard on the right honorable gentleman, because were I to criticize him too strongly the Opposition might appoint another leader, and that would not be in the interest of the Labour movement. So long as the right honorable gentleman remains Leader of the Opposition Australians can rest assured that Labour governments will be in office. The Leader of the Opposition seized upon the Indonesian trouble as a weapon with which to attack the Government. In a published statement he referred to Australian waterside workers as skunks. I am not prepared to allow any member of the Opposition to refer to honest working men, such as the members of the “Waterside Workers Federation. as skunks. Let ns see whether there is any justification for such a term being used in respect of that body of men. The Leader of the Opposition said that a number of Dutch ships .had been held up since September, 1945. The Prime Minister (Mr. Chifley) told us that the trouble arose out of the refusal of Dutch nationals to load the ships, and that Australian workers became involved in the dispute only after the Dutch authorities were unable to get their own nationals to do their bidding. No member of the Government has ever said that there was any justification for holding up “ mercy “ ships containing food and urgently needed medical supplies, but a strong body of public opinion supported the stand of the waterside workers in refusing to load into a Dutch vessel cases suspected of containing arms for use against the Indonesian nationalist movement. There is also ground for suspicion that certain of the Dutch officers were not carrying out to the letter agreements that had been entered into from time to time. The Leader of the Opposition said that the trouble was due to the activities of a few Communist agitators. Tt may be true that among the officials of the waterside workers union there are members of other political organizations, but do we not claim that Australia is a democracy? Has any one ever condemned an official of an organization because he happened to be a member of another body opposed to the Labour movement? If Labour organizations adopted a similar attitude, the Opposition would accuse thom of intolerance. We on this side say that the election of trade union officials is a matter for the members of the unions. They have the right to determine who shall be their officers. The waterside workers of Australia, who are overwhelmingly supporters of the Labour movement, are not fools and are not so easily led by an alleged small band of Communist agitators as the right honorable gentleman would have us believe. Unless the arguments placed- before them have merit these men are not so simple as to be influenced to refuse to work. The Leader of the Opposition said that the Labour Government had hindered the Dutch authorities. He referred to “ our Dutch allies “. The right honorable gentleman changes his allies as frequently as he changes his friends. I well recollect when he was condemned for assisting Japan which at that time was a potential enemy. He may refer to the leaders of the waterside workers as Communists agitators, but I do not recall any occasion on which an official of the Waterside Workers Federation was commended over the short-wave radio from Japan for assistance given to that country. The Leader of the Opposition alone has that questionable distinction. I have here a record of what was said in a Japanese shortwave broadcast after the right honorable gentleman had made a memorable speech at a summer political school -

There are clear-sighted men in the enemy camp in Australia, and in Britain and America. Such a clear-sighted man is Robert Gordon Meggies, a former Prime Minister of Australia. He showed his clear-sightedness by declaring that a prosperous Germany and Japan are necessary for the stabilization of the post-war world. Menzies and his counterparts, in England and America are by their clearsightedness marked as the future negotiators for world prosperity.

It is clear that the Japanese authorities regarded the right honorable gentleman as one who had assisted them.

Let us now examine the situation in regard to the Indonesians. It is true, as the Prime Minister pointed out, that there is a strong body of opinion in this country which ‘believes that all the merits are not on one side. I mention this because members of the Opposition have attacked a movement in Indonesia which they describe as a terrorist organization. Evidently the Dutch authorities do not share that opinion. I have here a report of a speech made by Dr. E. van Kleffens the Netherlands Minister for Foreign Affairs, in reply to the Ukranian representative at the United Nations Conference held in London recently. Dr. van Kleffens said -

Far be it from me to identify the national movement in Java with these atrocities.

The Dutch authorities do not associate the nationalist movement in Java with the atrocities which have occurred. Evidently they were due to the activities of persons outside the nationalist movement. The Leader of the Opposition referred- to some of the leaders of the movement as collaborators with the Japanese. I do not know whether or not they collaborated with the Japanese, and I am not here to defend them, but I know that there has been a good deal of confusion and doubt created in the minds of .large numbers of people who found that soon after the cessation of hostilities Japanese troops were being used in Indonesia to support the action of the Dutch and the

British authorities. Referring to this matter Dr. van Kleffens said -

Owing to fortuitous circumstances Japanese troops had to be used at one brief stage, and to a limited extent.

His remarks scarcely support the contention that members- of the nationalist movement were collaborators with- the Japanese. In case there should be any doubt as to the accuracy of the statement that the Dutch are not altogether blameless in respect of the present situation, I invite the honorable member for “Warringah, when he speaks, to repeat the references he made to the activities of the Dutch at. a meeting of the War Advisory Council held some little. time ago. In my opinion, the Prime Minister took the correct stand’ when he said that Australia should not be involved in a nation-wide upheaval and dislocation of industry because of a dispute among the nationals of another empire. The honorable member for Wentworth said that the Government ought to have ordered the waterside workers to load the Dutch ships regardless of the consequences. The Leader of the Opposition referred to a previous happening in this country when waterside workers refused to load pig-iron for Japan which was then known to be a potential enemy of this country. The right honorable gentleman has said that he is proud of the distinction which he earned in that affair as the result of which he is known from one end of the country to the other by the name of “Pig-iron Bob’”. Members of the Labour party were not the only ones to condemn his attitude on that occasion. Sir Isaac Isaacs, a former Governor-General of Australia, whom even the Leader of the Opposition would scarcely describe as a Communist or a supporter of the Labour party, referred to the action of the then Government in the following terms : -

The Port Kembla coercion was an act of the Commonwealth in its corporate capacity and was an unequivocal mixing ‘of itself up in the quarrel on the side of Japan. It ,was as I view it a direct aid to that _ country. . . I conclude my consideration of this most unpleasant incident with unbounded admiration for the struggle for humanity and for freedom of conscience.

I am very pleased to know that the right honorable member accepts the title that has been conferred upon him. He must have very vivid recollections of a reminder of that dispute which was given to him when he last addressed a ‘meeting in my electorate. I hope that he will honour me with a return visit, for on that occasion he helped to increase my majority at the subsequent elections.

The honorable member for Wentworth had nothing to say about, the methods employed by the Government with which he was associated in maintaining industrial peace. I have a clear recollection of Mr. Justice Halse Rogers being appointed as a royal commission to investigate what is usually referred to now as “ the slush “ fund “. The “ strong “ anti-Labour government which., according to the Leader of the Opposition, did not ‘believe in « policy of appeasement, had formed a secret Commonwealth fund out of which it proposed to bribe union officials m order to preserve industrial peace. It wanted to pay the officials to act as traitors to their own unions. The Leader of the Opposition was then absent on one of his frequent oversea journeys as Prime Minister of the day, but everybody recollects well that when the Leader of the Australian Country party (Mr. Fadden) and the right honorable member for North Sydney (Mr. Hughes) were called before the commission their evidence was so conflicting that even the commissioner could not accept it,- and adjourned the inquiry for a week so that they could go away, talk it over, and come back with evidence that could be accepted. That indicates the capacity of the Opposition parties for preserving industrial peace. Was there strong action by the present Leader of the Opposition when, as Prime Minister of the day, he went to the coalfields during the big strike to appeal to the miners to go back to work? This big, strong man who was going to tell the miners exactly where they “ got off “ almost went down on his knees to them. Not long ago, when Australia was in a desperate situation during the. war, the Opposition submitted another motion of want of confidence in the Labour Government on the ground of its alleged failure to handle industrial troubles satisfactorily. That nit-wit who represents the electorate of. Wentworth could think of no other solution to our problems than to have a general strike in industry. He said, “ What does it matter if we have a general strike? Let everything stop for four or five weeks and bring the matter to a head “. At that time such a stoppage could have caused the defeat of the United Nations in the’ Pacific theatre of war. However, the Government adopted the proper stand and refused to be stampeded by the antiLabour press, which was crying for strong action “. To-day the antiLabour forces refer to 1942 as the year of record coal production. In no other year in the history of the Australian coal industry have we had greater production. If we could return to the 1942 scale of coal production to-day, everybody would be happy because we should have ample supplies to meet our requirements. The Government’s enemies have never been satisfied; they have always sought to foment industrial trouble. History tells the truth about industrial disturbances. There have been innumerably more strikes and of longer duration in periods when antiLabour governments have been in control ti) an when the Labour party has held the reins of office. It may be asked, “ Why are there any strikes at all when a Labour government is in power”? The answer is that strikes frequently occur simply because a- Labour government has to contend with a section of unscrupulous and vindictive employers who seek’ to embarrass it by deliberately fomenting industrial unrest. They want Labour governments to be destroyed before they can give effect to their legislative programmes.

The honorable member for Wentworth made another threat against the Government. He said that, unless the Government did more to assist the rehabilitation of ex-servicemen than.it had already done, those men would take matters into their own hands. He is an inciter of industrial unrest and political turmoil who does not care to what lengths he goes in order that his party may have supremacy in the political field. I well recollect the time when he was a member of the New Guard. He has since denied membership of that organization, but for years he was publicly accused of it in this Parliament and elsewhere and did not deny it until dictators fell into disrepute and it became unwise to be associated with such political movements. This gentleman and his fellow members of the New Guard accumulated stores of weapons because they were afraid that the people would not by their votes change the government, and therefore they planned to overthrow the elected representatives of the people by force of arms. Now the honorable gentleman Wants once again to play upon the feelings of the returned soldiers and inflame them against this Government. Returned soldiers have long memories, and they recall that in Melbourne returned soldiers on food relief built the Shrine of Remembrance when anti-Labour governments were in power. They also remember that thousands of ex-servicemen of the 1914-1? war had to tramp the country roads, “ humping the bluey “ in search of work under any conditions and at any rates of pay. They also know that the Labour party intends to apply a policy of full employment so that there will be a chance for everybody and so that they, as exmembers of the fighting services, will be decently and fairly treated. Because the Labour party’s policy has not been implemented overnight with a wave of a wand, the Opposition parties pick out individual cases and say, “Here is a complaint’ that I have received from a constituent”. The honorable member for “Wentworth himself writes half of the letters of complaint that he produces in an attempt to prove that there is a wave of dissatisfaction against this Government. Although I am not a returned soldier I am closely associated with what is probably the biggest sub-branch of the Returned Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen’s Imperial League of Australia. The members of that sub-branch are fully aware of what the Government aims to do to rehabilitate them. Honorable members opposite are’ afraid that our plans for rehabilitation include certain courses of action which they regard as socialistic. The Government set out to improve railways communications. Members of the Opposition criticized this scheme on the grounds that the country could not afford to spare the necessary man-power and resources. Now they have the audacity to rise in this House and say to the Go vernment, What are you doing to provide employment for - the workers?” The workers will not be gulled so easily in this matter.

I turn now to the subject of food production. Let me examine the charges made by honorable members opposite on that subject. I am glad to note that the honorable member for Richmond (Mr. Anthony) is present in the chamber, because when the Prime Minister referred to the fact that ample man-power was available to rural industries, that honorable gentleman interjected, “ We might have the man-power now, but it is too late; the cattle are gone”. I have received advice that some time ago ‘the honorable member bought a farming property complete with dairy herd at Bangalow, and that he sold the dairy cattle and established a banana plantation on the property at a time when we urgently needed to increase the production of butter for home consumption and export.

Mr Anthony:

– That is a complete lie.

Mr WARD:

– When these gentlemen stand up in this Parliament and urge, increased production, they ‘ are not sincere. And if the honorable member for Richmond does not keep quiet, I shall tell him one or two other things. For instance, he might be able to explain why he had a new refrigerator installed in his luxurious flat at Kirra Beach when other people with large families could not buy refrigerators. When this Government assumed office in 1941, rural industry had already been largely drained of man-power. Our predecessors did nothing to conserve manpower in primary industry. It was in May, 1942, that the Labour Government put the “ stopper “ on the drainage of further man-power from rural industry. Does any one imagine that the wheat-growers are not aware of what this Government has done in the interests of their industry? Previous governments were not prepared to stabilize the wheat industry, or to guarantee markets or. prices to growers. It is on record that the members of the Australian- Country party to a man voted in this Parliament to shelve a proposal to guarantee a price - of 3s. 6d. a bushel in respect of wheat acquired by the No. 2. pool. Here is what the Wheatgrower of Western Australia, which is not a Communist or Labour newspaper, said on the 27th November, 1941, about members of the Australian Country party -

What traitors those Federal Country party representatives have proved themselves to be to the people they claim to represent.

It is clear that the wheat-growers are fully aware that only a Labour government has taken constructive steps to increase production in this country and to organize the industry. Honorable members opposite criticize the Government because there is a lack of shipping to transport food to Great Britain. Surely they are not unmindful of the fact that an anti-Labour government of which the right honorable member for Cowper (Sir Earle Page) was a leading member sacrificed the Australian Commonwealth Line of Steamers. But for that action we would have in Australia to-day an Australian mercantile marine upon which we could depend in the present circumstances. I think that it was in 1922 that a previous Prime Minister, Mr. Bruce, referred to the right honorable member for Cowper as “ this paralysed mentality “. That was nearly a quarter of a. century ago. If the right honorable member had a paralysed mentality so long ago, honorable members can well imagine his condition to-day. These are the men who offer themselves as leaders in place of the present Government.

I turn now to the subject of housing. The honorable member for Parramatta (Sir Frederick Stewart), when he wasa member of the Menzies Government, was an advocate of great housing programmes. 1 do not want to express the opinion of a labour man about that honorable gentleman; but Mr. Archdale Parkhill, a former Minister in an anti-Labour government, was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald of the 12th August, 1939, as saying- -

I am extremely anxious to expose the posing that Sir Frederick Stewart has indulged in for so long. No man in politics has talked more and done less.

That is an apt description of the honorable member for Parramatta by an erstwhile colleague.. As a supporter of previous governments he certainly talked. He said that he would not remain a member of the Government unless it constructed houses. He said that the Government must sweep all constitutional difficulties aside. We have heard something from honorable members opposite about the existence of slums in our capital cities. But are those slums the creation of the war years? For year after year the workers in industrial centres have been compelled to live in hovels. The dimensions of some of their homes were such that the milkman found it easier to pass the milk over the balcony rather than stoop to place it on the front doorstep. Such were the housing conditions which previous governments thought adequate for the workers.

The right honorable member for Kooyong (Mr. Menzies), before he became Leader of the Opposition, formed a national service group of sixteen members. What did the right honorable member for North Sydney (Mr. Hughes) say about him at that time? I mention these things, because the Leader of the Opposition sets himself up as the alternative to the present Prime Minister. On that occasion the right honorable member for North Sydney referred to the right honorable member for Kooyong in these terms -

He passionately urges the need for unity, but is himself the great self-seeker, the man behind the scenes in every intrigue, the fountainhead of every whispering campaign, the destroyer of unity.

This is the man who wants to lead the Government of this country. The right honorable member for Cowper once referred to the right honorable member for Kooyong in the following terms : -

The national leader must have courage, loyalty and judgment. Mr. Menzies does not possess these qualities.

I am reminded of a meeting which the Leader of the Opposition addressed recently. It was a meeting of the Australian Womens National League, a very militant body. A friend of mine attended the meeting, because I was anxious to learn the plans of the Opposition. The right honorable gentleman was introduced to the meeting as “ TheRight Honorable Robert Gordon Menzies, K.C.” In the audience an old, deaf lady turned to her daughter and asked, “ What does K.C. stand for ? “, and her daughter informed her that Mr. Menzies was a King’s Counsel. Thereupon, the old lady replied, “ Oh ! Now I know why they sing “ God Save the King”. The Leader of the Australian Country party, the right honorable member for Darling Downs, in the 1943 election campaign, referred to the present Leader of the Opposition, when the latter criticized certain of his financial proposals, in the following terms : -

This stab in the back at this juncture makes another betrayal in the series for which Mr. Menzies has become notorious.

These are the members of the united Opposition, the parties which have joined in launching this attack upon the Government. The Government’s record will bear the closest examination and comparison with the records of previous governments in this country. It is true that during the war years we have not had full opportunity to apply our policy as we should like, but the people of Australia have complete confidence in this Government and will retain it. They are not prepared to accept the puerile charges which have been made against the Government. The Leader of the Opposition himself had no enthusiasm in launching the motion, because immediately after making his speech he departed from the chamber, and at various stages of the debate not more than three or four honorable members opposite remained in the chamber. The Leader of the Opposition did not even stay to listen to the New England “ bull “ making his attack upon the Government, showing that he lacks in,terest entirely in this matter. He has probably been pushed into moving this motion. Probably, he was told that he must do something because this Government is in too strong a position in the estimation of the public, and the general elections are approaching.

Before concluding, I should like to refer to the attitude of the press towards the present Government. The press is joining in this campaign of abuse and vituperation. We have only to read the reports of the speeches already made in this’ debate to see how the press is giving prominence to what it regards as the strong points made by the Opposition, whilst, at the same time, ignoring the effective replies made by supporters of the Government. To show what the press is capable of I produce to-day’s Sydney Daily Telegraphy an old friend of my colleague, the Minister for Information and Minister for Immigration (Mr. Calwell). It is the policy of the Daily Telegraph, to “ knock “ the plans of the Government. Last night the national broadcasting stations were to have broadcast a discussion in “The Forum of the Air “ session on the standardization of railway gauges. On one side the speakers were Dr. Louat and Mr. P. E. T. Wills, the Queensland Commissioner for Railways. On. the other side the speakers were Mr. Shea, of the Commonwealth Department of Transport, and another gentleman. The Australian Broadcasting Commission had to make time available for the broadcasting of a speech by Mr. Churchill. So the “Forum of the Air “ had to be put off. There was no broadcast of the “ Forum of the Air “. But that did not prevent the Daily Telegraph from publishing a report, under the heading “ Rail Gauge Unification Senseless “, of what had been said by Dr. Louat and Mr. Wills in a broadcast that did not take place. So we see what reliance can be placed on the newspapers just as we can see what reliance can be placed on the utterances of honorable members of the Opposition.- I do not think need exists for me to say more now. .The Opposition is such a rabble that even the honorable member for Parramatta is deserting it. He is not prepared to face the barrier at the next general elections. The right honorable member for North Sydney was able to win selection as a candidate for that seat because he said, “What this Liberal party wants is new blood “.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Riordan:
KENNEDY, QUEENSLAND

– Order ! The Minister has exhausted his time.

Mr HOLT:
Fawkner

.- Listening to the Minister for Transport and Minister for External Territories (Mr. Ward) making the speech that he customarily makes to the electors of East

Sydney, I” felt that there was some hope for humanity after all, because there was a time when he used to nauseate us, whereas to-day he merely entertained us,’ like a sort of local “ Lord .Haw Haw “. I should be wasting valuable time if I attempted to reply “to the series of personalities that he indulged in. . I have never yet heard him make in this House a constructive speech directed to his own constituents that would carry some implication or possibility of his personal unpopularity, but would give a useful lead to them in the interests of Australia. One of his closest associates, Mr. Ernest Thornton, described him as a “cheer-chaser”, and any one who has listened to him over the last few years, as our parliamentary duties have compelled us to do, will, I believe, subscribe to that judgment. I do not intend to waste further time on him.

It is interesting to note that the Ministry, which started off by saying that the censure motion lacked strength and effectiveness, has put up senior Minister after senior Minister” to meet our challenge to it. I wonder what the rank and file of the Parliamentary Labour party think of this Government. I wonder what they thought when they heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Chifley) fail in his speech to make a vigorous forthright statement on where the Government stood in relation to the Indonesian problem. Did they take seriously the right honorable gentleman’s elegant reference to “ stinking fish “ in answering our accusation that the pro=ductive capacity of this country is steadily declining instead of. rising as it should with the war over and as we were led to believe it would? Did they, as they listened to the Minister for the Army (Mr. Forde), get the impression that the rehabilitation of ex-service men and women and the conduct of army affairs are proceeding as satisfactorily as they should under a well-conducted government? Did they approve of the “ Manilla girl “ situation created by the autocratic, dictatorial, overbearing boorishness of the. Minister for Immigration (Mr. Calwell) ? As they listened to the Minister for Postwar Reconstruction (Mr. Dedman), did they gather the impression that the production problems of this country are being tackled in the way most likely to promote efficiency and expansion.? All those questions are relevant to the inquiry whether the Government is deserving of the censure of this House. As they listened to the rather carefully prepared statement of the Minister for Commerce and Agriculture (Mr. Scully), did they sense that we are doing all that gratitude and our own conscience demand that we should do to provide food for the people of Great Britain? On every one of those counts this Government is deserving of the censure of this House. The most impressive speech made on the Government side since I have been listening to this debate, and. the only speech that represented anything like a proper approach in terms of logic and good sense to the problems raised in the debate, was that of the Minister for Post-war Reconstruction (Mr. Dedman). He, at least, did attempt a relevant answer to our charges. Therefore, I propose to devote the time I have left to an examination of what he said. I do so because he is one of the senior Ministers; certainly he is playing an important, role on the planning side of what the Government is doing. So, if he expresses a view on economic matters, I think we can take it as the view of the Government. His answer to our charge that production is declining instead of increasing was interesting.

Mr Calwell:

– It was effective.

Mr HOLT:

– It was graphic. He lives on graphs. He produces them frequently, with lines rising and falling, End convinces himself that the best is happening if the graph is in the direction he wishes. He produced a- graph on the production problem. He obtained official statistics from the best quarters and discovered that, in terms of money values, production in this’ country last financial year was greater than in 1938-39, the last financial year before the outbreak of war. Therefore, he claimed that the Government had made an effective productive effort.

Mr Dedman:

– It shows an increase of 100 per cent.

Mr HOLT:

– Yes, an increase of practically 100 per cent over 1938-39. Of course, he would have us believe that Australia, in fact, produced almost double the quantity and variety of goods, and doubled the usefulness of servicescompared with the pre-war year. That is typical of the fallacious, muddled, stupid thinking that goes on in the Department of Post-war Reconstruction. Does any sensible man, with the evidence of his own daily experiences, imagine that production is even “ within cooee “ of what it was in 193S-30? Of course not! He has only to consider his own elementary problems concerning food, clothing and shelter to know that what the Minister for Post-war Reconstruction said is fallacious. Has there ever been a period, even during the war, when food has been scarcer or dearer? Never in the history of this country, except in the pioneering days, have the ordinary clothing requirements of men and women, such basic needs as boots, shirts and suits, been in such short supply. Never before has there been a time when it has been more difficult for people with the means to pay to get shelter for themselves and their families. Those are the tests which should be applied to the productive capacity of a nation in time of peace.

If we were to take the line of reasoning adopted by the Minister for Post-war Reconstruction, we could imagine some optimistic chancellor in Germany just after (he war of 1914-18 replying to people who protested to him because there was a scarcity of goods and prices were soaring, “ My dear friends, be calm, for all is well. We are producing in .terms of money values ten times what we were producing before the war “. If we ignore what money can buy, the purchasing power of the £1, the true index to the production of a nation, and think merely in terms of money irrespective of its purchasing power, then we shall get an utterly false picture. And that is the false picture which the Minister presented tq ihe House. I would be less concerned if I thought that the honorable” gentleman was wilfully and deliberately presenting a false picture to the House, but I seriously believe that he and those who work with him in the Department of Post War Reconstruction have convinced themselves by examining these figures that all is well and that production is increasing in this country. I assure him that that is not so.

We have an extraordinary paradox in Australia to-day. More men and women are available for peace-time production than at any period during the last five years. They are returning to industry. Yet we know that the output per person employed is steadily declining, and absenteeism, instead of diminishing, is growing worse. We know that efficiency per unit, by contrast with pre-war experience, is very much inferior to-day.

Mr CALWELL:
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA · ALP

– What evidence has the honorable member to prove that state ment?

Mr HOLT:

– I could mention some honorable members opposite to prove my statement if I desired to do so. One member of the Labour party informed the union to which he belongs that a worker’s output to-day is only one-third of the production that he gave before the outbreak of war in 1939. Various trade union leaders have told me unofficially that that story is correct. I do not say that the Minister is seriously under a misapprehension regarding this matter. I am sure that he knows the facts, and that the situation is worrying the Government. But when we state facts of this kind, we are accused of attacking and demeaning, the Australian worker. Yesterday, the Prime Minister levelled that accusation_ against us. We were also accused of crying “stinking fish”, to repeat the elegant phrase which came from the first Minister of this Commonwealth when speaking in this chamber. But that is far from being the case. We are not atacking the Australian worker. We know his quality, capacity and initiative under normal conditions. If we bay that the output per worker - I include the professional man - is much less than what he is capable of giving, that is an attack, not upon our fellow Australians, but upon the Government of the day. The effort is there to be obtained if the Government has the capacity, ability and spirit to evoke that effort from the .Australian* people.

All this proceeds from- a policy which the Government has deliberately pursued, of maintaining a controlled economy. I believe that in maintaining a controlled economy in time of peace, tha Government is creating a vicious circle of rising prices, high costs and declining production ; and so long as the Government pursues that policy in peace-time, it will reap the inevitable harvest. I shall give a homely illustration. We all know what has happened during the war regarding fruit and vegetables. They are not difficult commodities to produce. Before the war, the market often was glutted. Producers had difficulty in selling their produce. During the wai’, the Government set up elaborate machinery to deal with such commodities as fruit and vegetables. Boards were created to deal with the marketing of this produce; officers who were appointed to the Prices Branch endeavoured to fix what they regarded as reasonable prices for fruit and vegetables ; and a host of inspectors was engaged to see that people did not violate the prices regulations. But despite all this complex machinery, the fruit and vegetables available to the people had never been in shorter supply than _ they were during the last year of the war and the first year of peace. And they have never been dearer than they are at present. That is a direct consequence’ of this attempt to apply a controlled economy to the Australian situation. We get high prices; and high prices themselves are a reflex of decreased production. Decreased production occurs, not merely because of a lack of man-power, but also because of a lack of incentive to workers to give the maximum performance of which they are capable. The Government has put. itself in that .position. It becomes a vicious circle for the reason that high taxation is an inevitable accompaniment of a. large and expanding bureaucracy. If we have a host of officials and large establishments, we must have high taxation in order to enable them to function. If we have high taxation so as to provide for those things, we place a damper on the incentive which would otherwise operate in the community. Instead of expenditure declining as the result of the conclusion of the war, we find, in point of fact, that for the first seven months of this financial year expenditure is £9,000,000 more than it was during the corresponding period of last year. Let me give one or two other illustrations. The War Expenditure Committee recently investigated the problem of accommodation in Melbourne. We knew that governments during the war years had expanded their holdings of office space in the capital cities, particularly in Melbourne, but all of us were astonished to find that in the heart of Melbourne - I am referring now not to stores or garages in suburban areas, but to the city proper - the Commonwealth Government holds office space totalling almost 1,000,000 square feet, for which it pays rent exceeding £250,000 a year. That happened during the war, and naturally we assumed that when peacetime conditions returned, governmental activities would be rapidly curtailed, departments would return to something like their normal activities, and much of the office space held by the Commonwealth would be released. But we found that of the 991,000 square feet of office space which had been occupied, only 12,800 square feet had been returned to the owners since ‘the end of the war. An additional 14,000 square feet, which had been vacated, principally by the Munitions Department, had been promptly transferred to “other departments. The Property Officer of the Commonwealth informed us that instead of our accommodation problems being eased, payments of rent being reduced and departments being retrenched, he had commitments now to find an additional 80,000 square feet of space in the heart of Melbourne.

Mr Fadden:

– For what purpose?

Mr HOLT:

– For Commonwealth departments.

Mr Menzies:

– The Government is going to co-ordinate the co-ordinators.

Mr HOLT:

– We were told that the Department of War Organization of Industry had disappeared, but lo, phoenix1ike out of the ashes of the dead past rises the Department of Post-war Reconstruction i. It has proved a very fertile bird. lt requires greater accommodation to house its young.

We are discovering that Commonwealth expenditures, which we assumed were war-time expenditures, have an extraordinary pertinacity. They are persisting into the years of peace. All of us can remember the time when, for some, special reasons attaching to their occupation, seamen on merchant vessels were paid a special war bonus when they went into hazardous areas. The scale of those payments was carefully calculated so as to tate into account the degree of risk which the seamen would undergo. Some members of this chamber may not be aware that Australian merchant seamen, who unquestionably did an excellent job during the war years, are still enjoying the payment of war risk bonuses. One can. imagine that the Government might have said to them, “ Boys, a fair thing is a fair thing. You may want an increase of rates, but let us prune the allowance down a bit and have it uniform However, despite the fact that the armistice was. signed six months ago, and to the best of my knowledge there has not been any action on the part of Japan or any other enemy in the vicinity of this country which would suggest any undue hazard in travelling through these waters, we find that the current order of the Maritime Industry Commission provides -

Twenty-five per cent, bonus on interstate and intranstate ships trading south of Townsville and Port Hedland (15 per cent, for interSt. Vincent Gulfs) ; 33i per cent. -for interstate and intra-state ships north of these points; and 50 per cent, for overseas ships going north of Townsville and Port Hedland from last Australian port on the outward voyage to first Australian port on the homeward voyage. “War conditions die hard, and this Government, by allowing conditions of that kind to persist, is enmeshing itself in its own toils. It finds itself now following a vicious circle. High costs are persisting, and so long as high costs persist heavy taxation will remain; and so long as we have the deadening effect of high taxation upon the Australian economy, we shall have a nation “ going slow “ instead of a nation reaping the reward of its victory.

The second point I wish to make relates te the observance of the law, because that matter is wrapped up with the general problem of production. In the past few years the people of Australia have learned that a community can be inflamed, inspired, or spurred into breaches of industrial law: Far from the facts being as the Minister for Transport would have us believe, namely, that industrial disputes were very much greater during the regime of governments with which I was associated, they have steadily increased since that time. If statistics were available, I am sure they would indicate that in the past year the proportion of man-days lost has been the heaviest on record. AH this has had a most unsatisfactory effect upon the Australian community at large. When normal, lawabiding citizens see that a large section of the community is able to disobey the law with impunity, and be treated with deference by various Ministers who from time to time have darted hither and thither by aeroplane or Chrysler, as the circumstances have demanded, there is likely to develop in the community a most unhealthy spirit for Australia. During the past few years, there has been in this country an intensification of black marketing activities, a development which we on this side of the chamber predicted during the referendum discussions. We told the Government that if it attempted to maintain in time of peace a controlled economy with restrictions upon industry and upon individuals, whatever evils were experienced during the war as the result would be intensified tenfold. In wartime, in order not to harm the war effort, people will do things which appear to them to be against their personal interest and advantage; but if the inspiration of patriotism be removed, people, especially those who consider that they are merely doing something that is “’ ag’in the Government “, will not show the same spirit of law- observance as they showed in time of war. They are incited to that attitude when they find that other sections of the community are breaking the law, unchecked by the Government. We have found, therefore, a somewhat casual attitude developing in this country towards the observance of the law.

It may be argued, perhaps, that my criticism so far has been rather, on the destructive plane: but the solution, I believe, is clear. The Government must make up its mind now and forever that as a matter of practical government mechanics it cannot maintain in time of peace stringent economic controls over free-thinking and free-living people. The system will break down eventually. The only countries in which it has not broken down are those in which freedom has been suppressed, and governments have become the supreme authority. If a government wants to get from its people the maximum effort of which they are capable, it must guarantee an expanded freedom. We are informed that restrictions are being removed daily. Tinfortunately, the restriction habit appears to be infectious or contagious. Many restrictions that the Commonwealth Government claims to have abandoned have been re-imposed by State governments, and, in consequence, industry as a whole is finding very little relief. I may be told by ‘ the Minister that to remove re- strictions would be to invite chaos in this country. I do not believe that it is humanly possible to pass through a period of transition from war to peace without some considerable degree of confusion and dislocation. The Minister believes that the transition can best b<i effected by maintaining controls; I believe that it could be effected better by evoking the enterprise and initiative of the Australian people and by giving to, them the freest possible play to tackle the problems that confront them. A certain degree of confusion is unavoidable, but by adopting the course I have suggested a maximum effort could be made, and. that is not possible to-day. I say in conclusion, therefore^ that because the Government is pursuing its present policy, it is squandering the peace and denying to the Australian people the just reward of the victory they have won. It does not govern; it will not govern; it cannot govern. It drifts where it is blown; it will wreck itself or it will surely wreck Austraia, regimented numbers in this House may save it from a motion of want of confidence, but they cannot save it from certain condemnation by the Australian people.

Mr JAMES:
Hunter

.- I shall not speak at length on this motion, because effective replies to the Opposition’s charges have already been given by speakers on this side of the House. When we review the working of our democratic system, we cease to wonder that people sometimes are disgusted, with us. Yesterday, we came into this chamber, said the Lord’s Prayer, and sympathized with the relatives of former members of this

Parliament who had died. Then followed a debate on a censure motion, in the course of which accusations of all kinds were made, and this chamber resembled a bear-garden. The debate was adjourned to permit us to attend a party at which we were one big happy family - all good fellows. I often, wonder what are the reactions of people who . sit in the galleries of this House, or read. of these happenings in the press.

The main charge that lias been made by the Opposition is that the Government is under, the domination of Communistcontrolled unions. I deny that absolutely. The Government has done a great job. Had those who are now in opposition composed the Government, I am perfectly certain that they would have antagonized the unions, as they did in the early part of the war, to such a degree thai there were general strikes. This Government did not have a general cessation of production during the war, but was able to keep the workers engaged constantly in production. The - honorable member for Fawkner (Mr. Holt), unlike other speakers on his side who preceded him, did not accuse the Government of being Communist-controlled, but on the contrary praised a nian whom I claim to be the leader of the Communist party in Australia - Mr. Thornton - who directed a cheap sneer at the Minister for Transport (Mr. Ward) by describing him as “ Cheer-chasing Eddie “. Honorable members opposite cannot have it both ways. The Communist is either bad or good. Does the honorable member for Fawkner regard him as good because he makes a cheap sneer at the Minister for Transport, or does he endorse the view of his leader and deputy leader, who have said that all Communists are bad? An ex-Prime Minister said in 1931, in this Parliament, that he was proud that the New Guard had assisted him on one occasion when he was addressing a meeting in Sydney. Those who now sit in opposition hand-fed that organization, and supported it, even when some of its members entered a home and- assaulted the owner. When the culprits were taken before the police court, the organization boasted that the prisoners would be taken out of the. hands of the police, causing the then Metropolitan Superintendent, who is now Commissioner, Mr. Mackay, to issue the instruction that violent measures should he taken against the offenders outside the court if they attempted to release the accused from custody. The honorable member for Warringah (Mr. Spender) has never refused to accept a fee to defend one of those individuals. Even the leader of the organization, Mr. Erie Campbell, has sat “ cheek by jowl “ with Hitler. What other man has had freedom equal to that which has been accorded to that man? He has been able to strut about this country, and has claimed that he has kept the organization intact in order that it may again raise its head should any attempt be made by a Labour government to enforce the socialization of industry. There has been a lot of praise for De Groot, who, when a constitutional government had made arrangements for the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, took control out of the hands of those who had organized the ceremony and himself cut the ribbon with a sword. Honorable members opposite were then in power and gloated over the State Government being made to look ridiculous by the.:e acts of violence.

– The honorable member is thinking of the Lang party in this Parliament.

Mr JAMES:

– No matter what may have been the troubles of the Labour party in the past, it has achieved a record for unity since it has been in office. This is in marked contrast with the record of the parties opposite. We have changed only two Cabinet positions in ‘ four years. Some time ago, the Leader of the Australian Country party politically assassinated the present Leader of the Opposition, who, in turn, has assassinated the right honorable member for Cowper. As for the honorable member for Warringah, he has been in and out of the party several times. It is evident that the parties opposite will never agree. Their trouble is that there are too many kings and too few king’doms. They all want to be boss. At the beginning of the war the Opposition, then the Government, could have carried on, but its members could not agree among themselves.

Honorable members opposite have spoken of the housing problem and of the nationalization of industry. The honorable member for Wentworth, who raised the second issue, is capable of saying anything for the purpose of misleading, but he knows perfectly well that no Commonwealth Government has power under the Constitution to nationalize industry. It even lacks power to enter the housing field in competition with private enterprise or the States, and it can help only by co-operating with them. If it were not for party bitterness it would be possible to induce the people to grant to the Commonwealth Parliament increased powers under the Constitution. The Opposition parties, when in power in 1925, put forward certain proposals for increased Commonwealth powers, and we opposed them. A few years ago, we put forward similar proposals, and the Opposition opposed them; Nevertheless, we all . know perfectly well that we cannot function effectively as’ a national parliament unless greater powers are conferred. It is a pity that we cannot go as> a united body to the people and ask for the powers which we all admit are necessary.

We know that an election is approaching, and this accounts for much of the electioneering propaganda to which we have listened in this debate. Members of the Opposition have to convey the impression that we in this Parliament are all fighting like Kilkenny cats. Regarding food for Britain, I repeat that the position is not so bad as the Leader of the Opposition makes out. It is bad enough, admittedly, but we should face the situation squarely. Australia has the produce, but there are not enough ships. As soon as we can get the ships we shall do everything, possible to supply food to Great Britain which has done so much for us.

Mr ANTHONY:
Richmond

.- Listening to the two previous speakers from the Government side of the House, one realizes that they find it necessary to -distort the facts in order to vindicate the Government’s administration. The Minister for Transport (Mr. Ward), who now has no transport to administer, and must therefore be merely a cipher in the Cabinet, made an abusive speech which was loudly cheered from the Government back benches, because it contained charges and innuendoes directed against honorable members on this side df the House. I do not propose to take his charges seriously, except the particular charge which he made against me when he said that I had sold cows off a farm which I had bought. His charge amounts to a distortion of the facts. From that farm [ am now producing more butter than was produced the previous summer. The farm then was overstocked and, by reducing the size of the herd, it has been possible to feed the cows properly and to increase The yield. Moreover, even if I do grow bananas on a part of the land, it should be remembered that bananas constitute a most valuable food. Indeed, a banana plantation produces more food per acre than it is possible to produce with, any other crop.

The honorable member for Hunter (Mr. James), in order to bolster up his case for the Government, and in an attempt to discredit the Opposition, stated that the Opposition, when in power some years ago, had sold iron ore from Yampi Sound to the Japanese. Evidently his memory is so short that he has forgotten that it was a Labour government in Western Australia which signed the contract, whilst it was the Lyons Government which cancelled it. That is a fact which ought to be placed on record.

I am now going to say something which cannot be refuted. I make a charge which the Government must answer immediately, in regard to the Government’s condoning the despatch of the “ hell ship-“ which recently left from Sydney Harbour. The statement made by the Minister for the Army (Mr. Forde) last night was a disgrace to this Parliament. He told us that this ship was sent out on the instructions of some high American authority, and that the Australian authorities had complied with the conditions decided on by that authority. That defence is the same as was put up ,by Kramer when charged with having committed atrocities at Belsen. Japanese war criminals, too, have claimed to have acted on instructions from “ some one higher up.”. According to a statement issued by the Chinese Minister to Australia .the Formosans who have been placed on this ship ..were never pro-Japanese, although some of them had been forced to fight for the Japanese. The Minister for the Army told us that they are going back happily. An official statement made in Sydnev by the Army Relations officer was as follows : -

The internees were addressed by the Chinese Consul-General, who explained that they would disembark at Formosa, and on this assumption they were quite happy to continue the voyage.

– In the name of common humanity I call upon the Government to divert the ship to the nearest port, and not to allow Australia to be coupled with those nations which we have reviled for the inhuman treatment of persons in their power. I urge the Government to act immediately, because I fear that if something be not done soon many deaths will occur on board. Should that happen, I would not like to be in the position of the persons responsible for letting the ship leave Sydney.

For several years I have pointed out to the Government the position towards which the country was heading in respect of food supplies, and therefore I stood aghast when I heard the concluding remarks of the Minister for Commerce and Agriculture (Mr. Scully). He told us that the food situation left nothing to be desired. That is the Minister’s view despite the continuance of rationing of many foodstuffs, a declining production of foodstuffs in Australia, and the fact that millions of people in the world are starving. I am not being wise after the event, because on four or five occasions during the last five years I have moved the adjournment of the House in order to direct attention to what was necessary if our primary industries were to hold their own, and if at the conclusion of the war we were to be in a position to meet our obligations to the Mother Country, starving Europe and ourselves. The Minister cited a lot of figures. In September, 1942,I pointed out all the factors that he has mentioned with respect to man-power, profitable prices for dairy products - without which the farmers cannot continue - and other matters which had to be attended to if production were to be increased. Finally I nailed the then Minister for Supply and Shipping (Mr. Beasley) down to the fact that we had failed in our obligations to Great Britain. When I did so, the Minister asked -

Does the honorable member know that there is a war on?

I answered -

Yes, and the people of Great Britain know it. too. They are blockaded, and they have been rationed to10d. worth of beef a week, which is just about one chop. What is the Commonwealth Government doing about it?

Mr. Beasley said ;

We are looking after the people of Australia.

Mr Falstein:

– Is that all he said?

Mr ANTHONY:

– That is all he said then. I shall complete the quotation for the satisfaction of the honorable member. I continued -

I am glad to have that admission from the Minister. That is the very answer I have been waiting for.

There is no doubt that Mr. Beasley hasbeen looking after, not only the people of Australia as a whole, but also Mr. Beasley in particular. He has done so very handsomely, and there are a few questions on that point which I shall ask the Government. The country is entitled to have an answer to them. The following statement appeared in the Brisbane. Courier-Mail on the 24th January: -

Australia’s first resident Minister in London. (Mr. J. A. Beasley), wearing an “Anthony Eden “ hat and twirling a silver-crested umbrella–

Gone are the days of the “ bowyangs “ - waved a cheerful greeting to a tender packed with the Australian reception party as the ship, Australia Star, pulled into Tilbury Docks to-day.

Mr Bryson:

– Is that a truthful report?

Mr ANTHONY:

– That is exactly what I want to find out.

While wharfies unloaded mountains of luggage prominently marked “Rt. Hon. J. A. Beasley “, including special cases containing a shiny silk topper and a cutaway morning suit, Mr. Beasley, Mrs. Beasley, and their four children posed on the decks for photographs.

Mr. Beasley was looking remarkably fit;

I should say that he would be - “ It was warm in the tropics,” said Mr. Beasley, shivering in the rawness of the Thames fog.

However, the Beasleys are unlikely to suffer from the prevailing food and fuel stringencies in Britain.

They have brought -

Several cases of powdered milk, 109 cases (3 tons) of tinned fruit,

Seven bags of sugar each containing 70 lb. of sugar,

– I ask for an unqualified withdrawal.

Mr ANTHONY:

– I withdraw anything that the honorable member regards as objectionable to him. If the Government does not soon do something about this buffalo-fly problem, the reduction of dairy exports will be much greater than would be the case if drought reduced production.

Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER:

– Order! The honorable member’s time lias expired.

Sitting suspended from 5.47 to 8 p.m.

Mr MAKIN:
Minister for the Navy, Minister for Munitions and Minister for Aircraft Production · Hindmarsh · ALP

– I had not intended to take part in this debate but I must reply to two statements which the honorable member for Richmond (Mr. Anthony) made this afternoon, because his allegations should be refuted immediately with all possible emphasis. In the course of his speech, the honorable member referred to the J apanese destroyer Yoizuki which arrived at Sydney to transport to Formosa and “Korea certain prisoners of war and internees who had been held in this country. The honorable member sought to place upon the Commonwealth Government the responsibility for the conditions which prevailed upon the ship. Although he declared that the matter should be discussed on a non-political basis, it seems remarkable that he should raise the subject on a motion of want of confidence in the Government. His action in doing so proved that he had no desire to treat the subject as a non-party and non-political matter. Obviously, he desired to exploit it for political purposes.

I cannot regard his explanation that his sole desire was to serve the best interests of these people as being evidence of his altruism. His purpose in referring to the subject was to arouse in the public mind resentment against this Government, because of the existence of these conditions which, he considered, called for public condemnation. In my opinion, the honorable member does this country an enormous disservice by alleging that the Commonwealth Government or any other Australian institution had any part in determining the nature of the transport that should be provided for those Formosans and Koreans. It is unfortunate that Australia should secure a bad advertisement from one of its own public men. He has sought to besmirch the reputation of this fair land in order to serve some mean and miserable political end. I wish that the honorable member was in his place now so that he could hear the things which I must say about him, and others like him, who seek to use this debate for the purpose of furthering their own political fortunes.

The Australian press also is trying to create a feeling of alarm in the minds of the people regarding the transport of the Formosans and Koreans aboard the destroyer; but again, it is remarkable that as late as yesterday or Tuesday one of the newspapers, which to-day is making the loudest noise, published photographs of the vessel and of the accommodation which had been provided, and the worst that it said about the conditions was that “ there was an uncomfortable journey ahead “. Those who have protested most loudly in this matter waited until the Yoizuke left port before they attempted to rouse public opinion about the conditions aboard the vessel. The Australian community has a wonderfully humane spirit. It is a feature of the Australian character to feel concern at the transport of human beings under any conditions which are less favorable than those which we would desire for ourselves. But I direct attention to the fact that the standards of some other nations in the world do not approach the standards which we. regard as being proper for human beings. And well may Australians take note of the possible fate from which they have been saved by the defeat of Japan. The standards which, in Australia, we enjoy are infinitely superior to the standard.’ which many other nations enjoy, particularly some who are not very far distant geographically from our shores. Australians may certainly feel gravely concerned at conditions which, they believe, will impose hardship upon the passengers aboard the destroyer, but their anxiety i& no deeper than that of the Government. I desire it to be understood that Australia is not responsible for the existence of the conditions upon Yoizuki or any other ship under the control of those in charge of arangements for the transportation of prisoners of- war and internees.

Mr Harrison:

– Was not the Commonwealth Government responsible for the embarkation of those persons?

Mr SPEAKER:

– The Minister will assist the Chair by not replying to the interjection. The honorable member for Wentworth (Mr. Harrison) has already spoken.

Mr MAKIN:

– I have no intention of trying to satisfy the honorable member for Wentworth. I tried to’ do so for many years, but found that the task was impossible.

The honorable member for Richmond may point an accusing finger at the Government, and, incidentally, at Australia in regard - to this particular matter, but our position is perfectly clear, and I am sure that the intelligent section of the Australian community will completely exonerate the Government from any responsibility. The position is this: We received a signal from the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces “in Japan that a Japanese destroyer, Yoizuki. was departing from Kure on the 13th February and would proceed via Rabaul to Sydney for the purpose of embarking a certain number of Formosans and Koreans. The Commonwealth was asked to provide at Sydney canned food for 1,200 persons for 20 days, vegetables. for 1,200 persons for fourteen days and 1 ton of meat. There were other instructions, regarding the fuelling of the Yoizuki. The number of Koreans and Formosans placed aboard the vessel was actually less than that figure, in consideration no doubt of the number of the crew already aboard. I emphasize that in this matter the Australian authorities have acted in accordance with the specific instructions of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Japan. The prisoners of war and internees now on board Yoizuki were not held by this country as its own prisoners of war or internees. They were held by us for safe custody on behalf of other Allied powers. That being so, it was our imperative duty to conform to whatever instructions were issued by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in regard to them. The responsibility of determining the complement of the vessel and the accommodation to be provided did not rest with us.

Another matter that I should like to clarify is this: The impression has been created that a number of Koreans and Formosans have been herded on the vessel with J apanese prisoners of war. That is entirely incorrect. The fact is that all the internees and prisoners of war embarked on the ship are Koreans or Formosans. The idea that the destroyer is also carrying prisoners of war to the mainland of Japan is quite erroneous.

Much of the agitation amongst the persons placed on board the ship was due, undoubtedly, to their belief that they were to be transported to Japan. When the Vice-Consul of China made it clear that they would be taken to a port in either Formosa or Korea their attitude towards sailing on the vessel changed entirely. The Government of Australia has not been indifferent to the comfort of these people. It has endeavoured to do everything possible to assist them. I am assured that there is a doctor aboard the vessel, and I shall have that confirmed as soon as possible. I understand also that there are other persons on board who in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Geneva Convention are qualified to deal with any sickness which may occur on board. Furthermore, I have had a signal sent by the Australian naval authorities to the ship to-day, inquiring as to the conditions on board the vessel. Further reports will be obtained whilst the ship is in Australian waters and I have given instructions that upon the arrival of the destroyer at its first port of call, a representative of the Australian naval authorities shall proceed on board, carry out a thorough inspection, and make a report upon the conditions. That shows the desire of the Government to take every precaution ; but I remind the House that the ultimate responsibility rests exclusively upon the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Japan.

Mr White:

– “ Passing the buck.”

Mr MAKIN:

– No. No attempt is being made to pass the responsibility on to anybody else. It is a question of determining and assessing the responsibility and the facts relating to the matter. If honorable members opposite really desired to protect the good name and interests of Australia, they would not seek to create a false impression of a situation such as this, and to besmirch the reputation of this country. I consider it essential that I should state clearly Australia’s part in this incident. Lest it be thought that honorable members on this side of the chamber are over-anxious to protect themselves from criticism in regard to this matter, I should like to read to the House a statement issued to-day by Dr. Cheng, the Chinese Charge d’Affaires in this country. I understand that the great Republic of China feels some concern for the people involved in this incident. Although they are treated as enemy subjects, many of them no doubt are really Chinese nationals. Dr. Cheng’s statement completely exonerates the Australian Government from the responsibility which members of the Opposition seek to foist upon it. Dr. Cheng said -

The immediate destination of the Formosan internees in Australia was determined by the Supreme Commander, General MacArthur. He decided that they should go to Formosa and not to Japan. This was at first not understood by all Formosans some of whom feared that the ship would be going to Japan and were naturally very distressed. However, the Chinese Vice-Consul in Sydney was able to reassure them and reports indicated that they were satisfied.

In the absence of any advance knowledge of the size of the ship (which was sent by the Supreme Allied Commander in Tokyo) the reported condition on the ship was known to the Legation only after the. ship had sailed. The Legation accepts the statement made in the House of Parliament by the Minister for the Army that the ship is to be brought to an island port for inspection -and for any necessary action. The Chinese Legation is confident that the Australian Government will induce General MacArthur to take any relief action that is necessary to protect the safety and health of the Formosans concerned.

That clearly indicates the confidence which a great power and its representative in this country have in the good faith of this Government, in endeavouring to ensure that any of its nationals shall be protected. I have received this message from Sir Louis Hamilton, the First Naval Member -

Navy’s responsibility is to berth the ship and provide gangways for embarkation. In normal circumstances the officer commanding troops takes charge on board. On this occasion the responsibility was with the Commanding Officer appointed by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers. In the absence of any national authority to handle this ship she was attended by the Australian Sea Transport Organization in the normal manner insofar as docking arrangements storing and fuelling were concerned. Conditions on board had been accepted by General MacArthur, who nominated Yoizuki for the carriage of this number of Formosans and Koreans.

That message indicates the degree to which the Australian Government authorities were brought into thi? matter. Therefore, any efforts by honorable members opposite to charge the Government with additional responsibility must surely fail. The facts, which can be fully substantiated, clearly show that Australia cannot be held culpable in respect of any arrangements that were made by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers for the transport of these people by this vessel. Therefore, I urge the House and the country not to accept the protestations of the honorable member for Richmond. Whilst, all of us must express concern at any condition which constitutes a violation of true humanitarian principles, it must be realized that in this instance we have endeavoured to do everything possible by making contact with the ship as to its progress and also by arranging for an inspection at the first port of call. These people were held in custody by the Australia-n Government as internees and prisoners of war on behalf of the Allied Powers.

The honorable member for Richmond also made reference to my colleague and distinguished friend who is now Resident Minister in London, the right honorable member for West Sydney (Mr. Beasley). . The remarks of the honorable gentleman were , not unrelated to certain incidents in this Parliament during the last sessional period. There is still in the mind of the honorable gentleman a certain degree of vindictiveness towards the right honorable member for “West Sydney, and he would not spare any effort to visit humiliation upon that gentleman. I am not aware as to whether or not the Resident Minister in London took supplies of foodstuffs from Australia to the -United Kingdom. I merely say that, if, he did, there surely was gome justification for that fiction. Probably there is not a family which lives a more ordinary life than that of the right honorable member for West Sydney.” He has never encouraged extravagance of any description. Having visited him while I was in London, I was able to make a close approach to his new heme life in that city. I am positive that he will share with those who are less fortunate than himself any advantage that !k may have gained; Australia requires of its representative in such a capacity that he shall undertake the reception of certain people. In the transaction of his official duties he must have the means that will enable him to ensure the success of his representations. As was the case with his predecessor, the Right Honorable t>. M. Bruce, he will be required to make certain social contacts. Therefore, it was wise to make such provision as as would enable him satisfactorily to meet the additional claims that will bc made upon him. It was far better to make that, provision before leaving this country than to draw upon thé meage supplies which to-day are available in London. Therefore, I strongly repudiate the statements of the honorable u -ember for Richmond, in which he sought to discredit and destroy the prestige of the man who to-day is the representative of Australia in the United Kingdom. The right honorable member for West Sydney will do great honour to this country. In spite of anything that may lie said by honorable members opposite. I am certain that . he will more than justify the confidence and good-will which this country showed in- regard to him when he was appointed to his present high and responsible office.

Mr HUGHES:
North Sydney

– The Minister for the Navy (Mr. Makin) has treated the House to an exposition of the phenomena that present themselves to the people of this country in a way that will excite amazement.

Ministers themselves should know the facts. The first phrase of the honorable gentleman which attracted my attention was that there was a comfortable area in the destroyer Yoizuki.

Mr Makin:

– I did not say anything of the kind.

Mr HUGHES:

– I do not know whether the Minister has ever travelled on a destroyer.

Mr Makin:

– I remarked that the newspapers had said that “ there was an uncomfortable journey ahead “.

Mr HUGHES:

– Whether the vessel is ‘ comfortable or uncomfortable, theMinister has gone to great pains to wash his hands of all responsibility in connexion with the vessel. He says “ MacArthur has done this thing. Our hands are clean “. Is a Minister of the Crown to take orders from General MacArthur or anybody else? Does he say that, that is a justification for herding 1,200 men, women and children, together with tie crew, on a destroyer whose normal complement is about 200? The worst criminals could not merit such cruel treatment as that meted out to these unfortunate people. In the dark, narrow and fetid accommodation on this destroyer, stifled by the vile stench, and huddled so closely together that even during the voyage from Sydney to Brisbane they must needs be covered with their own and their neighbours’ vomit. The ship has sanitary facilities for only’ one-sixth of the ship’s complement. The Minister said that the honorable member for Richmond (Mr. Anthony) did this country a disservice by ventilating this matter. As to that. I am content that the country should judge between us. The Government stood between the despatch, to Indonesia of the Dutch ships which carried medical and hospital equipment to the unfortunate citizens of Indonesia - whites. Indonesians and Eurasians - but it permitted this hell ship, Yoizuki, to go free, despite the angry protest of Australians and the prayers and tears of the unfortunate people who were forced to go aboard. I say that it is a scandal, and the Government cannot disclaim its responsibility. The ship is now at sea, but the Government is in a position to have it brought into Brisbane, and I ask it to do that.

We have heard the “penny plain and twopenny coloured “ version of the Minister for Transport (Mr. Ward) oh the Government’s policy towards Indonesia. He is, of course, an authority on these matters. He posed this afternoon as a man “who had done yoeman service in the war now so happily terminated. What is his record? He gave an example this afternoon reminiscent of his immortal ancestor, Artemus Ward, who delivered a lecture on “ The Horse “, and brought the house down, but he never mentioned the horse. The Minister did not- say one word about matters covered by the motion of want of confidence in the Government, except to repudiate the suggestion that he or the Government could have- done anything wrong. I remind the honorable gentleman of what he said two months after the war broke out. He declared then that he would not fight for this country, and because of that he would not ask anybody else to fight for it. As for New Guinea, he said that he was willing to throw away that territory without a fight, despite the fact that, had it not been for our mandate, the Japanese would have flocked there in hundreds of thousands. In 1938 the Minister said-

It is amusing to hear people say that we shall not give up New Guinea. To those people I would, say that if it should become necessary to defend our mandated territories they should defend themselves.

In November, 1939, two months after the war had started, the Minister declared himself in favour of virtual surrender to Hitler. He remarked -

Instead of carrying on this stupid conflict, a,ii effort should bc made at the earliest moment to summons a conference of the major nations for the purpose of ending it.

He further said - - I believe Australia would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to defend itself against aggression.

This is the Ajax who has now put Achilles out of his tent. He now poses as the man who has helped to save Australia.

The Minister this afternoon revived his story about “the Brisbane line”. Asevery one knows, this was referred to a judge. I will read what His Honour said about it. It is difficult for the Minister to realize that justice - and the judiciary - still exist in this country. The judge in his finding reported as a result of precise inquiries from the custodians of secret files, that no document was missing; that no person having access to the files had given any information to Mr. Ward; and, further, that their only knowledge of the existence of such ‘an expression as “ the Brisbane line “ was derived from press reports of the Minister’s own statement.

Returning to Indonesia, it has been edifying to the citizens of this country to note the affected concern of certain sections of the community for the well-being of the people of that country and their passionate desire for self-government. The Minister for Transport, of course, has been in a position to recommend to his Government the granting of selfgovernment to the natives of New Guinea, but he has been silent on. that. About the things he can do, he does nothing;- about the things he cannot do he waxes eloquent. This matter of Indonesia concerns us very closely. As the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Menzies) said, these islands to the north are bastions of Australia. They are as much bastions of Australia as is New Guinea itself. Those who hold J ava and Sumatra occupy a position which reduces, the free people of Australia to existence on sufferance. Now- we are asked to hand over the control of these vital outposts of our country to the natives who, without training, experience, or aptitude for self-government, are demanding the right to govern themselves. They have a right to govern themselves, but they have no greater right to govern themselves than have the aborigines of Australia. The cry now is Indonesia for the Indonesians, and down with the Dutch, although the Dutch have been. in Indonesia for 350 years. They were there for 200 -years before Captain Cook came to Australia. We are here, but where are the real Australians? Where are the aborigines now? One has to go to the far-distant parts of Australia even, to see one. We have settled them and their pretensions to self-government. We are nice people to talk to the Dutch about the rights of native peoples to selfgovernment! We are, of course, concerned about Indonesia. We shall rejoice if its people are able to obtain that measure of freedom which their stage of development - and their capacity for self-government warrant.

– I rise not for the purpose of defending the Government, but for the purpose of attacking the Opposition. The Government needs no defence from the attacks which have been ‘ made to-day by. members of the Opposition parties. We have just been treated to a political evangelical address upon- the dangers of communism which we have heard for the last 25 years, and, generally, when an election is approaching. We have heard about housing, demobilization, food for Britain, and many other matters; but honorable members opposite have not cited one specific instance of failure on the part of this Government to govern in the best interests of the Australian community. In recent months there has been acon.centrated campaign of abuse against the Government. Everything which Ministers have done has been perverted and distorted in an attempt to make political propaganda against the Government. We have seen a so-called political revival of Liberalism. ‘ We have been hearing about the new Liberals, and new blood in the Liberal party. But the best performance which has been put up on behalf of the Liberals in this debate has come from the SO-year-old right honorable member for North Sydney (Mr. Hughes) ; and that shows just how bad the worst was. The right honorable gentleman was the only Opposition member who infused any fire, or vigour, into the debate. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Menzies), as a lawyer, spoke from a brief. He had no real interest in the discussion. And the Leader of the Australian Country party (Mr. Fadden) followed him in the role of Man Friday. I have never heard the right honorable gentleman in worse form, whilst all of his colleagues who have spoken had little or nothing to say of moment. They proved once more that they are a strange assortment of political hucksters and bargainers who are looking for possible positions in the event of a change of government. As’ a well-known Western Australian said some years ago, they are still the Bulgarians of Australian politics.

The Leader of the Opposition opened his speech on the subject of Indonesia. He said that the Government had performed one overt act, adding, “ Through one of its Ministers, it has committed the unspeakable folly of sending back to Indonesia at’ the most critical period of the negotiations now proceeding hundreds of Indonesian natives who had been in Australia for months “. I was the Minister who arranged for the return of those Indonesians to Indonesia.- They travelled in two ships, ^Esperance Bay and Manoora. They consisted of people who were brought to this country by the Dutch authorities to work for the Dutch Government during the war period, and of seamen who were employed on K.P.M. ships trading between Australia and other countries during the war. “When the Indonesian republican movement gained strength, after the defeat of Japan, all of these (people left the employ of the Dutch Government. They had no employment in Australia, and there was nobody in Australia who was prepared to maintain them. The Dutch Government said that it would no longer maintain them; and their maintenance was certainly not the responsibility of the Commonwealth Government. They had to go back to their own country sooner or later, and it seemed to be in their interest, and in the interests of the Dutch and the Australian Governments, that they should he sent back as quickly as possible. Every movement that was made to take those Indonesians back to their own country was taken in concert with the Dutch authorities and the South-East Asia Command. Agreement was reached between all the authorities concerned before one man was moved out of this country. Therefore, it is wicked to say that to return these people to their own country in these circumstances was an act of unspeakable folly. It was the right and proper thing to do. Every Indonesian who left these shores left voluntarily. I did not have to issue a deportation order against one of them. And when they landed in Indonesia they were handed over to their own people. They were not delivered” into the hands of any persons who might exact some revenge upon them because of their political opinions. “When Esperance Bay left Brisbane, the right honorable’ member for Darling Downs - no doubt he was wrongly advised,” as so often happens - said that the vessel was in a state of latent mutiny. He said that there were arms on board, and that the ship had to be escorted because of incipient mutiny which was expected to break out at any moment. The answer to the right honorable gentleman’s allegation was provided when members of the British Secret Service searched the ship at Batavia and did not find a single revolver among the 1,400 Indonesians on board. I fail to see how -these people could have started a mutiny when they did not possess even one revolver.

Mr Fadden:

– Was the boat escorted from Darwin?

Mr CALWELL:

– ‘Yes; at the request cf its captain.

Mr Fadden:

– He heard that there would be a mutiny.

Mr CALWELL:

– It was a precautionary measure very often taken when there is a large number of people on a boat speaking a language other than the language of the British crew and officers. All those people were landed in Batavia. They sent a message of thanks to the Australian Government for what it had done, and the officers of the ship were high in their praise of the manner in which the Indonesians had comported themselves. The Manoora is going away in similar circumstances. As Minister for Immigration, I have had to arrange for the return to their native lands of a lot of other people. More than .1,500 Chinese have gone back to their country, and they were entitled to go. About 580 Portuguese-Timorese subjects have been returned to their country. Everything this Government could do in a humane and proper way to return to their homeland natives of other countries who were temporarily seeking asylum in Australia ‘ has been done. .

The Leader of the Opposition revived a subject that I thought in his own best interests he would haveallowed to die in the public - memory. He talked again about the incident years ago when as AttorneyGeneral he forced the wharf labourers at Port Kembla to load pig-iron for Japan. He says, “ I am known as ‘ Pig-iron ‘. I wear, my title with some pride “. I wonder why he remembers it with pride. Did he have a guilty conscience when he raised the issue against himself, because he could not have raised it against any one else? The truth is that the despatch of pig-iron to Japan from this country by an anti-Labour government was a direct aid to the Japanese in their war against this country. The right honorable gentleman said that our attitude towards the Dutch was one of hostility, ir fact that we were pro-Indonesian and anti-Dutch. I deny that we are either Indonesian or anti-Dutch. We have no desire to be involved in the struggle in Indonesia, and we certainly did nothing inhuman towards the Indonesians, who, after all, had been our allies in the war just ended. I think I should add that we were not requested by the Dutch authorities to do anything that was wrong or that we should be ashamed of. I endorse the tribute paid by the Prime Minister to the Netherlands Minister to Australia, Baron Van Aerssen. He has been co-operative and helpful in every way, and we have tried to ‘reciprocate to the greatest possible degree. The right honorable gentleman, who said that we were anti-Dutch and pro-Indonesian, could, on the logic of that statement, be very properly described, because of his attitude over the pig-iron incident, as pro-Japanese and antiChinese. There is no escaping the fact that the shipments of iron and steel scrap and pig-iron to which I have referred were neither small nor insignificant in value, as the following tables show : -

Until the very moment the parties opposite ceased to be the Government, they were still sending pig-iron and iron and steel scrap to Japan. That, of course, came back in the form of bullets to Australian servicemen later. It was shot as bullets into the bodies of Chinese soldiers in all the years when they were maintaining their fight against Japanese aggression before we were involved. And, in 1934-35, . these newly found champions of democracy, these people who talk about the liberty of the subject, these people who are getting worked up with simulated indignation about the incident on the Sydney waterfront, were the very people who permitted the sale to Japan of not only scrap iron but also Australian steamships.

The honorable member for Wentworth (Mr. Harrison) sheds crocodile tears ever the plight of Australian servicemen who cannot bring their wives from England. Yet he was a supporter of the Government that sold Barunga, Mataram, Oonah, Ulimaroa, and Loongana to Japan. Those ships sailed to Japan from Australian waters loaded to the Plimsoll line with scrap iron and steel. Prior to the sale they were owned by the Adelaide Steamship Company Limited, Burns Philp and Company Limited, Huddart Parker Limited and Tasmanian Steamers Proprietary Limited. Practically all those big companies have shares in , Australian National Airways Limited, which is helping to finance the Liberal party’s campaign against this Government, and to pay for those big advertisements that appear in the press of this country telling us about the advantage of “ new blood “ in the Liberal party.

Mr Ward:

– And they subscribed generously to the testimonial given to the right honorable member for- North Sydney (Mr. Hughes) when he “ ratted “.

Mr CALWELL:

-Yes, of course, they helped to contribute the £25,000, or was it £37,000? Whatever it was, the right honorable member for North Sydney got it from the very people who, during the war years, were selling ships and scrap iron to the Japanese. The right honorable member for Kooyong (Mr. Menzies)., who said that he was proud of having forced the waterside workers to- load the scrap iron because his Government was in charge of the foreign policy of this country was, in the opinion of a much more distinguished jurist than himself, the Right Honorable Sir Isaac Isaacs, guilty of an act of tyranny. In a book entitled Australian Democracy and our Constitutional System, the first Australianborn Governor-General of this” country said on page 22 -

The Port Kembla coercion was an Act of the Commonwealth in “ its corporate capacity “ and was unequivocally mixing itself up in the quarrel on the side of Japan. It was us I view it a direct aid to that country.

On page 25 of the same book he said -

I conclude my consideration of this most unpleasant incident with unbounded admiration for the struggle for humanity and for freedom of conscience. I believe that Port Kembla with the sturdy but peaceful and altogether disinterested attitude of the men concerned, will find a place in our history beside the Eureka Stockade, with its more violent resistance of a less settled time, as a noble stand against executive dictatorship and against an attack on Australian democracy. 1 think the democrats of this country will accept the opinion of Sir Isaac Isaacs, who has never been a member of the Labour party-

Mr Fadden:

– Which of course he has.

Mr CALWELL:

– Who has never been a propagandist for the Labour party and could never be called partisan or factional in anything he has done in the political or judicial life of this country. The Australian public will accept his opinion before that of the Leader of the Opposition, in his attempts to prove that the waterside workers, in resisting the attempts of his Government to force them to load pig iron for shipment to Japan, were doing something against the best interests of this country. The Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited was very much concerned about the sale of those commodities ; it was also very much involved in the manoeuvres of those days. It is also very much interested in the manoeuvres at the present time of those who constitute the forces of liberalism. Mr. Cecil Hoskins, who is a director of and large shareholder in Australian Iron and Steel Limited at Port Kembla, and a director of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited, and the Australian Mutual Provident Society is numbered among . a certain section of employers in this country who are attempting to stir up industrial strife in Australia. Honorable members opposite have condemned the trade unionists at Port Kembla for having become involved in a strike, or, as they said, for having caused a strike before last Christmas: My criticism of the trade unionists for their action at that time is confined entirely to their failure to realize that a bait was being thrown out to them, and they rose to it. The man who was manoeuvring behind the scenes all the time was Hoskins. He was in no doubt as to what he wanted once the war ended. He said to a leading officer of the Munitions Department -

The day the war is over, we will put off 5,000 men.

That is true. The man to whom he made that statement was a candidate at the last State election in New South Wales, and that is rather significant in the light of what happened subsequently. Mr. Hoskins manoeuvred the position so that hp could cause a strike at the particular time it occurred.

Mr Bowden:

– Oh !

Mr CALWELL:

That the honorable mein’, ir for Melbourne have leave to continue his speech.

Mr TURNBULL:
WIMMERA, VICTORIA · CP

– As one who can claim so far not to be saturated with party bias, and who sits in this part of the chamber naturally, as a representative of a great rural constituency, I rise to support the motion. I have been advised that it may not be in keeping with the best parliamentary tradition for me to speak so early in my parliamentary career, but as the motion now before the chamber provides an opportunity to deal with many measures that are causing concern, dissatisfaction and embarrassment to many of my constituents, and as the constituency of Wimmera has been without representation for some months, the urgency of the occasion induced me to take this action. Whenever I speak in this chamber my endeavour will be not to be a carping critic, but to give helpful co-operation.

First, I shall deal with ex-servicemen, because for a long time I have been closely associated with one of the services. I secured my discharge from the Australian Imperial Force last week after 2,059 days of service, so I am in a position to speak with some knowledge of the problems of ex-servicemen. At Singapore, where I was a prisoner for three and a half years, we had ample time to talk’ over the problems which would confront ex-servicemen upon their return to this country. It mattered not whether the conversation was about the Congo, ‘America, or some far-flung spot on the earth, it eventually came back to Australia. We did not speak much of the past, and of course the present in that camp was not pleasant to contemplate. All thought was for the future - what we . would do when we came back to this country, what a great opportunity men would have to improve their position, and all those things dear to the heart of man. I have had the opportunity of meeting many of those men once again since my return to Australia. What have I found ? There is one man who, perhaps, above all others was anxious to leave the East. He hated it. He had the idea of starting on a dairy farm in this country. Now, he has enlisted with the occupation force that is to go to Japan. That is only one case. I could cite many other cases of dissatisfaction. I do not blame the repatriation authorities or the Minister for Post-war Reconstruction (Mr. Dedman), because, perhaps, their actions are genuinely directed towards getting the men back into employment, but I do believe that the present chaotic state of industries generally in Australia can be attributed to this Government. Because of the restrictions that have been placed on the production of wheat,. other primary commodities, and many other things, servicemen cannot get back into civil life. It matters not what kind of organization there may be to give advice to these men. I went through all that last week. I received all kinds of advice in respect of this, that, and the other thing. When the serviceman attempts to give practical effect to the advice he has received, he finds himself up against a brick wall, as would any other man who hoped to start in private enterprise to-day. The Minister for Post-war Reconstruction mentioned yesterday the small number of men who are unemployed. He based his argument on the number that had applied for unemployment relief after discharge. That does not give any criterion of the true position. Why are there so few men who are taking advantage of the Government’s offer of some assistance when they are unemployed? The first reason was supplied by the Prime Minister (Mr, Chifley), when he said that many servicemen considered that they should have a holiday before they began work. All honorable members will agree with that. Those who are having a holiday have not come up against the realities of the position. When they do, many of them will have to go on the unemployed list. The second reason is that long-service leave has been given to many servicemen. Take my case. My leave started on Tuesday of last week, and it amounts to 332 days; therefore, it will expire about June or July next. If I were not employed, would it be fair to apply to any government to grant me some relief ? During the period of leave, we receive the full amount of our military pay, plus a subsistence of 3s. a day. Therefore, the men who are on leave today do not come into the question. Those on leave include all the released prisoners of war from the Malayan Peninsula, Japan, and Singapore, because they arrived in Australia only about last October, many of them later. On the average, their leave did not start until about Christmas. All of them had 132 days’ leave, because all of them had been prisoners of war for three and a half years. Therefore, they do not come into the question. Thousands of these men will have to be put back into employment. Then there is the man of initiative and in dependence, who is so necessary to this country. Like the pioneers, he hopes to establish a heritage for himself. He has the independent spirit which some Australians still possess, and he trusts that something will turn up which will enable him to fend for himself. He does not want to turn to the Government or to any of the different departments set up by it. He must be counted among those who will apply for relief when he finds that he cannot do anything on his own account. In the last category are those who have returned to their previous occupations, but have found that they are not welcome and must move out very shortly. Although employers are giving work to those whom they employed before the war, ‘ sometimes the work is not pleasant; consequently, these men will go on the labour market. Before long, the whole position will change. It is not, as yet, at the flood, but is only a trickle. To judge the position, as the Minister for Post-war Reconstruction did, on the basis of the number of men who have already applied for unemployment relief, is ridiculous, to put it mildly. Exservicemen who have spoken to me pin some faith in my ability to state their case without party or other prejudice, in the hope that some measure will be brought forward to meet their needs in the near future. I know that war hampers any government. A lady once asked the Duke of Wellington, “ What is a great victory like ? “ The Iron Duke replied, “ The greatest calamity in the world, madam, apart from a great defeat “. The Government must overcome this calamity, and set this country on a firm keel if it is to prosper and make the progress that it has made in the past. There is one matter to which the Government has not given attention. Perhaps it is unmindful of it, or has not been told about it. It should have been vigilant enough to make the offer to the servicemen, especially those who were prisoners of war in Malaya. Those men claim that the Government should give them subsistence at the rate of 3s. a day for the three and a half years that they spent in the Japanese “ hell “ prison camps. Their claim can be justified on many grounds. Some persons contend that while we were prisoners of war we did not do much for this country. That we were prisoners was not our fault. Some one had to hold up the Japanese on the Malayan Peninsula so that others might have a chance- to- protect themselves. Those who did so had to pay the penalty of three and a half years’ imprisonment. Those who made the supreme sacrifice can never be repaid. The claim is made only on behalf of the men who came back. Prisoners of war believe that they have a right to this subsistence, and they ask for nothing more. So far, they have received nothing except their pay. During the period of their imprisonment they were without sufficient food for quite a long time. In Changi camp the ration was 8 oz. of boiled rice a day. Those doing hard work out on the aerodrome, or digging tunnels into which the Japs hoped to- crawl when the invasion came - thank God the invasion did not come, because the intention was to- kill every prisoner should that occur - received 8 oz. a day. Those who were doing light duty received 6-J oz. of boiled rice a day. Those who had malaria, or were too ill to work, and needed food to build them up, received only 5- oz. Consequently, the health of many men was impaired. I have gained 4 stone in weight since I returned to this country, and there is not much of me yet. These men believe that had they had food to the value of 3s. a day during the period of their imprisonment they would not have suffered from malnutrition, which has sapped their strength, and vigour and taken, from them some chance of proving successful in. civil life. I do not believe, that, the Government will deny that if this subsistence were made, available to prisoners of war at, this stage it- would give them a chance to enjoy necessary foods and amenities of life.. The Government has done nothing about this matter, but I hope that it will take action speedily, because nobody in Australia would oppose it. It would be in accordance with public opinion.

After nearly six years’ absence from Australia, I have had an opportunity to compare present conditions in this country with those prevailing before the war. I have noticed that homes that were formerly substantial structures are now sadly put of repair. Machinery sheds- throughout the country are falling to pieces, and fences have deteriorated. This unsatisfactory state of affairs is detrimental to our great wheat industry. Even if the Government is not mindful of the position of individual producers, it must view the general position with alarm and realize that a national emergency has arisen. When the equipment- . which the wheat farmer uses is out of repair, it is impossible to put the wheat industry on a sound basis and produce the foodstuffs that are sorely needed throughout the world. This deplorable position is due to the instability of the wheat market and to the years of drought, that have been experienced. I agree entirely with the Minister for Commerce and Agriculture (Mr. Scully) that Australia has recently passed through the most- devastating droughts on record. As there are now better markets for wheat and live-stock than have been experienced for some years, it is regrettable that the best price the Government can offer the wheat farmers is 5s. 2d. a .bushel f .o.b., or 4s. 3d. a bushel at the average country railway siding. Many city people are under the false impression that 5s. 2d. a bushel goes into the wheat-grower’s pocket. When producers1 are urged to grow more wheat it is necessary for the Government to grant a higher minimum price than is provided for under the wheat stabilization scheme. The wheat harvest just completed should not be . included in. the scheme. One of my constituents has sent to me a copy .of the Kerang Free Press, containing a report of a large gathering of wheat-growers held at Ultimo. The Minister for Commerce and Agriculture was invited to be present, but he was represented by Sir Louis Bussau. At that gathering the following motion was carried : -

That this District Council, while strongly supporting an equitable wheat stabilization scheme for the Commonwealth:, is opposed to the proposals now under consideration by the Commonwealth and State Governments, unless they are amended to provide for a minimum price of 5s. 2d. a bushel, plus 10 per cent, at country railway sidings or mills; also that no contribution be- made to the stabilization fund this season, and, further, that a certificate be issued to each wheat-grower showing the amount deducted from his return for wheat each season.

Mr Dedman:

– Was not Sir Louis Bussau a member of the Australian Country party?

Mr TURNBULL:
WIMMERA, VICTORIA · CP

– Certainly he was, but I remarked earlier that I was speaking without party bias. I desire to put the case clearly for .the wheat-grower, for the serviceman and for Australia generally. I do not propose, in a maiden speech, to introduce any matter for the purpose of embarrassing the Government unnecessarily, but Sir Louis Bussau represented the Government at the gathering at Ultimo, and his view of the position generally was not acceptable to the vast majority of the wheat-growers present. It is urgently necessary for the Government to give further consideration to the problem of the wheat industry along the lines of the motion adopted at Ultimo. Throughout the Wimmera electorate, at least, every farmer, with perhaps a few exceptions of which I have no cognizance, is not favorable to the scheme. They say that the price proposed to be paid for wheat should be higher. Surely’ the grower is entitled to the cost of production, plus a fair margin of profit. Those engaged in all other industries get that return and why should not the wheat-growers? The farmers believe that owing to the years- of drought, last year being one of the worst of all, it is necessary that where the crop was a complete failure the grower should get at least £1 an acre to give him a chance to continue in the industry.

– That is so. Those men were heroes when they enlisted, and before their departure for service overseas most of them marched through the streets of our capital cities, headed by bands and acclaimed by the people. After their return many of them walked the streets again, not however_to the acclamation of the crowds, but as members of the unemployed army. From time to time photographs of returned servicemen searching garbage tins for food to sustain them were published in our newspapers.

Mr Bowden:

– The honorable member is talking drivel.

Mr CHAMBERS:

– The honorable member for Gippsland (Mr. Bowden) is prepared to accept as genuine photographs showing the conditions which are said to exist on Yoizuki, but he is not prepared to accept photographs showing men who fought in the last war looking for food in garbage tins.

Honorable members opposite have had much to say about housing. I remind them that returned men of the war of 1914-18, when anti-Labour governments were in office in South Australia and in this Parliament, were obliged to live in bag humpies on the banks of the river Torrens.

Mr Archie Cameron:

– That was during the term of office of the Hill Labour Government.

Mr CHAMBERS:

– At that time an anti-Labour government was in office in this Parliament and for the greater part of that period, an anti-Labour government was in office in that State; but, during the whole of that period, an antiLabour majority was in control of the Legislative Council in South Australia. Only recently, the present anti-Labour Premier of South Australia introduced a measure to enable the State to take over electricity undertakings in Adelaide, but the measure was thrown out by the antiLabour majority in the Legislative Council. Honorable members opposite do not like to.be reminded of these facts. The Opposition parties have not co-operated with this. Government since it took office in 1941. The honorable member for Wimmera expressed the hope that the Opposition parties- would give to- the Government the ‘ fullest co-operation in dealing with post-war problems. The Government needs such co-operation, but it has never, received it. The Government organized ‘ the nation’s war effort without, support from the Opposition parties, and it is determined by its own effort to make adequate provision for ex-service personnel and our people as a whole in the- post-war period. I say now, with confidence, that the Government will not receive co-operation in such work from, the Opposition parties. I have just been handed a newspaper, the Clarion, which contains an article headed, “ This is Prosperity”. That article describes vividly the circumstances existing in this country during the depression, particularly as they affected returned soldiers. It points out that at that period returned soldiers of World War I. were living in filth. Yet honorable members opposite talk about filth’ on the vessel on which Formosans are being returned to their native country. Worse conditions existed for ex-servicemen in Australia after World War I., but this Government is determined to see that such conditions will- not be repeated in this country. If we experience any hold-up in the rehabilitation of ex-service personnel the blame will be on the head of anti-Labour parties in the State Parliaments. Owing to opposition from such quarters some State governments have not yet obtained land for soldier land settlement. The Commonwealth Government was prepared to take- full responsibility for the rehabilitation of ex-service personnel, in industry, but the people declined to grant that power at the last referendum. Consequently, the Government must now rely upon private enterprise to effect the rehabilitation of ex-service personnel. I believe that the people of Australia should be given another opportunity to say whether they will grant such power to the

Commonwealth in order to enable this job to be done properly. I believe that every ex-service man and woman will support another request along those lines. The Government has proved not only in war but also -in peace that it can govern this country in the best interests of the community as a whole. I remind honorable members opposite that in every Federal and State by-election held since this Government assumed office the candidate supported by this Government has been successful. The right honorable member for Darling Downs (Mr. Fadden) declares that the Government has not the confidence of the people; but as lata as last Saturday, the electors in the State electorate of East Toowoomba, which is in the heart of the electorate represented in this House by the right honorable gentleman himself decided for the second time in favour of the Labour candidate. That is a clear indication that this Government retains the complete confidence of the people ‘of Australia.

Mr HUTCHINSON:
Deakin

– The honorable member for Adelaide (Mr. Chambers) complimented the honorable member for Wimmera (Mr. Turnbull) upon his maiden speech, which I believe will go down in the history of this. Parliament as one of the finest maiden speeches made in this chamber. After listening to the new member, I was reminded of the statement made by Frederick of Prussia in reference to Lord Chatham - “ England has at last produced a man “. I believe that a majority of honorable members will agree with me when I say -that Wimmera has at last found a man. The honorable member has a great career before him; and there can be no doubt that he will keep prominently before Parliament the claims of the great primary-producing electorate of Wimmera.

The honorable member for Adelaide referred to the sailing of the “ hell ship “ which left Sydney yesterday for Formosa, but he uttered no word of sympathy for those who, unfortunately, are on that vessel. He gave no evidence of being shocked, or pained, by the fact that the Government should so lower the dignity of the nation as to allow a ship to depart from these shores in the circumstances surrounding the sailing of that vessel.

His failure to express sentiments along l-hose lines, reveals that he is sadly out of touch with public feeling in this country. He likened the conditions on this Alt-mark of the Pacific to the devastation caused by atomic bombs in Japan. I remind him that Japan was bombed when we were at war with that nation. After all, who was mainly responsible for the modern conception of total warfare? Was it Great Britain, the United States of America or any of the United Nations, or our enemies, notably Germany and Japan? If we retaliated in kind we had good reason to do so. At least it can be said that the dropping of atomic bombs on certain Japanese cities shortened the war and lessened destruction of life and property. Australia, in two world wars, has earned for itself a high place in history. Our soldiers have been heroic in battle and magnanimous in victory. In the past-war world we are embarking on, it has unfortunately fallen to Australia to commit the first unchivalrous act by descending almost, if not entirely, to the level of bestiality shown to the world by our enemies. The sailing of the ship and the conditions on board must come back to the responsibility of the Commonwealth Government. Even if it can be said that the Government was not aware last night of the conditions on board, as the ship is in Australian waters, there need, be no appeal for its return to an Australian port made to General MacArthur whose name I regret has been dragged into this discussion. The ship oan be recalled to. the nearest Australian port. I trust that we shall hear before the House rises to-night that that has been done, by the Government.

I do not intend to waste much time replying to the honorable member for Adelaide, but I must correct what he had to say about the depression of the early thirties. The honorable member . insinuated that blame for the hardships suffered in- those days could be placed fairly on the shoulders of the political philosophy that I represent, but the plain fact, which has been stated time after time but is worth stating again, is that in the Commonwealth and in nearly every State Labour was in power. It was not until the Lyons Government took office that a new era of confidence in Australia was born, and the depression started to become a matter of history. Australia’s progress out of the depression, which was world-wide, was unexcelled by any other nation. I leave it at that.

The Opposition did not move this motion of want of confidence on the Government merely for the purposes of a debate that would provide us with latitude to talk’ about many different subjects. The motion was made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Menzies) because of our conviction that there exists, in Australia to-day an atmosphere similar to that of the last depression. An atmosphere of no confidence in the present Administration is being manifested in many different ways. We find an undeniable slowing up of all forms of national activity and production. No remarks of the Minister for Post-war Reconstruction (Mr. Dedman) giving us figures in pounds, shillings and pence can alter the fact that now that the war is over there are fewer consumable goods and higher prices than when the war was on. We have to face the fact that unemployment is beginning to rear its ugly head. It seems that a depression is again around the corner. We find on all hands misuse and waste of public money. The war led to. a great deal of inflation in Australia, and possibly it was necessary in the financing of the war, but, unless the administration takes a firm grip of the reins, before long, I have no doubt, we shall be heading towards a financial and industrial catastrophe that will shake the foundations of our democracy. That, nothwithstanding that Australia in many respects has the ball at its feet! With a wise government endowed with a sense of discipline and a sense of public responsibility, we have a future brighter than at any time in our history. But before we shall be able to enter that brighter era, we must have a change of government. I believe the good, sense of those words will be realized by the people of this country before the impending general elections.

ADJOURNMENT

The Parliament: Canberra Allowance for Mem bers - Wives of Exservicemen in England - Fruit-picking at Mildura - Wheat Industry : Seed for. South Australia.

Motion (by Mr. Chifley) proposed -

That the House do now adjourn.

Wife had nervous breakdown. Canadian girl with no parents in England. Being evicted from house 12th March. 1946.

There is a specific case, and the husband is powerless to assist his wife. In another instance the husband’s footnote is as follows : -

On leaving England, wife one month pregnant. Repatriation officials promised she would be in Australia within two months of my arrival. Nothing was done about getting her out. Resultant worry caused loss of baby at birth, and wife very nearly died. Imagine the money it is costing in medical expenses, besides the pain of losing a son through the incompetence of the Australian Government.

That man and his wife are suffering. The wife is receiving attention which the husband may not consider satisfactory, and she is suffering unduly because she is not being repatriated. In another case the” husband says -

Separated over four years. Wife still not told when leaving.

In another instance the footnote states -

Wife has nowhere permanent to live. Promised sailing January. Resigned from work. Has since had to change abode four times.

Officials at Australia House tell these people that they must be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. Therefore they resign their positions, and give notice to their landlady, but then have to wait month after month.

Mr Hadley:

– That is not the fault of the Commonwealth Government

Mr HARRISON:

– The Government must bear the responsibility if the officials at Australia House do not supply correct, information. In another case the husband remarked -

Wife had been bombed out. resulting in bad nervous state. Given passport January, promised berth by end of January. Still waiting. No means of support. Additional mental strain caused by anxious waiting.

Another footnote states -

Parted three years. Originally applied for passage at Australia House 1942, still trying, still no results.

In a further case, the footnote reads -

Because of ill health, representations made by CO. of Yaralla hospital, by Australian lied Cross, and by R.S.L. for immediate priority passage, but wife has heard absolutely nothing from Australia House after one month.

In the last case, this footnote appears -

Ex-prisoner of war. No pay. Awaiting allowance under reconstruction training scheme, which anyway will be insufficient to maintain two homes.

– Australia could exchange food for ships. In the Daily Sketch of the 10th December, 1945, an official from Australia House is reported to- have said -

Limited passenger accommodation at present available in cargo ships is reserved for business men and officials travelling in the interest of Australia’s national effort.

I submit that these servicemen who have rendered good service to their country have been engaged in “ Australia’s national effort “ and are entitled to consideration before men travelling for business reasons. I do not minimize the shipping difficulties because I know of the losses that have occurred, but I submit that better arrangements could be made. Australia House needs a complete overhaul. At the indignation meeting to which I have referred I said that, in my opinion, more energy on the part of Australia would have avoided most of the difficulties which have arisen. I notice that the Australian agents-general are of the same opinion: they believe that more energetic action by officials of Australia House last year could have done much to avoid the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. The Minister cannot know all that is going on in the departments under bis control, and I admit that it is difficult to conduct negotiations by cablegram. I repeat that the position is serious, as many of the men concerned are not in employment and are incurring very heavy expenditure. Most of them are using their deferred pay and their pay in lieu of furlough to maintain their wives, and their wives are worried by reason of the lack of accommodation. I ask the Minister to use his utmost endeavours forthwith to remedy the position. I urge the Government to get this job done, and to let us know next week that transport has been made available.

Mr CHIFLEY:
Prime Minister and Treasurer · Macquarie · ALP

– in reply - The Leader of . the Opposition (Mr. Menzies) referred to the statement I made yesterday relating to allowances payable to honorable, members while attending sittings of Parliament. This matter came to me originally from the House Committee, which submitted that an additional allowance was required in order to enable honorable members to meet increasing expenses with regard, not only to attendance in Canberra, but also work in their electorates. This claim was supported by representations made by members of the Government party. It was pointed out that over a long period of years no provision had been made to enable honorable members to meet everincreasing expenses incurred in their parliamentary duties. After considering the matter, the Government decided to make the allowances which I indicated in my statement yesterday. I should have been glad had the opportunity presented itself to ask a representative from each of the Opposition parties to join with a representative from the Government party in an examination of the whole matter. I realize that during a long session, such as we had last year, honorable mem-‘ bers who travel from distant States like Western Australia and Queensland and are obliged to remain here at week-ends over a period of many months, in some cases having their wives in Canberra with them for a portion of the period, are subject to very heavy expense. A public servant on a salary of £1,000 a year is allowed, when travelling in the course of his duties, expenses at the rate of 22s. 6d. a day. This rate has been fixed after careful consideration, and no one will deny that a member of Parliament serving the nation should be entitled to receive the same allowance. An honorable member has less security of tenure than a public servant. After being elected to one Parliament he may, after incurring considerable expenditure, lose his seat at the following election. I know that many people have the impression that members of Parliament are in a very good position and enjoy all sorts of privileges, but that is not the case. As the Leader of the Opposition has pointed out. they pay income tax on the normal basis except that certain deductions are permitted. However, those deductions were fixed many years ago when Mr. Ewing was Commissioner of Taxation. I agree with the Leader of the Opposition that that aspect should be re-examined. Without wearying honorable members with a discussion of the merits of the matter, I suggest that the leaders of the two Opposition parties might appoint representatives of their respective parties to meet representatives of the Government party to look into this matter generally, and particularly the aspect which the Leader of the Opposition has mentioned. T houe that the two leaders will give consideration to that proposal. If they are not prepared to agree to it, I myself shall examine the matter further along the lines mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition. In the meantime, until some other arrangement has been made, the allowances which I outlined in my statement yesterday will apply.

Several honorable members have . referred to the provision of transport for war brides. A great deal of nonsense is talked on this subject. The Government and its representatives abroad have been doing their very best in the matter. I am sure that all honorable members are most anxious that the wives and children of service personnel, and, indeed, their fiancees, should be enabled to travel to Australia as soon as possible. I for one should not discourage the realization of love’s young dream. We are anxious to meet the convenience of these women and children. However, it is nonsense to say the Government has riot been doing its best on their behalf, or that the British Government has not endeavoured to meet our wishes in the matter. In those circumstances, I must regard some of the statements made on the subject as party political propaganda.

Mr Harrison:

– How is it that all of the other dominions have arranged transport for their wives of their servicemen?

Mr CHIFLEY:

– The Government feels so strongly on this matter that, when the Minister for External Affairs (Dr. Evatt) was in London, I requested him to take it up on the highest possible plane. That was in November last, and my colleague took up the subject with the British Prime Minister, to whom he made strong representations. Later, the Acting High Commissioner in London, Mr. Duncan, took up the subject vigorously with the Minister of War Transport, Mr. Barnes. However, the British Government has its problems; and they are acute. As I am aware of the difficulties arising in this matter so far as shipping is concerned, nobody will induce me to engage in bitter recriminations with the British Government. We have pressed the subject strongly, and having regard to all circumstances, I am satisfied that we are receiving the most sympathetic treatment from the British Government. Mr. Barnes pointed out in November that he was beset with demands from Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, India and the Colonies for shipping for the transport of wives and children of British servicemen. The British Government is confronted with an enormous problem in that respect. Mr. Barnes pointed out that il is impracticable to use troop-ships for the transport of women and children. A proposal has been made that the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth should be used to bring wives of Australian servicemen to this country, these ships to return to Britain with foodstuffs urgently required in the .Mother Country. Mr. Barnes pointed out that those vessels were not equipped for the carriage of foodstuffs. Particularly they lack refrigerated space other than is needed for ships’ supplies. He mentioned other difficulties which I shall not detail at this juncture having regard to the lateness of the hour. However, one of those ships was still being used by the Americans, whilst the other was in dock. Then I continued the discussion with the Resident Minister (Mr. Beasley). The Government does not have to be urged to action by people who merely want some cheap publicity. It is ‘equally, if not more, solicitous for the welfare of the wives and children of men in Australia stranded in England. When Mr. Beasley was going abroad, I asked him to press the matter as strongly as he could with the British authorities when he got to London, not offensively, but courteously as a -government is entitled to press any matter with another government itself beset with difficulties. Mr. Barnes has been most sympathetic in the provision of shipping. I have been sending cables to the Resident Minister, who ha3 been pressing the matter as strongly as he can. Yesterday he sent me a further cable about the matter indicating what can be done. I have heard some talk from the Opposition about business men and their wives. In addition to wives and children of servicemen, there are in England Australian business men and their wives who have been there for some years. It is true, too, that some passages have been found for British business men who are establishing, or hope to establish, industries in this country. I could name one or two large British industries that envisage manufacturing operations in this country. I can quite understand that they would be enabled to send representatives here to make investigations and reports about the industrial prospects. From time to time, I might mention, the Minister for Immigration (Mr. Calwell) and I have been strongly pressed in this building for the provision of priority passages to England and back for people closely associated with the politics of the Opposition. If honorable members opposite want the names I can give them privately.

Mr Harrison:

– Who is looking for political kudos now?

Mr CHIFLEY:

– I have been in politics for a long time. The Marquis of Queensberry rules suit me, but if “ rafferty rules “ are applied, I. having been in New South Wales politics for some time, am familiar with those rules, too. Recently the Minister for Immigration had an- application for a passage to England from a leading Victorian business man who wanted to take his wife as his secretary. Those who know the lady do- not think she has ever done much secretarial work. The Minister for Immigration could tell an interesting story about the representations that were made. Naturally, she had to be brought back. The Resident Minister, as I have said, has been strongly pressing the need for more passages. I do not propose to weary . the House by reading all the cables that have passed between us, but only yesterday Mr. Beasley sent a cablegram which he said that for March Mr. Barnes has made available two transports which had. been earmarked for troop movements. They will provide 780 civilian berths for Australia in March. It is proposed to allocate up to 650 berths to servicemen’s dependants, and the rest will be allotted to business men and Australian women and children who have been stranded in England for some years. The Resident Minister tried to get another ship, but Mr. Barnes has made it clear that the large ships are not available and that, even if they were, they could not be used, as some people have suggested, to carry food back to England, because they have no refrigeration space. Mr. Barnes is unable to give any figures for April, owing to demands on shipping, but, according to the Resident Minister, he has promised to make available as much s.pace as possible. The Resident Minister says that Mr. Barnes is completely sympathetic, but has so many demands for ships to move troops that he cannot do more than he is doing. One day it is a matter of getting -servicemen home, and, if that does not work, the next day there is agitation for ships to enable the re-union of men and their- wives and families. Every one is demanding something .that is in limited supply.

I think the honorable member for Wentworth (Mr. Harrison) mentioned the financial plight of stranded wives of servicemen in England. In Sydney I was asked to receive a deputation in regard to stranded war brides, but I asked the Minister for Immigration to receive it on my behalf. He, of course, was not able to tell the deputation any more than I can tell this House, namely, that the matter of their transport to Australia was taken up in London with the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Mr. Attlee, by the Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs, whose representations have been followed up at the highest level by the Resident Minister. Last week the Minister for Immigration brought to my notice the fact that many of the war brides had difficulty in obtaining sustenance because they could not get away from England. I discussed the matter with him, and subsequently sent word to the Resident Minister that the Government had made the following arrangements to assist the’ dependants of servicemen in necessitous circumstances : -

Maximum weekly amount will be equivalent of dependants’” allowance aud service allotment for other ranks, that is, £2 16s. in case of wife without children. Additional assistance may be granted for children equivalent to dependant’s allowance, that is, £1 ls. a week for the first child, 14s. for the second child and 10s. (id. for each subsequent child.

I do not want it to be thought that the Resident Minister is thereby authorized to pay the allowance to every war bride who is awaiting a passage because nor all of them are in necessitous circumstances. It has been left to his sympathetic judgment to decide whether the circumstances justify the payment of the allowance.

It makes me a little sick sometimes when people, for political purposes, start criticism of a matter that I and my colleagues are working on all the time. 1 concede the basic earnestness of the representations- that have been made by honorable members, but I assure them that everything possible is being done to ensure the earliest possible transport to Australia of not only the brides and families but also, indeed, the fiancees of Australian servicemen, as well as other people who have been stranded in England for. years and are pressing to get back to -Australia. But I desire to make it .perfectly clear that the treatment which has been accorded to the

Commonwealth Government by the British Ministry of War Transport and by British Ministers in regard to the allocation of shipping for the transport of troops and the like has been too generous to warrant my directing in bitter recriminations against them. 1 speak not only of the present British Government, but also of its predecessor. Both gave to the Commonwealth very generous and sympathetic treatment. We shall continue to press the matter, but not in any spirit of bitterness.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

House Adjourned at 12 o’clock (midnight).

page 122

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

The following answers to questions were circulated: -

Bretton Woods Agreement

Mr Francis:

s asked the Treasurer, upon notice -

Will he explain to the House the statement made ‘some time ago that a limited supply of dollars had been made available to Australia, sufficient to cover Australia’s restricted requirements until the 30th June, 1946?
Is this dollar amount made available by the - United States Government to Australia as part of an agreement with Great Britain, or is it a direct arrangement between Australia a’nd the United States?
Has the Bretton Woods Agreement been implemented by any of the signatory nations?
If this agreement had been implemented, would there have been an ample supply of dollars and other foreign currencies available to Australia?
Will he provide the House with an opportunity for discussing the agreement and its implications?

Mr Chifley:
ALP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows : - 1 and 2. On the cessation of hostilities and the concurrent termination of lend-lease the Australian Government reviewed all its lendlease requisitions and cancelled all those items which were no longer required in the light of the changed circumstances. As at-V-J Day, however, a significant part of the Australian lend-lease requisitions which had reached the contract stage but had not yet been fulfilled were in respect of supplies which were still essential for the Australian economy even though hostilities had ceased. Accordingly, it was agreed with the United Kingdom authorities that, if necessary, sufficient dollars would be made available to Australia from the sterling area dollar pool to enable Australia to pay cash for essential supplies which would be coming forward for delivery against lendlease contracts in existence as at V-J Day. Very roughly speaking this arrangement covered supplies for the period ending 31st December, 1945. The amount of dollars available in the future to the sterling area, including Australia, will depend on whether the United States Congress ratifies the AngloAmerican Financial Agreement under which a loan of 3,750,000,000 dollars is to be made to the United Kingdom. If the loan or some alternative financial arrangement is not made by the United States, Australia will, along with other members of the sterling area, be faced with an acute shortage of dollars, which will mean that those dollar earnings of the sterling area which are available will have to be conserved and expended only on essential supplies.

As at 31st December. 1945, the Bretton Woods Agreement had been implemented by the following countries: - Belgium, Bolivia. Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia (Fund Agreement only), Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia. Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia. France. Greece, Guatemala,’ Honduras, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Luxembourg, Mexico. Netherlands, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Philippine Commonwealth, Poland, Union of South Africa, United Kingdom, United- States, Uruguay and Yugoslavia.
Even if the fund and the bank had been established at the time of the lend-lease arrangement mentioned in paragraph 1, above, it still could not be said that there would then have been an ample supply of dollars available to Australia. For the most part the hind and the bank were planned to meet problems different from those resulting from the sudden determination of lend-lease.
Following the Bretton Woods conference of July, 1944, the Government considered the draft agreements but decided to take no action until the attitude of the United States Congress and the United Kingdom Parliament was known.- The Government also announced that no commitment would be entered into until the Commonwealth Parliament had had an opportunity of considering the proposals. The United States Congress approved the draft agreements in July, 194.5, but the United Kingdom Parliament did not consider and approve the proposals until December, 1945. At this time, however, the Australian Parliament was not in session. It was therefore impossible for the Australian Parliament to consider the proposals before the closing date for original membership, i.e., 31st December, 1945. The first meetings of the boards of governors of the fund and the bank are to commence on 8th March, 1946, and, in response to an invitation from the United States Government, Mr. L. G. Melville is attending these meetings as an observer on behalf of the Australian Government.

The Government proposes to defer further consideration of the Bretton Woods proposals until it has received Mr. Melville’s report on the meetings now about to take place.

Housing

Mr Holt:

t asked the Minister for Works and Housing, upon notice -

What was the number of dwelling houses constructed in each of the States during the period 1st July, 1945, to 31st December, 1945, (a) under Government housing schemes, (b) by private construction, and (c) as war service homes?
What is the estimated number of dwellings to be constructed in each of those categories during the period 1st January, 1946, to 30th June, 1946?

Mr Lazzarini:
ALP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows : - 1. (a) Houses under Commonwealth-State housing agreement (July-December, 1945) -

Private construction (July-December, 1945). (As furnished by the Commonwealth’ Statistician based on builders’ returns) -

War service homes (July-December. 1945) -

The housing target for the complete year 1945-46 is 24,000 houses under construction or completed - for the first half-year 9,000, and the second (or current) half-year 15,000.

Tuberculosis

Mr Harrison:

n asked the Minister for Repatriation, upon notice -

Willhe provide the honorable member for Wentworth with a list showing the sanatoria under complete control of hie department and state the number of beds in each ?
How many ex-servicemen from (a) the last war, and (b) this war, are entered upon the records of the department as being infected with tuberculosis?
How many of these are undergoing treatment for tuberculosis?
Have any estimates been made concerning the additional number of cases that will pass into the hands of the department during the demobilization process?
What programme has the department for the erection of additional sanatoria, how many beds are contemplated ineach, and on what dates is it expected those sanatoria will be completed?

Mr Frost:
Minister for Repatriation · FRANKLIN, TASMANIA · ALP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows : - 1. (a) Repatriation Sanatorium, Kenmore, Queensland - 22 beds; (b) Repatriation Sanatorium, Turramurra, New South Wales- 238 beds; (c) Repatriation Sanatorium, Mont Park. Victoria - 110 beds; and (d) Repatriation Sanatorium. Belair, South Australia - 22 beds. In addition, provision exists at all

Repatriation General Hospitals for the treatment of acute and advanced cases, viz., Queensland 70 beds, New South Wales 90 beds, Victoria 150 beds, South Australia 34 beds, Tasmania 24 beds, and at the Edward Millen Home, Perth, 50 beds. Total 820 beds.

As at 30th June, 1945, there were in the Commonwealth 3,315 (1914 war) and 863 (1939 war) ex-members in receipt of war pensions in respect of pulmonary tuberculosis. In addition there wore 441 (1914 and Boer War) and 166 (1939 war) eligible for treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis not due to war service of which numbers 257 are in receiptof service pensions.
On 31st July, 1945, there were 578 exmembers undergoing impatient treatment. The actual number receiving out-patient treatment is not known as statistics relating to outpatients are not segregated.
Estimates have been based on the probability that one per 1,000 of the number to be demobilized may require in-patient treatment at any one time, but this estimate will be subject to review as soon as reliable statistics are available from the service departments. 5. (a) Repatriation Sanatorium, Kenmore. - A priority has just been allotted for the erection of an additional chalet of 32 beds. (b) Repatriation Sanatorium, Turramurra. - Tenders have been called for the erection of an additional chalet (42 beds). It is expected work will commence in the immediate future. At Queen Victoria Home, Thirlmere. - Segregated accommodation (16 beds) is being provided for female tuberculars. It is expected that tenders will be called this month. (c) Repatriation Sanatorium, Mont Park. - An additional ward (40 beds) is in course of erection. In addition, plans are being prepared for the erection of a multi-storied structure to accommodate an additional 96 patients, operating theatre, X-ray and pathological departments. At Heatherton State Sanatorium. Victoria. - A new structure is in course of erection in which one floor (24 beds) is to be reserved for the treatment of female repatriationpatients. (d) Repatriation Sanatorium. Belair. - Provision has been made for the erection of a chalet to accommodate 24 patients. (e) Wooroloo Sanatorium, Western Australia. - Provision has been made in the Estimates 1945-46 for the erection of segregated accommodation for80 repatriation patients. Total 354. While it is expected that the proposed extensions will at least be commenced this financial year, because of many factors outside its control the Repatriation Commission is unable to state when it is expected that they will be ready to receive patients.

AustralianWomen’s Land Army.

Mr Archie Cameron:
ALP

n asked the Minister for Labour and National Service, upon notice -

What is the future of the Women’s Land Army in relation to harvest operations?

Mr HOLLOWAY:
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA · FLP; ALP from 1936

– Following upon the cessation of hostilities with Japan, the Standing Committee on Rural Man Power, of which the Director-General of Agriculture is a member, considered the future position of the Australian Women’s Land Army which had been organized as a war-time measure to provide some accretion to a depleted rural labour force. In the light of all the circumstances, the Standing Committee on Rural Man Power recommended to the Director-General of Man Power that the Land Army should be disbanded in all States not later than the 31st December, 1945. Production Executive subsequently approved of that recommendation and the disbandment of the organization as an official body took place accordingly. In some States, particularly New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, groups of former members agreed to remain on with employers after the date of their ceasing to be members of the organization. It is understood also that a growers’ organization in one State is directing special publicity to ex-land girls in that State to return to rural employment. The Commonwealth Employment Service will keep in mind the value of ex-members of the Land Army as a potential source of harvest labour and will on appropriate occasions use every endeavour to encourage ex-members to undertake suitable harvesting work. I would also like to take advantage of this reply to the honorable member’s question to place on record my deep appreciation of the splendid national service performed by members of the Australian Women’s Land Army during the three and a half years of its existence as an organization sponsored by the Commonwealth. When it is recalled that the membership of. the organization was chiefly recruited from girls who resided in cities and the larger provincial towns andwho had had no previous experience in rural industries, the very successful achievements of the Land Army are the more remarkable.. As Minister in charge of the department responsible for the functioning of the Land Army, I desire to thank all its members for their services rendered so splendidly.

Ho.use of Representatives.

Friday, 8 March 19^6.

Mr ; Speaker (Hon. J”. ‘ S. Rosevear) took the chair at 10.30 a.m., and read prayers.

Mr MENZIES:

S -(Kooyong. leader of the Opposition) [10.31). - May I inquire of the Prime Minister (Mr. Chifley) whether he proposes that the House shall meet regularly on Wednesday, or alternately on “Wednesday and Tuesday? Can he give some indication of what the sitting days will be in the next few .weeks?

Mr. CHIFLEY (Macquarie- Prime Minister and Treasurer) [10.32). - The intention is that the House shall meet on Wednesday of next week and the following week. Certain legislation is being drafted, and it is hoped that if it can be brought forward sufficiently quickly the House will later be able to sit on four days a week.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 125

SPECIAL ADJOURNMENT

Motion (by Mr. Chifley) proposed -

That the Bouse, at its rising, adjourn to Wednesday next, at 3 p.m.

page 125

MOTION OF “WANT OF CONFIDENCE.

Debate resumed from the 7th March (vide page 113), on motion by Mr. Menzies -

That the Government does not possess the confidence of this House.

Mr BEAZLEY:
Fremantle

.- In ‘ this protracted debate, the Government has been criticized from the Opposition side of the House on innumerable courts. The framing of the motion in general terms has enabled honorable members opposite to discuss almost every subject, from war brides in Britain to the foreign policy of the Government. In the speech of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Menzies), certain oblique references were made to a tendency on the part of the Government to criticize Britain unduly in the field of foreign policy. Since the matter of foreign policy has been raised, I wish to discuss four fundamental principles of Australian foreign policy, aud to examine the record of the Government concerning them. I assume that it will be agreed everywhere that the four cardinal influences on the foreign policy of this country arc : first, its connexion with Britain ; secondly, its membership of an international organization ; thirdly, its policy in the zone of special concern to this country - the South-west Pacific; and fourthly, the attitude that it should adopt towards -the rise of Asiatic nationalism. I hare never heard anything more trivially discussed from the Opposition benches than the rise of Asiatic nationalism. One would imagine that come of the Asiatic national leaders represent only themselves. That raises the question : If they have no influence and no power among their own people, who are primitive, backward, and incapable of organization, why do the Governments of the various colonial powers negotiate with them? In’ India, il was considered necessary for Sir Stafford Cripps, in the depth of the war crisis, to consult with Indian national leaders. That is not to say that they are all-powerful. But they are influential, and their power must be respected. Similarly, the Dutch Government haj had to negotiate with Soekarno. “We cannot escape from the present situation merely by saying that Japanese occupation stimulated those national movements, or that many of these men were Japanese puppets. The fact still remains that they have influence among the majority of their people, and therefore must be considered as a political force. It is perfectly true that in China, one who was a left-wing leader - Wang Cheng Wei - became a puppet. Subhas Chandra Bose, President of the Indian National Congress, became a puppet. No doubt Soekarno, in Java, also was a puppet of the Japanese. That points to a dangerous ‘and significant thing. All of these people claimed, at one stage to be Socialists. When matters reached a crisis they showed themselves to be, in fact, Pan-Asiatic nationalists, and to be prepared to collaborate with the worst form of imperialism the world has known - that of the Japanese. That still does not destroy the fact that

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 7 March 1946, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1946/19460307_reps_17_186/>.

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House of Representatives 7 March 1946

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS

Mr SPEAKER:

QUESTION

MOTION OF WANT OF CONFIDENCE

Mr SCULLY:Minister for Commerce and Agriculture · Gwydir · ALP

Mr McEwen:

Mr SCULLY:

Mr McEWEN:INDI, VICTORIA · CP; LCL from 1940; CP from 1943

Mr SCULLY:

Mr McEWEN:INDI, VICTORIA · CP; LCL from 1940; CP from 1943

Mr SCULLY:

Mr Anthony:

Mr SCULLY:

Mr HARRISON:WENTWORTH, NEW SOUTH WALES · UAP; LP from 1944

Mr SCULLY:

Mr Anthony:

Mr SCULLY:

Mr Anthony:

Mr SCULLY:

Mr SPEAKER:

Mr HARRISON:Wentworth

Mr James:

Mr HARRISON:

Mr Lazzarini:

Mr HARRISON:

Mr WARD:Minister for Transport and Minister for External Territories · East Sydney · ALP

Mr Anthony:

Mr WARD:

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Riordan:KENNEDY, QUEENSLAND

Mr HOLT:Fawkner

Mr Calwell:

Mr HOLT:

Mr Dedman:

Mr HOLT:

Mr CALWELL:MELBOURNE, VICTORIA · ALP

Mr HOLT:

Mr Fadden:

Mr HOLT:

Mr Menzies:

Mr HOLT:

Mr JAMES:Hunter

Mr SPEAKER (Hon J S Rosevear:DALLEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr JAMES:

Mr Fadden:

Mr JAMES:

Mr Fadden:

Mr JAMES:

Mr Fadden:

Mr JAMES:

Mr ANTHONY:Richmond

Mr Falstein:

Mr ANTHONY:

Mr Falstein:

Mr SPEAKER:

Mr ANTHONY:

Mr Falstein:

Mr ANTHONY:

Mr Hughes:

Mr ANTHONY:

Mr Falstein:

Mr ANTHONY:

Mr Bryson:

Mr ANTHONY:

Mr Ward:

Mr ANTHONY:

Mr Falstein:

Mr ANTHONY:

Mr Pollard:

Mr ANTHONY:

Mr Pollard:

Mr ANTHONY:

Mr Pollard:

Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER {Mr Mulcahy:

Mr ANTHONY:

Mr Pollard:

Mr ANTHONY:

Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER:

Mr MAKIN:Minister for the Navy, Minister for Munitions and Minister for Aircraft Production · Hindmarsh · ALP

Mr Harrison:

House of Representatives
7 March 1946

Mr SCULLY:
Minister for Commerce and Agriculture · Gwydir · ALP

Mr McEWEN:
INDI, VICTORIA · CP; LCL from 1940; CP from 1943

Mr McEWEN:
INDI, VICTORIA · CP; LCL from 1940; CP from 1943

Mr HARRISON:
WENTWORTH, NEW SOUTH WALES · UAP; LP from 1944

Mr HARRISON:
Wentworth

Mr WARD:
Minister for Transport and Minister for External Territories · East Sydney · ALP

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Riordan:
KENNEDY, QUEENSLAND

Mr HOLT:
Fawkner

Mr CALWELL:
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA · ALP

Mr JAMES:
Hunter

Mr SPEAKER (Hon J S Rosevear:
DALLEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr ANTHONY:
Richmond

Mr MAKIN:
Minister for the Navy, Minister for Munitions and Minister for Aircraft Production · Hindmarsh · ALP

Mr HUGHES:
North Sydney

Mr CALWELL:
Minister for Immigration and Minister for Information · Melbourne · ALP

Mr TURNBULL:
WIMMERA, VICTORIA · CP

Mr TURNBULL:
WIMMERA, VICTORIA · CP

Mr CHAMBERS:
Adelaide

Mr HUTCHINSON:
Deakin

Mr MENZIES:
Leader of the Opposition · Kooyong

Mr HARRISON:
Wentworth