House of Representatives
19 April 1950

19^th Parliament · 1^st Session

ME. SPEAKER
QUESTION
- POLIOMYELITIS
QUESTION
- NEW GUINEA
QUESTION
- COAL
QUESTION
- APPLES
QUESTION
- ME. E. THORNTON
QUESTION
- MALAYA
QUESTION
- ROYAL AUSTRALIAN ATE FORCE
QUESTION
- HEALTH AND MEDICAL SERVICES
QUESTION
- GRAIN SORGHUM
QUESTION
- WATERFRONT EMPLOYMENT
QUESTION
- HOUSING
QUESTION
- FLOOD DAMAGE RELIEF
QUESTION
- PETROL
QUESTION
- COMMUNISM
QUESTION
- SENATOR W. MORROW
QUESTION
- RAIL TRANSPORT
QUESTION
- COMMONWEALTH ADVERTISEMENTS
QUESTION
- COST OP LIVING
QUESTION
- BRAN AND POLLARD
QUESTION
- IMMIGRATION
QUESTION
- PENSIONS
QUESTION
- PRODUCTION
CIVIL AVIATION
COMMONWEALTH BANK BILL 1950
- Second Reading
HOW THE BANKERS’ NOMINEE WAS SELECTED FOR EVANS
QUESTION
- ANONYMOUS CIRCULAR
ADJOURNMENT
- Malaya - Flood Relief - Canberra Hostels - Rat Menace - Aborigines
PAPERS
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
- Building Materials
- Jerusalem
- Canberra: Industrial Areas; Milk Supply

Mr. SPEAKER (Hon. Archie Cameron) took the chair at 2.30 p.m., and read prayers.

page 1562

ME. SPEAKER

Mr CHIFLEY:
Leader of .the Opposition · Macquarie

– I give notice that to-morrow I shall move -

That this House, having taken into consideration the statement made by Mr. Speaker from the Chair on the 30th March last referring to his relationships with His Excellency the Governor-General, is of opinion that Mr. Speaker merits its censure.

Mr BERNARD CORSER:
WIDE BAY, QUEENSLAND

– I ask the Minister for External Affairs whether it is a fact that Mr. E. Thornton has left Australia to attend a conference of the Communist-controlled World Federation of Trade Unions in Pakistan? In view of the continued added pressure of Communist organizations against British Empire interests, including the interests of the State of Pakistan, I ask whether any permit was issued by the Australian Government to allow of Thornton’s visit? If so, is it not time that our national interests were protected by preventing, as far as possible, Australian traitors from attending enemy conferences overseas to our detriment?

Mr SPENDER:
LP

– The only information that I have on this subject is what I have read since I have returned to Australia. The issuing of passports is not a matter for the Department of External Affairs, but I have already had discussions with the Minister for Immigration and we are now considering the whole question of the limitations that can be imposed upon overseas visits hy Communists whom we know to be going overseas in order to advance conspiracy against this country. I am satisfied that the full extent of our powers will be used to prevent people from going overseas to engage in Communist conspiracies.

Mr DALY:
GRAYNDLER, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I wish to address to the Minister for Immigration a question supplementary to that asked by the honorable member for Wide Bay. Will the Minister inform the House whether his department issued a passport to Mr. Thornton? If so, in view of the many protests by members of the present Government parties when they sat in opposition against the issue of a passport to Mr. Thornton to enable him to travel overseas, did the Minister take those protests into consideration when deciding the matter? Does he consider that passports should be issued to persons who wish to go overseas in order to engage in Communist party activities, and later to use the knowledge gained while abroad to further Communist work in this country ?

Mr HOLT:
Minister for Immigration · HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

page 1566

QUESTION

MALAYA

Mr WARD:
EAST SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Was the Prime Minister correctly reported as having stated that Australia’s investments in Malaya amounted in value to approximately £16,000,000 and that this constituted a vital national interest in that area? If he was correctly reported, is the Government contemplating any participation in any overseas military campaign, and does the right honorable gentleman consider that the defence of private investments anywhere warrants the loss of one Australian life?

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– I have not read in any of .the recognized newspapers any report to the effect that I had made any statement about Australian investments in Malaya. I have not made any statement about Australian investments in Malaya either recently or at any time. If, therefore, the honorable member did read some report in some journal, I should be glad if he would tell me the name of the journal later. I suspect its identity. Any such report is completely untrue.

page 1566

QUESTION

ROYAL AUSTRALIAN ATE FORCE

Dr DONALD CAMERON:
OXLEY, QUEENSLAND · LP

– In view of press reports that employees of the British Overseas Airways Corporation have complained to the management committee of the Aeronautical Engineers Association, following a recent explosion in a Corporation aircraft, that trade unions in Great Britain’s nationalized aviation industry are “riddled with Communists “, will the Minister for Air take adequate steps to ensure that there shall be no possibility of active Communists being employed in this country by the Royal Australian Air Force ?

Mr WHITE:
Minister for Air · BALACLAVA, VICTORIA · LP

– I did read an account of an explosion in an aircraft in Britain, which seemed to contain all the elements of a diabolical crime. Apparently the union believes that Communists in that organization were responsible, and it desires their expulsion. That is a most laudable desire and is something that this Government stands for, and will surely endeavour to carry out. As for communism in the Royal

Australian Air Force, I do not think it exists. The morale of that organization is high, and in the only case of sabotage which ha3 been discovered in recent months a man was tried, sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, and dismissed from the Service. We have the matter always under scrutiny both in the service and on the civil side.

page 1566

QUESTION

HEALTH AND MEDICAL SERVICES

Mr BIRD:
BATMAN, VICTORIA

– Has the Minister for Health read the leading article in the Melbourne Herald of the 17th April entitled “ Who is Delaying Medical Plan “, in which it is stated that all that ihe public actually knows at present is that it has been promised a medical scheme and that something or someone appears to he delaying it? In view of the fact that an impression is prevalent that the delay in the introduction of the new health legislation is due to the obstructionist tactics of the British Medical Association, will the Minister, in order to see that the matter is immediately clarified, accept the statement in the Herald’s leading article, that the merits of the latest plans cannot be discussed intelligently until the Government tells the people just what they are, and will he accept that journal’s advice that the Government should make an early statement because there can be no possible excuse for secrecy.

Sir EARLE PAGE:
CP

– The honorable member would know, if he were dealing with a human complication, that it should be dealt with in confidential consultation and not openly. That is the way in which negotiations are being carried on at the present time. The necessity for working in such a manner has been set out in this morning’s Melbourne Age, and also in the local press in which a letter dated the 1st March appears as though it were recent news. Before I came into the chamber to-day the secretary of the Pharmaceutical Service Guild of Australia, Mr. Evans, rang me to say that the contents of that letter, which was answered some seven weeks ago, was not disclosed with the knowledge of the guild or with its consent.

What I said in reply to that letter answers the honorable member’s question. My reply was -

Thank you for your letter.

The position of the scheme is still fluid as so many different matters have to be dovetailed into the general scheme and this takes considerable time.

Fortunately the position vis-a-vis the Pharmaceutical Guild is more advanced than most as I hope within a couple of weeks to have the full list of drugs determined by the specialists.

Upon receipt of this information, I shall contact you and fix a date for our meeting.

– May I point out that the difference between doctors and the wharf labourers in Brisbane is that the doctors have kept on working night and day, while the wharf labourers in Brisbane have left the ships and have not unloaded them. What the doctors may do in relation to their fees has nothing to do with the Australian Government. That is purely a domestic matter between the members of the British Medical Association and their patients.

page 1568

QUESTION

GRAIN SORGHUM

Mr SWARTZ:
DARLING DOWNS, QUEENSLAND

– As a decision was recently made to grant permits, under certain conditions, for the export of grain, sorghum from this season’s crop, would the Minister for Commerce and Agriculture advise the House of the number of such licences issued to date, first, for the whole of the Commonwealth, and secondly, for the State of Queensland. Also, in view of the anticipated good crop, especially in Queensland, and the comparative price of wheat and grain sorghum on the local market, does the Minister consider that there will be any relaxation of the conditions whereby export licences can be granted for 60 per cent of stock while the balance of 40 per cent, must be retained for the home market?

Mr McEWEN:
Minister for Commerce and Agriculture · MURRAY, VICTORIA · CP

– The honorable member reminds me that I made a statement some weeks ago on the policy to be applied in the issue of licences for the export of grain sorghum. That policy still stands. Authority has been granted for the issue of a number of licences. I cannot say the exact number, nor can I say without inquiry whether licences have been issued in every State, but I shall obtain the information and supply it to the honorable member. The percentages of 60 per cent, for export and 40 per cent, for home consumption were considered to be appropriate before complete knowledge of the volume of the crop was available. When complete figures are available, I shall review those percentages and, as the honorable member suggests, it may be possible to vary them.

page 1568

QUESTION

WATERFRONT EMPLOYMENT

Mr GRAHAM:
ST GEORGE, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I address to the Prime Minister a question about a proclamation issued by the GovernorGeneral recently, which related directly to industrial trouble on the Brisbane waterfront. Will that proclamation remain in force, or will it be revoked, in view of the fact that the industrial troubles in Brisbane have since ceased and the Communists have been dealt with in that city?

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– I was proposing to say something about that matter after question time, but I may conveniently deal with it in answer to the question by the honorable member for St. George. Some time before Easter, I announced to the House that a proclamation had been issued under the Crimes Act having regard to events on the waterfront in Queensland. Since the issue of that proclamation, the process of work on the waterfront has been restored. There has been continuity of operations, and, in point of fact on the matters which immediately gave rise to the dispute, the Waterside Workers Federation has gone back, to the judge, and certain proceedings before him are now pending. In other words, the industrial disturbance which provoked the proclamation has terminated, and, in those circumstances, the Government has decided to revoke it. As I indicated to honorable members when I made my announcement to the House some time before Easter, the position is that, under the Crimes Act, a proclamation’, once issued, continues until it is revoked. It will be revoked this afternoon. It is not desirable that emergency measures of that kind should continue after the expiration of the emergency, and, therefore, we propose to revoke the proclamation. Should any disturbance in future require corresponding action, the Government of course will know what to do.

Mr CREMEAN:
HODDLE, VICTORIA

– Is the Minister for Labour and National Service aware that there is an organization on the waterfront in Melbourne known as the Permanent and Casual Wharf Labourers Union? Is he also aware that the organization had its origin as a strikebreaking, or “ scab “, weapon, and that it has now merged into a Communistcontrolled union? Is he aware that a move has originated with the Communistcontrolled federal executive of the Waterside Workers Federation to swamp the anti-Communist Melbourne branch of the federation, and that the Permanent and Casual Wharf Labourers Union is the weapon to be used for this purpose? As part of the Communist plan is to increase the numerical strength of the “ scab “ union, will the Minister instruct the Australian Stevedoring Industry Board to refuse to grant a current application by the Permanent and Casual

Wharf Labourers Union for permission to increase its membership?

Mr HOLT:
LP

– I am familiar -with the history of the Permanent and Casual Wharf Labourers Union. We have had some discussion in this Parliament of its activities over recent years, and I have watched with interest the apparent transformation that has taken place in its character over the same period. I have had discussions recently with the secretary of the Victorian branch of the Waterside Workers Federation along the lines that have just been covered by the honorable member’s questions. Those representations are being examined, and I shall also take into consideration the suggestion that the honorable member has made.

page 1569

QUESTION

HOUSING

Dr NOTT:

– Can the Minister for Works and Housing give the House any indication of the progress that has been made by the mission that is now overseas investigating the possibility of obtaining wooden or prefabricated houses in Europe and the United Kingdom?

Mr CASEY:
LP

– I remind honorable gentlemen that the small mission that has gone overseas to investigate the matter of prefabricated housing is not a purchasing mission but a fact-finding mission. The mission reached Britain only a week or two ago and I have not received a preliminary report concerning its work. When I have anything to tell the House on the subject I shall, of course, do so at once.

Mr CHAMBERS:
ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– In view of the increasing cost of living, particularly in relation to foodstuffs, house rents and housing, and also in view of the great inroads made into the pensions of aged and invalid persons, will the Minister for National Development have an examination made of the British Government’s housing scheme for aged persons with a view to introducing such a scheme in Australia so that aged and invalid persons in this country can obtain housing at cheaper rents?

Mr CASEY:

– The mission that has gone to Britain to investigate the matter of prefabricated housing has already arrived in that country. I have asked it to obtain particulars of the scheme to which the honorable member has referred so that the Australian Government may be informed on the subject.

page 1569

QUESTION

FLOOD DAMAGE RELIEF

Mr DAVIES:
CUNNINGHAM, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I direct a question to the Prime Minister relative to the unfortunate position of a number of miners and retired miners residing in the Scarborough area on the south coast of New South Wales, where a terrific landslide occurred, which took many houses with it. Is it a fact that many miners and retired miners have had their homes wrecked, in many instances beyond repair, and have lost their whole life savings? Is it also a fact that a committee appointed by the Government is at present going around assessing the damage done to the property of farmers as a result of the recent floods, with a view to granting farmers financial assistance to repair the damage? Will the Prime Minister consider the advisability of extending the scope of the committee’s functions to take in the industrial area of Scarborough and to provide for an assessment to be made of the damage there, with a view to financial aid being granted to the miners and retired miners on the same basis as the assistance to be granted to farmers?

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– I am not familiar with the unfortunate incident to which the honorable member has referred. In the case of flood damage in both New South Wales and Victoria, I received applications from the Premiers of those States, who drew attention to the nature of the losses that had occurred. The Government agreed to co-operate with those States in taking some action in the matter - not to repair all the damage done to individual citizens, but to deal with cases of genuine personal hardship that might have arisen. I do not know that I have had any communication from the Premier of New South Wales about the matter to which the honorable member has referred, but if the honorable member would be so good as to give me any papers that he may have on the matter I shall be very glad to examine it.

page 1570

QUESTION

PETROL

Mr GILMORE:
LEICHHARDT, QUEENSLAND

– As in many instances the first port of call for oil tankers from overseas is one of the ports in northern Queensland, would the Prime Minister investigate why the retail price of petrol and oil is higher in northern Queensland than in any other part of Australia ?

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– I have a few general ideas upon that matter, hut perhaps it is not to the point to offer them. The best thing for me to do is to confer with the Minister for Fuel, Shipping and Transport and obtain a particular reply for the honorable member from him.

page 1570

QUESTION

COMMUNISM

Dr. Hewlett Johnson

Mr GULLETT:
HENTY, VICTORIA

– Has the Minister for Immigration read the speeches of the Very Reverend Dr. Hewlett Johnson ? If so, does he agree that those speeches are untrue and are a mischievous form of propaganda ? Is the Minister aware that the Communist party has arranged the meetings for Dr. Johnson ? Does he know whether there is any connexion between the so-called “ peace front “ in Australia and the Communist party? Will he consider overhauling the laws relating to immigration and entry into this country, in such a way as to prevent people from coming here to disseminate Communist propaganda under the guise of religion, as in this instance, or, indeed, under any other guise?

Mr HOLT:
LP

– I have not had the opportunity nor the time to study the speeches that have been delivered in Australia by Dr. Hewlett Johnson; but I have no doubt in my own mind about the real character of the so-called Australian peace congress. In common with similar gatherings that have been held in other parts of the world the Australian peace congress, using the language of peace, has become part of the new Communist technique for the new Communist front. We have no doubt that this method is being employed to further the propaganda and techniques of communism. The honorable member has asked whether I shall have the immigration laws reviewed to see whether it is possible to prevent people from coming to Australia to state views which might encourage Communist propaganda. I see very great practical difficulties in attempting to adopt the course which the honorable member has proposed, particularly as it would necessitate officers of my department making themselves familiar with the views of all sorts of people who may desire to come to this country. The practice which I have adopted in this instance, and would adopt in similar appropriate cases, was to inquire of the Security Service whether any security objection was taken to the Dean’s visit to Australia. The Dean possesses a British passport. I was assured by the officers of the Security Service that no security objection was raised to his mission in Australia. They said that his pro-Soviet views were so widely known that his presence here would merely focus attention on the real character of the congress which he is attending.

page 1570

QUESTION

SENATOR W. MORROW

Mr WENTWORTH:
MACKELLAR, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Has the Prime Minister noticed reports in the press to the effect that Senator Morrow has been attending and supporting the Australian peace congress? If these reports are correct, in view of the fact that the Australian Labour party has declared the congress to be a Communist front, is the Prime Minister of the opinion that Senator Morrow’s support of this congress indicates that his connexions with the Communist party are closer than has generally been realized, that his connexion with the Australian Labour party is less close than has been generally realized, or that the opposition of the Labour party to communism is merely a policy of expediency which may be relaxed in certain circumstances?

Mr Rosevear:

– I rise to order. As not one portion of the honorable member’s question has anything to do with the Prime Minister or his department, I submit that the question is out of order.

Mr Wentworth:

– Speaking to the point of order, the question of communism is one of public policy of the very greatest importance and all aspects of it concern the Prime Minister.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I shall leave it to the Prime Minister to judge whether or not he should answer the question. So far as I am concerned it is in order.

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– Remarkable as it may seem, I am disposed to think that each of the three alternatives stated in the question asked by the honorable member is correct.

page 1571

QUESTION

RAIL TRANSPORT

Mr TURNBULL:
MALLEE, VICTORIA

– I direct a question to the Minister for National Development. With a view to decentralization and development, will the right honorable gentleman consider co-operating with the States concerned in the provision of adequate railway services to Portland, Victoria, including the construction of a link line from Patchewollock to Ouyen, so that when the breakwater at Portland is completed products from the eastern portion of .South Australia and the western portion of Victoria may be shipped from this decentralized port?

Mr CASEY:
LP

– I should regard that matter as one for determination solely by the State governments concerned. If it is a matter of collaboration between the Australian Government and the Governments of those two States-

Mr Turnbull:

– That is what I ask for.

Mr CASEY:

– My knowledge of the subject is inadequate. I fail to see how the Australian Government could come into a matter of that kind. It seems to me to he a matter for the Government of Victoria or one for collaboration between the Governments of South Australia and Victoria. If the honorable member will give me further information on the subject I shall be glad to look into his proposal.

page 1571

QUESTION

COMMONWEALTH ADVERTISEMENTS

Mr EDGAR RUSSELL:
GREY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– I desire to address a question to you, Mr. Speaker. When flying from Adelaide to Canberra this morning by Trans-Australia Airlines Skymaster, on which were politicians of various political creeds, I carefully read a copy of to-day’s Adelaide Advertiser, a journal which I know is deemed in some quarters to be thoroughly reliable, but which I admit is not responsible for framing the advertisements which appear in its columns. Page 22 of that journal contains an advertisement inviting applications for the tenancy of a dry canteen at the works hostel at Turner, Canberra. The advertisement appears over the authority of “ Nelson Lemmon, Minister for Works and Housing”. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether, in your opinion, this is a case in which the quotation, “ coming events cast their shadows before “, would be quite applicable?

Mr SPEAKER:

– I have not seen the advertisement to which the honorable member has referred, but I assure him that the resurrection is still some distance off.

PENSIONS

Mr WILSON:
STURT, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– Has the Prime Minister read the report of the recent conference of the age pensioners association in which certain proposals are put forward for meeting the anomalies in the legislation in relation to invalid and age pensions which are causing great hardship to age pensioners? If he has not seen the report, will the Prime Minister examine* the relevant resolutions, have them investigated and see whether certain necessary steps can be taken to remove the anomalies ?

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– I have not seen the report referred to by the honorable member, but I shall obtain a copy of it and have it investigated.

Mr CURTIN:

– Prior to the recent parliamentary recess, I asked the Government to consider making a cash grant of £10- each to age, invalid and widow pensioners in order to alleviate their distress immediately. The Minister for Supply promised me that he would refer the matter to Cabinet for its consideration. Will the Prime Minister now inform the House whether Cabinet has considered my request and, if so, whether it has reached a decision?

Mr MENZIES:

– Various questions that relate to pensions and pensioners are engaging- the attention of Cabinet, which will lay its proposals before the Parliament or announce its decisions as soon as it is in a position to do so.

page 1573

QUESTION

PRODUCTION

Mr TOM BURKE:

– The Prime Minister has asked that the co-operation of the Opposition be extended to the Government in its efforts to ensure greater production by the trade union movement. If the right honorable gentleman expects to get that cooperation, which indeed will be forthcoming, will he consult with the Opposition before he brings down legislation to which the organized trade union movement has deep-rooted objections?

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– I have too much respect for the trade union movement to assume that it has a deep-seated objection to proposed legislation that it has not yet seen. That legislation will be explained when it has been drafted and introduced, and I am confident enough to believe that it will enjoy the support of hundreds of thousands of trade unionists.

Mr WARD:

– Can the Prime Minister’s statement that failure to put value back into the £1 arises from the failure to increase production be taken as an indication that the Government’s plans for stepping up production have completely failed? If so, will the Government now give favorable consideration to the introduction of a system of rigid profit control as an incentive to improved production ?

Mr MENZIES:

– The answer to the first question is “ No “, and therefore the second question does not arise.

page 1574

CIVIL AVIATION

Mr WHITE:
Minister for Air and Minister for Civil Aviation · Balaclava · LP

. - by leave - Earlier in the session I undertook to obtain for the honorable member for Bass (Mr. Kekwick) certain information concerning the alleged inadequacy of the air service to Flinders Island. I have now obtained the required information and present it to the House. The matter of air services to Flinders Island has been discussed with Australian National Airways Proprietary Limited, the regular operator of the service to that island, and also with Mr. W. T. Dwyer, who operates an occasional service. Prior to September, 1948, Australian National Airways Proprietary Limited operated between Launceston and Flinders Island thrice weekly, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but, owing to the poor loadings on the whole service, the Wednesday service was discontinued in that month. The prospects of re-introducing the Wednesday service have been discussed with the company, which has advised that during the six months ended the 31st December, 1949, the loadings on the twice-weekly service were -

Launceston to Flinders Island. - 1,17’J scats available; 433 passengers carried.

Flinders Island to Launceston. - 1,17’J seats available; 434 passengers carried.

The company has stated, and the figures that I have just quoted certainly indicate, that a service three times a week could not be justified at present, and, with the winter season so near, there appears to be even less justification than previously for increasing the frequency of operation of the service.

Mr Calwell:

– It appears that private enterprise has failed.

Mr WHITE:

– On the contrary! If the honorable member is air-minded, he should encourage more people to travel by air. The question whether the Commonwealth should subsidize the service has been examined, but, as a twice-weekly service is now being operated, there is no justification for a Commonwealth subsidy.

page 1574

COMMONWEALTH BANK BILL 1950

Second Reading

Debate resumed from the 30th March (vide page 1479), on motion by Mr. Fadden -

That the bill be now rend a second time.

Mr GULLETT:
Henty

– I make no claim to any expert knowledge on the subject of banking-

Mr Calwell:

– Hear, hear!

Mr GULLETT:

– And that is about the only thing that I have in common with the former Minister! For that reason, my incursion” into this debate will be of the briefest nature. I rise because, like other honorable members on this side, I see in this bill the embodiment of some of the very first principles on which the Government parties went to the people during the election campaign last December. We on this side of the House are intensely gratified to see some of the Government’s electoral promises being put into tangible form so early in its history. I do not want to deal in detail with any of the component parts of the bill, and I propose to refer principally to its main objectives which are, first, the expansion of the activities of the Commonwealth Bank ; and, secondly, the establishment of a board to control the conduct of the bank in the soundest and best possible way.. I am sure that there is no disagreement anywhere in this House concerning the desirability of the first objective. All of us are equally agreed that it is most important that the people’s bank should be encouraged in every way to expand in such a manner as will enable it to meet the growing demands upon it. Earlier in this debate, certain members of the Opposition were pleased to say that members of this Government had never believed in the Commonwealth Bank, but they must have known that their statements were very far from the truth. I am sorry that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Chifley) lent some force to the totally specious argument that the Government intended to hamper the activities of the Commonwealth Bank. Such talk, as the honorable member for Fremantle (Mr. Beazley) observed in his speech, adds nothing to the debate; it merely unjustly caricatures the arguments of Opposition members. I dismiss it as so much political propaganda in the narrowest sense for we are in complete agreement that the expansion of the bank is a good thing. It is on the proposition to set up a board of governors to control the policy of this bank that the House is divided.

The Government believes that this great bank, upon which the efficient functioning of the whole financial policy of this country depends, can be efficiently, continuously and properly run, only by a properly constituted board. It does not believe that one person can do the job. The Government has embodied that belief in this bill. The Opposition pretends that it is opposed to the setting up of a board, but I have yet to hear one honorable member opposite advance one good reason against such a proposal. The Opposition pretends that it is opposed to boards in general, but boards were made use of in nearly every government instrumentality that the previous Government set up. There has always been a military board to conduct the affairs of the Army, and a Naval Board to conduct the affairs of the Royal Australian Navy. We also have an Apple and Pear Marketing Board, an Australian Wool Board, and many other boards. Many boards were set up by the previous Government because it knew that great Commonwealth undertakings could be best and most easily administered over a period of years by a board. In the course of ite own legislative programme last year the Chifley Government brought in a hill to set up and regulate the shipping industry. The instrumentality chosen to implement that legislation was, in fact, the Australian Shipping Board. This Government says that as it is with shipping, marketing, and the armed services, so also it should be with the very important operation of banking.

I can understand, but I can see no justification for, the resolute opposition to the setting up of a Commonwealth Bank Board. I ask myself, as other honorable members and citizens have asked themselves, what prompts the Opposition so bitterly to oppose the setting up of the board. The Leader of the Opposition said that he feared the setting up of boards because persons appointed to them could not be independent. To use his own words, he said -

I have never yet known any one appointed to a bank board to be an independent person.

Why should any one so appointed be an independent person? Appointees to other boards are not independent persons. On the Australian Wool Board there are representatives of growers, of the Government, of taxpayers and of the consumers. The same principle applies to the Australian Shipping Board. The marketing boards of this country also embrace a diversity of representation. The Commonwealth Bank Board will be possibly the most important body in Australia excepting this Parliament and the High Court. In its hands will lie the financial well-being and stability of this country. It will also administer the broad policy covering the activities of the trading banks. That being so, surely it is reasonable that the governing body of the bank should be composed of representatives who will be able to put the views of all those sections of the people vitally interested in the functions of the bank. Therefore, it is only natural that we should find on this board representatives, for example, of the banks, of the citizens, and of labour. They should all be represented on the bank because they are vitally interested. The proposition advanced by the Opposition is that the only people on this board should be Commonwealth civil servants. If that is so then no one will have any share in the financial administration of this country other than permanent civil servants and the Government itself. Such a point of view is fantastic. For this great bank to be run efficiently there should be the widest possible representation on the board.

The Leader of the Opposition made great play of his fear that those appointed to the board would not necessarily be independent. It does not matter twopence if they are not independent as long as the representation is wide enough to cover all sections of the community. If the Leader of the Opposition is so keen on independent representation why did he not carry out that policy when he was in office? A look at some of the appointments made by the previous Government will show whether independence of politics or interests guided the Government in making such appointments. We need look no further than the appointment of the head of the instrumentality in question, the Commonwealth Bank. Dr. Coombs was appointed to that position. I have not made it a practice to attack public servants in this House and I do not wish to do so in this instance because I know Dr. Coombs, and what I know of him I like. I greatly respect him as does everybody who knows anything about him. He is a man of the highest integrity and of great capacity. However, it is absolutely ridiculous to pretend, and never have I heard it pretended, that Dr. Coombs is any other than a doctrinaire socialist, and that he was put in control of the Commonwealth Bank because he was one of the few men in the country capable of doing the job that the Government required to be done. That was the nationalizing and socializing of the trading banks. There was not the faintest pretence of disinterestedness or independence in the last Government’s appointment of Dr. Coombs. It appointed a straight out fellow-traveller of its own political philosophy, and for any member of tie Opposition to talk about the necessity for obtaining independent people for this board is the veriest piece of humbug, because when the Opposition was in power its only desire was to appoint a man who would do exactly what he was told, not because he did not have the courage to stand up to the Government, but because his own political socialist philosophy was identical with that of those who appointed him.

Mr Fraser:

– Is the Government going to leave him in control?

Mr GULLETT:

– The honorable member has raised the very point I wish to discuss. As he knows, this Government intends to retain Dr. Coombs as Chairman of the Commonwealth Bank Board. I have already said what I think of Dr. Coombs. I have said that he is a most capable and most upright officer. However, since honorable members opposite have made such scathing attacks upon those whom they guess will be appointed to the board, it is only fair to say that, while I do not disagree with the proposal to appoint Dr. Coombs as Chairman of the Commonwealth Bank Board, I believe that he will find it very difficult, as a doctrinaire socialist, to reconcile his duties with his beliefs. I shall be interested to see how the matter turns out. The attitude of Dr. Coombs to the trading banks is the attitude of the lion to the lamb. The banks are there to be gobbled up and to be made part of the socialist system. I shall be very interested to see how a man who holds that belief can effectively operate the Commonwealth Bank in the way this Government intends it to be operated, and so that the trading banks may stay in existence.

I cannot help commenting on the manner in which honorable members opposite have conducted themselves in this debate. To hear them talk, one would thing that the subject of banking and the relation between the Commonwealth Bank and the trading banks, were matters completely new to this Parliament. One would certainly not believe that only a little more than a year ago we were debating these very matters in the House, or that, on the 10th December, the people of Australia delivered a verdict on the issue so emphatic that even honorable members opposite can hardly have forgotten it. In their hearts, they know that what the Government is doing now is what the people of Australia wish them to do, and that the proposals which the Labour party are advancing are the very proposals which brought destruction upon it. When this House last considered banking legislation just about eighteen months ago, the position of the parties was almost exactly reversed. The present Opposition was in office, with a record majority, and the proposal that the Labour Government put to the House, and ultimately to the people, was that the trading banks should be nationalized, and that one supreme national banking authority should be set up. Upon those proposals the people delivered their verdict, as a result of which the Opposition is where we see it to-day. The Labour party is out of office, and is represented in this House by a truncated remnant. The Labour party’s banking legislation was the rock upon which the last Government foundered, and the foundation stone upon which the fortunes of the present Government are being built. It is evident, therefore, that honorable members opposite, in opposing the present bill, are engaging in bogus political manoeuvring. They know the will of the people. They also know that the Labour party has a majority in the Senate. If they truly believe that the Government’s banking proposals, including the appointment of a Commonwealth Bank Board, are not in the best interests of the people they have their remedy. By using their majority in the Senate they can at any time force the Government to go to the country. I hope they will do so, because I am sure that what happened to the Labour party on the 10th December last was a small thing compared with what will happen to it if it invites the decision of the people a second time on this issue. Therefore, I say, let us have less posturing and time-wasting, less talk about the last depression, and less putting up of straw men to be knocked down again. If honorable members opposite are sincere, let them arrange with their colleagues in the Senate to throw the bill out. Let them go to the country, and see what will happen. The Government’s banking proposals are based upon first principles, and upon issues that we took to the country. This Government was elected upon an issue that rang a bell in the hearts of the people. Therefore, I support this bill, confident that it has the support of the people. I trust that honorable members opposite will not waste further time in this debate, and I am confident that they will not give the people another opportunity to vote on the issue.

Mi. FITZGERALD (Phillip) [3.52].- This bill relates to the control of the Commonwealth Bank, which may properly be regarded as the Labour party’s heritage. [Quorum formed.] 1 should have thought that at this critical period, when the Prime Minister (Mr, Menzies) has called for the co-operation of members of all parties, the Government would have refrained from introducing a measure of this kind. Th«s honorable member for Henty (Mr. Gullett) challenged the Labour party to throw the bill out when it came before the Senate. I assure the honorable member that the Labour party will adopt that course. The Government has introduced this measure with indecent haste. As a matter of fact, the banking screw is already being tightened. Credit is being restricted, and higher interest rates are in the offing. In this movement, the Commonwealth Bank is playing its part with the trading banks. Advances for home-building are being curtailed. Cooperative societies that have been in existence for years are being refused accommodation by the Commonwealth Bank, as well as by the trading banks and insurance companies. It is not suggested that there is not plenty of money available for investment. The recent Commonwealth loan shows exactly the amount that the insurance companies had available for subscription, but there is no money for building or developmental works, because it is the intention of the Government to take action to increase interest rates in the near future, and the wealthy financial institutions want to be in for the kill.

The Government should have considered other matters bef ore it introduced this bill. The basic wage has increased by 8s. a week in some of the major States since this Government assumed office, and the high cost of living is inflicting severe hardship upon those unfortunate people who are trying to exist upon their meagre pensions. Their dire plight should have been given priority by the Government in its legislative programme, but it has made the big financial interests its main concern. A fortnight after the Government was elected to office, the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited, which is one of the great allies of the Liberal party and the Australian Country party increased the price of steel by £2 a ton, and I am led to believe that that increase will yield to that wealthy organization a profit of £2,000,000 a year. The Government was not satisfied with rendering that service to one of its supporters before it gave some consideration to the dire plight of pensioners, and it proceeded hastily to introduce legislation to re-establish the Commonwealth Bank Board. The Government desires to repay its debts to the private banks which provided the antiLabour parties with funds for the recent election campaign. Bank managers wrote articles in local newspapers, and special scare letters were sent to depositors about the intentions of the Labour party. I had believed prior to that time that one of the fundamental points of policy of a bank was to preserve secrecy about its deposits. However, the banks employed canvassers who disseminated the lies about which the Leader of the Opposition has spoken so indignantly. They had polling booth workers in considerable numbers, outside and inside, approaching people to vote against the Labour party candidates. Such circumstances had never before been heard of. The Labour party believes that the assistance which the Liberal party and the Australian Country party received during the election campaign has prompted and even forced the Government to introduce this bill as a means of paying off those people who were responsible for its return to office.

The Labour party is opposed to the re-appointment of a Commonwealth Bank Board. The Treasurer (Mr. Fadden) and the Government possess all the authority that they require to control the Commonwealth Bank, and the Labour party will not allow this or any other government to shackle the people, or impede the progress of this nation for an indefinite period. The national development will be retarded if the control of the Commonwealth Bank is vested in the board which will act in the interests of the private banks. This Government has no mandate to attempt to govern in perpetuity, or to set in motion any financial machinery that would place the people in thrall for an indefinite period.

If the control of the Commonwealth Bank were vested in a board, the Labour party would need to win a majority of Senate seats in every State in successive elections in order to change that form of control of banking. I realize that the Government desires to bring about circumstances under which the Labour party would be forced into that position before it could undo the damage that the bank board could do. Indeed, I venture to say that it would be impossible for a Labour government to remain in office for more than one term. Honorable members opposite have referred to the Australian Shipping Board, the Military Board, and similar authorities in somewhat derogatory terms, yet they are most anxious to reconstitute the Commonwealth Bank Board. Mr. Reginald McKenna, a former Chancellor of the British Exchequer and chairman of the Midland Bank emphasized the importance of the control of credit when he said -

They -who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.

Mr. David Lloyd George, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during World War I., referred to bankers as absolute monarchs. He said -

The bankers swept statesmen, parliamentarians, jurists and journalists all on one side and issued their orders with the imperiousness of absolute monarchs who knew that there was no appeal from their ruthless decrees.

Similar conditions could exist in Australia if this Government’s banking proposals were given effect to because a Labour government could not easily undo the damage. The Labour party is opposed to this bill, because it believes that the Government has no mandate to constitute an authority which would govern Australia in perpetuity.

Some honorable members opposite have issued a challenge to the Labour party on this bill. They have said, in effect, “Interfere with this bill, and there will be a double dissolution “. We on this side of the House believe that the reestablishment of the Commonwealth Bank Board might result in placing the people of Australia in pawn for years to come, and, in those circumstances, we are prepared to accept that challenge. Government supporters have referred, somewhat belatedly, to the excellent achievements of the Commonwealth Bank, but I think that it will be advisable if I refresh their memories. I cannot do better than read a passage from a speech by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Chifley) in which he described the great work of the Commonwealth Bank and showed how it had saved the people of Australia vast sums of money. He said that the institution had stopped the rake-off and huge profits which anti-Labour governments had been so anxious to pass on to their numerous wealthy friends, the financial institutions. The right honorable gentleman continued as follows: -

I enumerate some of the things that the Commonwealth Bank has clone, many of them under the provisions of the 1945 Act. The Commonwealth Bank has controlled interest rates and has prevented primary producers and other persons from being robbed. It has provided short-dated treasury bills at very low rates of interest ranging from 1 per cent, down to, I think, a half of 1 per cent, at present. Whenever the Government required temporary advances to carry on the administration of the country it did not have to go to the private banks and pay, as it did when Sir Earle Page was Treasurer, interest of per cent, on three-month treasury bills.

At the peak period of borrowing, the Australian Government owed the Commonwealth Bank £343,000,000 on treasury bills. That sum had been advanced by the Commonwealth Bank at low rates of interest to carry on the war and the business of this country. The private banks would have made millions of pounds profit if they had supplied that money. During the period when I was Treasurer the debt of £343.000,000 was reduced to £105,000.000.

During and since the war, the Commonwealth Bank assisted the Treasury to float loans. Not one penny was subscribed by a private bank, because the Labour Government would not allow private banks to contribute to a national loan.

The right honorable member for Barton (Dr. Evatt) referred to the achievements of the Commonwealth Bank in the following terms : -

Let me mention a word about what the Commonwealth Bank did in connexion with advances in respect of primary products between September, 1939, and September, 1945, that is, the six years of the Second World War. The Commonwealth Bank then made advances totalling no less than £812,000,000 under the various financial arrangements covering such primary products as wheat, meat, butter and cheese, eggs, apples and pears, barley, rabbit skins, peas, and products like tea and coffee and wool sheepskins. That shows the magnitude of the achievements of the Commonwealth Bank during the war years.

What a great rake-off for the private banks if they had lent that money. We shall advise the people of Australia of the system honorable members on the Government benches desire to see operating. On behalf of their numerous friends in the financial world and a3 a repayment for the great work that those friends did to secure the return of the present Government parties during the last general election campaign, honorable gentlemen opposite intend to re-establish a system under which private financial institutions would have made huge profits. The Banking Act 1945 give the Commonwealth Bank general jurisdiction over the advances policy of the private banks and also the power to decide whether their lending should be restricted or increased in the public interest. It also gave the Commonwealth Bank the power to determine what rates of interest the private banks are to pay and receive. Under that act the Commonwealth Bank also regulates the surplus investable funds of the private banks and authorizes the payment of a very low rate of interest on the large sum that it at present holds for the private banks. I know that the 1945 act will not be altered so far as its actual wording is concerned, hut if the means of effective control of the bank are removed the private banks can regain their former position.

The people of this country are not likely to be deluded by the Government’s statements to the effect that the 1945 act will not be altered, because they are aware of what lies behind the Government’s present moves. They know that the Government intends to place the people of this country once more in pawn to the private banks and to thu people who have so shackled this country with huge interest burdens over a period of years. It was stated in the last election campaign that the women of Australia were the camels of this country because of the huge burdens that they had to carry. Such burdens will be nothing to the financial burdens that the people will have to carry if the Government has its way. I shall show how much this country is in pawn through high interest rates. In 1888 the New South Wales

I hope that the Government, when framing its referendum proposals, will include a provision that will enable the people of this country to continue to manage their affairs and to have sufficient power to tell a government that it cannot go any further, and, if possible to revoke legislation, because that dead horse to which the Leader of the Opposition referred is in the track of Australian progress and is causing people overseas to lose confidence in us. Although it does not come within the ambit of this bill, I hope that the Government will see that the referendum proposals will be designed to protect the people against another raid on their savings and on the private trading interests of this country.

Mr CREMEAN:
Hoddle

.- When the Treasurer (Mr. Fadden) was introducing this bill he stated that measures of such great importance should not be approached in a partisan spirit and that the primary principle was that legislation affecting the Commonwealth Bank should not be subject to frequent or violent change. I desire to examine the reasons which have animated the Government and those which have caused the Opposition to consider that this bill is not in the interests of the national economy. The honorable member for Gwydir (Mr. Treloar), who has just resumed his seat, expressed the desirability of approaching this matter in a nonpartisan spirit. Yet the fears to which the Treasurer gave utterance and the statements that he made on this subject were the highlight of partisanship. , Honorable members supporting the Government apparently regard it as their priceless privilege in life to refer to such things as “Raids upon trading banks “, “ Raids upon other types of banks “, and “ The inculcation of socialistic doctrines “ as a good argument. I should have thought that in order to be correct, logical and precise they should have shown that the present administration of the Commonwealth Bank had done something inimical to the Commonwealth’s interest; that it had failed to justify its existence and that as at present constituted, it had committed errors in administration or policy which had made it due for such a violent and summary overhaul as this measure represents. No reasons of that nature have been produced, so I say that there is no justification for the bill.

Violent change is connoted in this legislation and it means another deviation from the character given to the Commonwealth Bank when it was founded in 1911. There is no justification for that violent change. The Commonwealth Bank, in its present form, is strictly a continuation of the original institution, which was born in the Commonwealth Parliament in 1911. Despite its vicissitudes over the years, the Commonwealth

Bank has become a symbol in the minds of the people. At times its operations have been adverse to the interests of the great majority of the people but, in the main, it has retained the vital principle of being operated and controlled by the people except for the period that commenced in 1924, when its complexion was changed. In order to justify the introduction of this bill, the Treasurer should have shown that since 1945, when the bank reverted almost to its original character, it had done something which had not been justified in the interests of the working people and all other people of this Commonwealth. Such proof cannot be and has not been produced because the record of the Commonwealth Bank since 1945 has been a truly magnificent one. Its record from 1911 to 1924 also was a magnificent one, but from 1924, when it lost its original identity and became a bank which was at variance with the people’s interests, it was one which it may not be desirable to inject into this debate. I agree with the statement of the Treasurer that the determination of monetary policy should be a collective responsibility but contest his contention that this bill gives full effect to that principle. It does not, but on the contrary takes away from an efficient authority its right to make a decision, subject to consideration by the government of the day. There is nothing in this bill which gives to the Parliament the right to alter, amend, or reject any of the decisions which the board to be constituted might make. The mere laying on the table of this House of an Executive Council minute does not give that right to this Parliament of the people. A hypocritical argument is engendered in this discussion when it is asserted that the bill contains something that it lacks. I affirm the negative proposition and say positively that there is no such thing in this bill, which merely provides for a reversion to the old type of board which functioned in this Commonwealth from 1924 until 1945 and which did not give a very great service to the people of this country.

I can quite understand why honorable members now supporting the (government endeavour to ascribe to my party a great deal of personal opposition to the trading banks. I consider that that opposition is justified. The Commonwealth Bank exists, in principle, for the good of the people generally; but the trading banks, which will be the motivating force behind the newly constituted Bank Board, observe an entirely different principle, namely the pursuit of private gain. I submit to honorable members that the passage of this bill will be inimical to the welfare of the Commonwealth. The Labour party makes no secret of its opposition to it and to the private trading banks.

Reference has been made during the course of the debate to the attitude of the trading banks to the elected representatives of the people in the recent election campaign. Evidence has been submitted to show that large sums of money were expended in order that the representatives of the working people might be displaced from their honoured positions in this House. The campaign was directed against me just as it was directed against every other Labour candidate. We expect such opposition and rejoice in it, yet the level to which our enemies sank during the election campaign was something to be wondered at and despised. Even though the Labour party’s strength in this House was reduced, it still constitutes a vigorous Opposition and will continue to defend the rights of the people during the life of this Parliament. Considering the alliance of the trading banks with the non-Labour parties, one would not expect to receive from a Liberal member of Parliament a testimonial to the activities of the banks in opposition to those who disagree with their policy of alliance with non-Labour parties. Yet I received such a communication from a Liberal party member of a State parliament, and I take great pleasure in reading it to the House. I received the letter recently from Mr. John Lech te, the Liberal member for Oakleigh in the Victorian Legislative Assembly.

Mr McLeay:

– Ex-Liberal !

Mr CREMEAN:

– He had not been expelled from the Liberal party when he wrote this letter. It was addressed to mc personally, and this is what it disclosed concerning the anti-Labour activities of the trading banks -

As I understand that you will be continuing the debate on the Banking Bill when the House resumes, I thought the following may be of interest to you.

Mr HAWORTH:
ISAACS, VICTORIA

– Was that addressed to the honorable member ?

Mr CREMEAN:

– Yes, and I am reading it now so that the people of Australia may realize the depths to which the trading banks can sink in their opposition to members of parties that disagree with them. The letter continued -

During the last week in February of this year, the Oakleigh State Electorate Committee of the Liberal and’ Country party held a meeting in the Public Hall, Murrumbeena. 1 waa in the building and heard all that wenton although I was not observed. The meeting was attended by Mr. McKinnon and Mr. McConnell, President and Secretary respectively of the Victorian Liberal and Country party. McKinnon and McConnell told the Electorate Committee that even if I were endorsed by the electorate, headquarters would see to it that I was expelled. At this stage, a close friend of mine, Mr. Roy Curtis, Head Teller of the Commercial Bank, Oakleigh, said, “1 do not care what you do, I shall work for Mr. Lechte and intend to form a committee at once to organise his campaign “. To this McConnell replied “We will see about that”. The rest of the meeting is of no importance.

A fortnight later, on a Friday afternoon, Mr. Curtis received instructions from the Head Office to pack his belongings and be prepared to move on Monday. He was not able to find out over the week-end where he was to go, but, on Monday morning, was informed that he was on his way to Sale. He is at present stationed there and has not been in Oakleigh since. 1 make no comment but know that you will be able to draw your own conclusions as to what happened. I would only add this that having had first hand knowledge of the lengths to which the Banks and the Liberal party are prepared to co-operate in an endeavour to crush all who challenge their power, I should think twice before again taking part in any campaign to save these institutions from nationalization.

You are at liberty to make use of these facts in any way you think fit. (Signed)- John LECHTE

The people of Australia can draw from that their own conclusions about the relationship between the Liberal-Country party and the trading banks, whose sole objective is to crush the Commonwealth Bank. Australia has little to gain from this bill if it will bring about a reversion to the conditions that came into existence when a board was established in 1924 to control the activities of the Commonwealth Bank.

My mind is drawn back irresistibly to the days of the economic depression. The policy of the Commonwealth Bank at that time, under the direction of a board, was merely an expression of trading bank policy, and, as a consequence, the Commonwealth Bank was able to call the tune to the government of the day. Such a state of affairs will recur if this bill is allowed to become law. I remind honorable members of the occasion when the late Mr. E. G. Theodore, as the Treasurer of the day, asked the Commonwealth Bank Board to provide the Government with sufficient funds to enable it to ward off the worst effects of depression. The story has been told frequently, but it is worth repeating for the sake of emphasizing the truth that it exemplifies. The chairman of the Commonwealth Bank Board at that time, Sir Robert Gibson, replied to Mr. Theodore in these terms -

Subject to adequate and equitable reductions in all wages, salaries and allowances, pensions, social benefits of all kinds, interest and other factors which affect the cost of living, the Commonwealth Bank Board will actively cooperate with the trading banks and the Governments of Australia in sustaining industry and restoring employment.

The truth was that an outside body was able to dictate the policy of the Government of the day. By refusing to grant the financial accommodation that the Government sought, the Commonwealth Bank Board considerably accentuated the most drastic effects of the economic depression. I live in an industrial suburb and represent people who work for their living and, therefore, would be subject to the first and most severe effects of any policy of financial strangulation. I submit most earnestly to this House that any reversion to the old system of board control of the Commonwealth Bank would be inimical to the interests of those people and others like them who constitute a great majority of the population. The board proposed in the hill will be almost identical with the board that functioned so disastrously for the working people during the years of depression.

It is all very well for members of the Government and their supporters to say, as did the honorable member for Gwydir, that the depression was an act of God and that it would have occurred in any case. The fact is that the worst effects of the depression would never have reached Australia if the Commonwealth Bank Board had done its duty. My mind recalls the pitiful daily tramp of unemployed men and women in search of work from factory to factory, from office to office and from door to door. If this Government persists with the bill and the same chain of events ia repeated, it will pave the way for the introduction in Australia of communism on a large scale. A return to the conditions of the economic depression would cause many men who have no deep rooted faith to adopt the tenets of communism. The Government will do a grave disservice to the people of Australia if it alters in any way the present system of management and control of the Commonwealth Bank. What is wrong with the present system? Has it failed in any way that would justify the proposed change? The Treasurer declared that the object of the bill is to prevent violent changes. The truth is that the enactment of this legislation will cause a violent change. In 1911 the Commonwealth Bank was managed by a Governor and a Deputy Governor. It functioned successfully then. It wass able to finance war loans during World War I. at the rate of “>s. 7d. per cent, when the supposedly charitably disposed private banking institutions were prepared to do so at the rate of £2 3s. 6d. per cent. In that way it saved the nation many millions of pounds. During World War II., the Commonwealth Bank, operating almost in its present circumstances, was a bulwark that guaranteed the financial safety of the country. No sound reason has been advanced for the change in the constitution of the bank management that the Government now proposes. I honestly believe that the bill represents an effort on the part of the Government to pay off the debt that it owes to the private banks for the support that they gave to it during the election campaign last year;

The honorable member for Gwydir said that the depression was an act of God. I remind him of the following passage in paragraph 565 of the report of the royal commission that inquired into monetary and banking systems : -

Along with other parts of the system, the trading banks must bear some responsibility for the extent of the depression.

In the more prosperous times preceding the depression, they went with the tide and expanded credit. There was then no central bank to guide their policy, but, even in its absence, the banks might have taken concerted action which would have helped to check the boom, and thereby lessened the extent of the depression. At the outset of the depression the trading banks, in the interest of their depositors and of their own solvency, were forced by the general conditions and by the reduction of their London funds, due to the fall in export values and the cessation of overseas borrowing, to adopt a policy of contraction which intensified the depression.

That view can be supported by reference to another authoritative source. I direct attention to the following statement that, was made by Sir Herbert Holden, director of the Bank of England, in a speech at, Oxford University not many years ago -

Every one knows what caused the depression. The banks caused the depression by following the time honoured custom of refusing advances and calling up overdrafts.

page 1588

HOW THE BANKERS’ NOMINEE WAS SELECTED FOR EVANS

. . Bank officers throughout Australia have been shocked and mystified at the failure of Stanley E. Card, general secretary of the United Bank Officers’ Association of New South Wales, to gain Liberal selection for the new federal seat of Evans. Here is the amazing inside story for Card’s failure. Until the night before he presented himself to the Liberal Party selecting committee he was odds-on favourite . . .

page 1588

QUESTION

ANONYMOUS CIRCULAR

An anonymous three-page circular was received through the post by delegates to the selecting committee bitterly attacking Card. There was no time for Card to defend himself ; he was passed over in favour of a last-minute nominee. . . Dismissing Card, the representative of the employees of the , private banks, the Liberal selection committee selected F. M. Osborne as the Liberal candidate for Evans. A resident of Gordon, Osborne is a solicitor, whose firm has the control of the legal business of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. Osborne’s brother is general manager of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. Electors of Evans will see the close relation between the bank and Osborne and through Osborne to the Liberal Party.

And so the leaflet continues. I submit that this bill is the pay-off to the trading banks by the Liberal party.

Mr SPEAKER:

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

Motion (by Mr. Griffiths) put -

That the honorable member for Hoddle (Mr. Cremean) be granted an extension of time.

The House divided. (Mb. Speaker. - Hon. Archie Cameron.)

AYES: 31

NOES: 62

Majority 31

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the negative.

Mr TOM BURKE:
Perth

.- This is a bill to amend the Commonwealth Bank Act, as amended by legislation passed in 1945 and 1947. We have been told by .the Treasurer (Mr. Fadden), and by various Government spokesmen, that the purpose of the bill is to give effect to certain proposals to give effect to which the Government received a mandate from the people at the last general election. Because of what they claim to be a mandate from the people, Government supporters claim that the Opposition should accept this bill in its present form. The Commonwealth Bank Act 1945 was passed through this Parliament, and was submitted to the people - as an accomplished fact, it is true - at the general election in 1946. The people returned the Labour Government to power, .thus endorsing its action in amending the Commonwealth Bank Act. The parties that support the present Government told the people before the last general election that, if returned to power, they would introduce legislation to amend the Commonwealth Bank Act 1945, and to repeal the Banking Act. It may be debated whether they did, in fact, receive a mandate from the people to do what the Government now proposes, because the present bill does not square with the promises made to the people before the election. Let us assume, however, that the bill does propose to give effect to those promises. Even then, honours are even. The people have given two mandates, one to the Labour Government endorsing the Commonwealth Bank Act 1945, and another to this Government endorsing the present bill. We say to the Government, deliberately and finally, that before this proposed legislation is passed into law, the Government should again consult the people so that, in the time-honoured Australian way, the issue would be decided by two out of three. After the Government’s proposals had been explained to the people from every political platform throughout the country, the people could then give their final verdict.

This is not the first, nor will it be the last, bill to come before the Parliament dealing with the Commonwealth Bank. Many attempts have been made to formulate a sound and workable banking system for Australia. Always when the stresses and strains inherent in the economic life of Australia have made their effects felt, the banking structure has proved incapable of dealing with the situation. The honorable member for

– Yes, in a boom time in which the ‘financial and economic conditions were somewhat less buoyant than they are at the present time. The Government added £30,000,000 a year to Australia’s’ indebtedness overseas during the years that preceded the depression. Speaking at the Ottawa Conference, Mr. S. M. Bruce, now Lord Bruce, said that Australia was borrowing in London £30,000,000 a year, roughly the. amount of Australia’s annual interest bill at the time. That was the stupid method of finance that brought about the worst effects of the depression, yet the non-Labour parties in this House have continuously advocated during the last three years that Australia should revert to those unsound practices. It is true that all countries experienced the depression in some degree, but it is not true, as has been claimed by honorable members opposite, that the depression wasshorter and less severe in Australia than in any other country. The truth is that, it was longer and worse in Australia than in most other industrialized countries. Again I quote Mr. S. M. Bruce as having said that the measures taken to counter the effects of the depression could not he much longer sustained in Australia, where they had been greater than in any other country. That statement is recorded in the book, The Australian Price Structure, written by Shann and Copland in 1932.

The economic history of all industrialized countries, including Australia, has been marked by a succession of booms and depressions. In boom times, the banks have expanded credits, thus further accentuating the boom. In time of depression they have hurriedly contracted credit, thus accentuating the effects of depression. During modern times, the tendency has been for the intervals between boom and depression to become shorter and shorter, and foi the depressions to become worse and worse, due largely to the ever-extending use of bank credit. It was for tha* reason that the Labour Government, in 1945, introduced its amending banking legislation. In .part, that legislation wa.« designed to perpetuate controls introduced by the present Treasurer (Mr. Fadden), when he was Treasurer in the previous Menzies Government. The fact that those controls were imposed by regulations which required the trading hanks to open special accounts with the Commonwealth Bank shows that the activities of the trading banks needed to be regulated. If the trading banks had been themselves capable of dealing with the situation, there would have been no need to introduce regulations, the only purpose of which was to ensure that the trading banks did not bring about a state of secondary inflation by extending credits. The banks themselves could have applied a policy of restriction in order to ensure that credit should not be unduly expanded, but the banks could not trust one another to adhere to such a policy. Therefore, fearful of what might happen if they were left to their own devices, the banks asked the Treasurer to take action, thus demonstrating that government action is necessary to control the banking system, and to prevent the recurrence of booms and depressions, with their ruinous effect upon the people.

The history of banking is an interesting study. Step by step throughout the years, the various functions of the private banks have had to be taken over by governments, either by the imposition of controls, oi by direct acquisition. The first bankers in Britain were the goldsmiths, who issued notes against their gold holdings. They expanded credit in boom times, and contracted it in times of financial stringency, with ruinous effect upon the community. The right to issue coins was taken over by governments, and in England the business of the goldsmiths was eventually taken over hy the Bank of England. Until fairly recent times, the banks had authority to issue their own bank notes, and they used that power to expand credit in good times, and to contract it in bad times, thus accentuating the recurring cycle of boom and depression. Eventually, governments had to intervene, and assume authority for the issue of bank notes in every modern industrial country. However, by the time that action was taken in Australia, the importance of the note issue had largely disappeared so far as its effect upon the general economic life of the community was concerned. By 1924, the expansion and contraction of credit was effected, not by the issue or withdrawal of bank notes, but by the expansion or contraction of bank credit, a process which achieved the same results as had formerly been achieved by the manipulation of the note issue. Therefore, it is clearly proved that, as in the early stages, certain functions of the private banks had to be taken over or closely and firmly regulated by governments, so to-day the control of bank credit must be taken over by governments, either by nationalization, as we proposed, or by stringent regulation such as was proposed in the Banking Act 1945. That act, which this bill proposes to amend, sought to achieve the purposes of the Labour party in two major ways. The first was by a degree of controlled expansion of advances. Of course, no provision was made, and in my view, it could not have been made, against a contraction of bank advances.

However, an endeavour was made to prevent an over-expansion of bank credit in Australia, and, with the Commonwealth Bank guaranteeing deposit accounts in all the trading banks in Australia, we hoped to prevent a contraction of bank credit.

The Chifley Government also encouraged the Commonwealth Bank to expand its activi ties along two natural lines. Thi: first was by taking over the banking business of State government and semigovernmental authorities. That is inherent in central banking practice. It is accepted by all experts and writers, and. indeed, by bankers throughout the world that a central bank that is operated by a central government should have control of the accounts of State governments and semi-governmental bodies. An authority much closer to home - the Royal Commission on Monetary and Banking Systems - indicates clearly that that system should be adopted in Australia. The royal commission submitted a questionnaire to the Commonwealth BankBoard on that matter. “We must remember that the members of that board had been nominated by the Lyons Government, a non-Labour administration, and were the representatives of various interests throughout Australia. The royal commission asked the board whether it considered .that the Commonwealth Bank should control the accounts of the State governments. The reply, which was not inspired, I believe, by any political motives whatsoever, was that the Commonwealth Bank should, as a part of its central banking machinery, hold the accounts of all State governments. The board added, of its own volition, the view that the ‘Commonwealth Bank should also hold the accounts of semigovernmental bodies and other authorities that had been established by Act of Parliament or under municipal law. The board pointed out that such power was vital to its functioning as a central bank. However, that section of the Banking Act 1945 was invalidated by a decision of the High Court of Australia, on test, but. the remaining sections remain in operation.

Members of the Labour party say to the people of Australia, quite deliberately, that the purpose of the Government in introducing this bill is to ensure that the

Commonwealth Bank Act 1945 shall never be operated while it remains in office. Honorable members opposite have claimed that a bank board provides a more democratic approach to the control of banking. They appear to believe that a bank board must be more responsible, and expert, and better capable of ensuring continuity of banking policy than is possible under the system of control by a governor who is appointed for a term of seven years. But none of those views is borne out by the speeches that have been delivered by the Treasurer and his supporters on this bill. Unless all the members of the proposed board are financial experts or authorities on statistics and treasury practice, the board will not be an expert authority, no matter how great the ability of the members may be in other spheres. The fact that members of the board will retire from time to time will not provide for the same continuity of policy as does the present system of control by a governor. Therefore, none of the requirements of the test that the Government has posed is answered by the provisions of the bill. We are told that, in the final analysis, banking control will be vested in the Parliament. Of course, that will be so. The bill merely provides that, in certain circumstances, a statement setting out the details of a dispute between the board and the Treasurer shall be laid on the table of the Senate and the House of Representatives ; but, so far as I am aware, neither of the two chambers will be empowered to disallow the decision of the Treasurer. That, in my view, does not fulfil the promise that was made to the people of Australia by the present Prime Minister during the recent general election campaign, and does not provide any control of the Commonwealth Bank that does not exist under the Commonwealth Bank Act and the Banking Act 1945.

Therefore, I look for the reason that has caused the Government to introduce this bill. Every banking measure that has been introduced into the Parliament has been violently opposed by the trading banks. The original proposals for the control of the note issue were strongly resisted by the protagonists of the private banks and the political parties that are now known as the Liberal party and the Australian Country party. The establishment of the Commonwealth Bank itself was fiercely opposed. Mr. Alfred Deakin moved that the original Commonwealth Bank Bill be referred to a select committee for investigation and report, his motive clearly being to defeat that legislation. According to the evidence of the Royal Commission on Monetary and Banking Systems, an amendment of the Commonwealth Bank Act in 1920 was strongly opposed by private financial interests. The minutes of evidence of that commission also disclose that the amending legislation that was introduced in 1924 by the then Treasurer, Sir Earle Page, was fiercely opposed by the banking interests of the day. Indeed, one provision of that act has never been proclaimed, apparently because it was opposed so vigorously by the trading banks. I need hardly remind honorable members of the strong opposition that was advanced by the private banks to the Commonwealth Bank Act and the Banking Act 1945. The only hanking legislation in Australian political history that has not been fiercely assailed by the trading banks is the present bill, but, significantly enough, it has been criticized by branches of the Liberal party in various States, whilst the proposal to re-establish the Commonwealth Bank Board was condemned by the Wheat Growers’ Federation conference in Western Australia only last week. The trading banks apparently accept this bill as a complete pay-off for the part that they played in supporting the non-Labour parties during the recent general election campaign. Honorable members opposite were irate when the honorable member for Hoddle (Mr. Cremean) declared that in a large measure they owed their election to the Parliament to the activities of the trading banks against the Labour party. Recently, I addressed a comprehensive question to the Treasurer about the activities of the trading banks during that campaign, and I shall read to the House a part of it -

Is there any evidence to indicate that the banks have engaged in political activities by (a) opposing any particular legislation, (6) opposing any party or government, (c) financing any party, (d) directing, restraining, or coercing their employees, (e) awarding special promotion to those employees who do their bidding, (/) making special bonus payments to employees on the result of certain public election, and (g) using undue influence on clients or prospective clients?

Motion (by Mr. Griffiths) put -

That the honorable member for Perth (Mr. Tom Burke) be granted an extension of time.

The House divided. (Mr. Speaker - Hon. Archie Cameron. )

AYES: 38

NOES: 65

Majority 27

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the negative.

Sitting suspended from 5.55 to 8 p.m.

Mr CHARLES ANDERSON:
HUME, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– When the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Chifley) opened the debate on this bill I listened to his speech with very keen interest, because he is regarded by the Labour party as the greatest Labour authority on the subject of banking and its ramifications. I hoped to hear the voice of an oracle, but I must confess that I was very disappointed. His speech left me with two impressions. The first was that the bone of contention over this bill would be the proposal to reconstruct the Commonwealth Bank Board; and the second was that he thinks that he is the only authority in Australia who really understands the intricacies of banking. Under the existing banking legislation the honorable member who holds the position of Treasurer of the Commonwealth exercises dictatorial powers over the financial policy of the Commonwealth. The Advisory Council of the Commonwealth Bank is composed of men who hold office only at the pleasure of the Treasurer of the Commonwealth. When the office of Treasurer is combined with that of Prime Minister, the occupant of that office has complete and utter dictatorial powers over the central banking system of Australia. Under the 1945 banking legislation all those who occupy the office of Treasurer of the Commonwealth are given the same dictatorial powers over the financial policy of the Commonwealth Bank and of the Commonwealth itself until this new legislation is passed. Control was placed in the hands of one man. It was to remedy that state of affairs that the present bill was introduced by this Government. To illustrate how in one respect the possession of such dictatorial powers could be inimical to the interests of this country I point out that although the former Treasurer, who is the present Leader of the Opposition, must have known in 1947, from the advice tendered to him by the Advisory Council, that an inflationary trend was commencing, he did nothing about it. Although he had complete control of the financial policy of the Commonwealth, he did nothing to stop that inflationary trend. What credence can be placed on the suggestions of the right honorable gentleman that it is not possible to find throughout the length and breadth of Australia a man competent to be appointed to the proposed Commonwealth Bank Board? Is it seriously suggested that it is impossible to obtain men of the requisite ability and integrity to undertake such a task?

The Leader of the Opposition and ether honorable members opposite, including the honorable member for Hoddle (Mr. Cremean), have attacked the members of the Bank Officers Association for their opposition to Labour’s banking policy. It is common knowledge that that association is purely a voluntary body and that during the election campaign its members used funds which they themselves had sub scribed to combat the Chifley Government’s proposals. Not only one Labour spokesman, but many honorable members opposite have characterized the members of that association as the tools of the private banks. Let us examine the facts. It is common knowledge that many bank employees, principally the junior officers, were strong supporters of the Labour party. Many of the older employees supported the Labour party in their youth, but as they grew up and gained experience, they realized that they should change their political views. All honorable members on this side of the House are aware of the fact that in the past bank employees in large numbers voted for Labour candidates. Yet from the time that the nationalization of banking was first mooted in 1947 until to-day not one word was said about undue pressure being exerted by the private banks on their employees. We all know how the Labour propaganda machine works. Do honorable members think that during the last three years we should not have heard of undue pressure being exerted on. the employees of private banks if in fact pressure had been put up on them? Honorable members opposite would not have lost the opportunity to draw attention to such a state of affairs if in fact it had existed. To-day, for the first time, such a suggestion was made by the honorable member for Hoddle, who quoted a letter which he had received from one of his political friends. For what purpose did the employees of the private banks form themselves into a voluntary association ? They are engaged in the business of banking and although many of them may not be experts in central banking and the higher forms of banking, they see the trading banks in operation and they realize that the interests of the community are strengthened by the competition between those banks. Honorable members opposite in the speeches they make on the hustings and also in their maiden speeches in this House have grossly distorted the facts about the Bank Officers Association. During the general election campaign the association followed only one line of propaganda - anti-socialism. Were they right? Of course they were. Did not the present Leader of the Opposition say that the election was being fought on the basis of socialism versus capitalism. The right honorable gentleman admitted that the Labour party was playing for big stakes. Yet the employees of the banks have been attacked because they said that the Labour party intended to bring about the socialization of the banks. That same charge was levelled by honorable members opposite against every member on this side of the House.

The private banks have also been attacked by honorable members opposite on the grounds that they favour the establishment of pools of unemployed and that they caused the financial and economic depression that visited this country in the thirties. Those charges were levelled against the banks as a part of Labour’s propaganda of fear. The statement that the Leader of the Opposition made at a meeting of the Macquarie Electoral Council on that subject will have a profound effect on politics in Australia during the next few years. In the future, all Labour members will have to come out into the open. They will have to admit that they are members of the socialist party.

Mr Edmonds:

– What has all this to do with banking ?

Mr CHARLES ANDERSON:
HUME, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– I have introduced these matters into my speech to demonstrate the real motive behind the opposition to this bill. It is that honorable members opposite see in the existing set-up of the Commonwealth Bank the possibility of furthering their own socialistic aims. Right through the debate it will he found that the main objective behind their opposition to this bill is to preserve the present position. Let us examine some of the reasons why this Government wants to reconstitute the Commonwealth Bank Board. It was given a mandate to do so by the people and it is acting on that mandate. It was prompted to make this change because under the present system the Treasurer of the Commonwealth has complete dictatorial powers over the Commonwealth Bank and the central banking system. The Opposition wants to retain that power in the hands of one man. Who wields that power at present ?

It is wielded by my respected leader, the present Treasurer (Mr. Fadden). I put it to the House that at no time during these sittings of the Parliament has the Opposition expressed any confidence in the right honorable gentleman. To spare their blushes I merely remind them that amongst other things they have described him as “ irresponsible “.

Mr CLYDE CAMERON:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– And they were right too.

Mr. CHARLES ANDERSON.They have no confidence in him.

Mr CLYDE CAMERON:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– Neither has the Liberal party.

Mr CHARLES ANDERSON:
HUME, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– Notwithstanding what I have said, they desire to retain in the hands of a person whom they do not trust complete power over the financial policy of this country. What sort of reasoning is that? Do they think that they will not be long in Opposition?

Mr CLYDE CAMERON:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– Of course they do.

Mr CHARLES ANDERSON:
HUME, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– Then they are wrong. I foresee that they will remain in Opposition for a very long time. In a recent tour of my electorate I found that many strong supporters of the Labour party are not at all pleased with the conduct of the representatives of that party in this Parliament. Honorable members opposite will remain in Opposition for a very long time; but notwithstanding that, they are prepared to place in the hands of a man whom they do not trust complete power over the financial policy of this country. Their attitude does not make sense. Is it dictated by .the fact that my leader has so often been proved to be right that they have changed their opinion of him and that they now have confidence in him? It must be remembered that he was right on the subject of petrol supplies, just as he was right on so many occasions when he has criticized the budgets brought down by the previous Government. Although the previous Government invariably rejected his suggestions they frequently took advantage of them. The right honorable gentleman has an uncanny faculty of always being right. Honorable members opposite in furtherance of their own political interests are prepared to sacrifice the national interests.

I have complete confidence in my leader. He is a democrat and does not want to assume the mantle of a dictator.

Another charge made against the Liberal party and the Australian Country party is that they are trying to kill the Commonwealth Bank. That charge has been levelled against them on several occasions. I have taken the trouble to look up the figures relating to deposits and advances. I find that in 1930 deposits in the Commonwealth Bank amounted to approximately £43,000,000 and advances to £13,000,000. In 1942 deposits amounted to £129,000,000 and advances to £35,000,000. That is an extraordinary way to kill a bank! Another fatuous charge that has been made by honorable members opposite is that the Commonwealth Bank Board engineered .the financial and economic depression of the thirties. The private banks have also been continually charged with being responsible for the depression. The honorable member’ for Hindmarsh (Mr. Clyde Cameron) was particularly bitter in his attack on the private banks. I do not need to champion the cause of the private banks for they are well able to look after themselves. For some considerable time honorable members opposite have adopted towards the private banks the sort of ugly tactics that one associates with our friends the “ Commos “. They have adopted a smear campaign. They believe in the principle that if a thing is given a bad name for long enough the people are likely to believe that it should have a bad name. “What had the private banks to do with the depression? They had nothing to do with it whatsoever. The depression began in Europe long before it began in this country. The depression in Australia was caused by the fall of export prices. Have honorable members opposite ever taken time to examine the profits of the private banks? I have taken the trouble to do so, and I have found that since 1926 bank shares have yielded a return of not more than 3^ per cent, to 4 per cent., which is approximately 1 per cent, greater than the present yield from Government bonds. A great deal of the talk against the private banks, which are supposed to be making vast sums of money at the expense of the people, is due entirely to the adoption of a false view of their activities. Oan a bank make money in a depression? Oan a man who is unemployed exercise purchasing power? Of course not. The object of the banks is to maintain prosperity. The profits of banks fell during the depression.

The depression is coming up in every speech in every session of this Parliament. It has an ugly note. A depression may never come again. Constant talk about depressions causes an unhealthy attitude to the future. “We now know how to deal with depressions and they should not be brought into arguments in a country with a future such as Australia has before it. During the depression the banks increased their advances although there were falls in their securities. This country owes a tremendous lot to private banks. During the depression there were a few people that went to the wall, but in all branches of commerce there arts some bad risks and if some people suffered by having mortgages foreclosed they were bad security risks and no bank was entitled to take a bad risk with public money. “What guarantee is there that if there had been one central bank there would have been any improvement ? “What guarantee is there that if we had only had one bank the depression could have been avoided? None at all. The peculiar thing is that all the experts on depressions say that if there had ‘been a socialized bank they would have been able to handle the depression better; but the whole world of banking fell down during the depression. I think it was the honorable member for Perth (Mr. Tom Burke) who said that the depression was worse in Australia than anywhere else in the world. That is not true. In 1934, at the International Labour Conference in Geneva, it was reported that Australia had recovered more completely and more quickly than any other country in the world.

Professor D. B. Copland, M.A. D.Sc. in his book, What have the Banks Done? says, with regard to the depression -

But whether by design or by accident, their policy was later shaped to meet the needs of the country in a rather remarkable way. Indeed, it “is not too much to say that the banking policy of Australia was really more enlightened than that of almost any other country. Critics will, no doubt, regard this as an exaggeration but it will be wise for them to withhold judgment until the complete story is told.

I think that Professor Copland has been an adviser of the Labour party on many occasions. Where do all the trade unions bank? Why cannot they bank with the Commonwealth Bank? When the funds of certain unions were frozen it was found that those funds were in private banks. One honorable member of the Opposition even had a safe deposit in the Bank of New South Wales. It has been said that these banks treated people harshly during the depression, yet people still bank with them. Lest honorable members should think that I am biased in favour of the private banks I should like .to say that all my own personal business is done with the Commonwealth Bank.

Throughout this debate and throughout the election campaign and in fact, ever since the passage of the legislation to nationalize the banks went through .this House, we have heard the same scurrilous attacks on the private banks. None of those attacks have been substantiated in any way. They all arise from one motive, which is the socialization of all banks. That is the sole motive that I see behind the opposition to this bill. The honorable member for Port Adelaide (Mr. Thompson) said that when Mr. Scullin was Prime Minister he could not make use of the resources of the Commonwealth Bank because the institution was controlled by a board. But there were ways in which the government of that time could have used the resources of the bank. Behind the attack by honorable members opposite on this bill is the fact that they see in the new bank board, as distinct from the present advisory counil, an obstacle in the way of attaining socialization.

Mr DALY:
Grayndler

.- The the honorable member for Perth (Mr. Tom Burke) who was the previous speaker on .this side of the House ie erred to the attitude of honorable members opposite in relation to the activity of the private trading banks, their profits and the part they played in the recent depression. Before dealing with the comments of the honorable member I propose to outline to the House the real reason behind the introduction of this sinister measure by the Treasurer (Mr. Fadden). In the course of his speech the Treasurer stated -

In 1945 we foreshadowed that, when ie-elected to the Treasury benches, we would regard ourselves as being obliged to review the working of the 1945 Banking Legislation, and that we would reconstitute a Commonwealth Bank Board. In 1947 we left no doubt whatever of our intention to defeat the nationalization proposals by every constitutional means at our command.

– He made the statement regarding all honorable members on this side of the House.

Mr DALY:

– I said, “ Honorable members opposite”. Distasteful as it is to honorable members, this is a pay-off to the interests that supported them in the recent federal election and spent huge funds in an effort to unseat the Chifley Government. It is just another step in the efforts of honorable members opposite to destroy completely the Commonwealth Bank as we know it. If one studies the attitude of honorable members opposite and their predecessors in relation to the Commonwealth Bank one finds that from the time of its inception in 1911, they viciously opposed its creation and its continued existence.

In 1924, the Treasurer of the day, the present Minister for Health (Sir Earle Page) brought in legislation to set up the bank board. In 1945 and 1947, honorable members opposite, or their counterparts, lined up in an endeavour to destroy legislation in relation to the Commonwealth Bank that was designed to benefit the people. The Treasurer knows that the 1945 legislation is effective. He admitted that in his speech, and the only reason that this move has been made to change the administration of the Commonwealth Bank is that he wants to satisfy those private banks which gave funds to his party to defeat the Labour Government - the people’s government. Those banks paid their employees to work for the defeat of the previous Government.

In 1945, when the banking legislation which is now being repealed was introduced into this chamber by the present Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Chifley), the present Treasurer (Mr. Fadden) said that the legislation was consistent with the Labour party’s policy to convert Australia into a socialistic state. The Treasurer knows that the 1945 legislation is effective. In his speech on this measure, he said that the 1945 legislation was perfect and did not need to be overhauled except for the purpose of the establishment of a bank board. He said that the Labour government intended the banking legislation of 1945 to be the first step towards the socialization of the means of provision for production, distribution and exchange, and that the issue was socialization versus free enterprise. He said that the legislation would affect our standing abroad and that the special deposits amounted to confiscation without compensation. . He criticized the note issue provisions of the 1945 legislation, paid lip service to the statements of the Prime Minister, and told the people what would happen if th? 1945 legislation was implemented. These views were also expressed by honorable members opposite who are the principal supporters of the private banking interests. Having shown what honorable gentlemen opposite thought at that time of the Chifley Government’s legislation, I repeat the words that the Treasurer used when he introduced this measure a few day? ago. He said -

In respect of central banking operations and otherwise, the Commonwealth Bank and the other banks have achieved a considerable measure of harmony and co-operation and the Government is satisfied that the broad purposes of monetary and banking policy are being achieved.

For this reason and the fact that it would be undesirable to make frequent changes in legislative requirements affecting the banking system he said that the Government had decided to preserve the general pattern of control by the Commonwealth Bank over the banking system and the broad structure of the Commonwealth Bank. Yet a deliberate attempt is now being made to undermine the structure of this bank by means of false and insincere statements because outside banking interests demand that honorable members opposite shall take thi3 action.

Mr Jeff Bate:

– “What rot !

Mr DALY:

– That gets under the skin of the honorable member for Macarthur. He is one, no doubt, who bounced around the country and told the people that dreadful effects would come from the 1945 legislation. He cannot “ take it “ when the falsity of the charges against the Labour party that gained his election to this Parliament is exposed on the authority of no less a person than the Treasurer. His misleading statements will ultimately come home to roost and he will have to face up to his responsibilities on this issue. The Government has executed a complete somersault in relation to the 1945 hanking legislation. Its present attitude betrays the falsity of the charges that it made against the Labour Government.

I have already discussed the Government’s change of front in relation to the sections of the 1945 legislation that deal with competition, special deposits, the note issue, and the establishment of a bank board. Broadly speaking, it has accepted the socialist legislation of a Labour government as the basis of its tanking reform. To use the words of the honorable member for Henty (Mr. Gullett), it proposes to leave in control of the Commonwealth Bank a doctrinaire socialist in the person of Dr. Coombs, who will be the chairman of the proposed board. The people should realize that the Government intends to leave Dr. Coombs in that position only because, with the establishment of the proposed board, he will be bereft of power and will be at the mercy of the representatives of private interests who will be appointed to the board. At present Dr. Coombs, as Governor of the Commonwealth Bank, is responsible only to the Treasurer in the event of any great difference of opinion arising in relation to financial policy. He has for his guidance an Advisory Council consisting of specialists in finance who ought to know everything that there is to be known about banking policy. But the Government seeks to leave Dr. Coombs only nominally in control of the bank. Under its proposal he will be without power to act because he will be outvoted, by the Government’s nominees on the board. The Government will do what anti-Labour governments did in years gone by when they appointed bedstead manufacturers and polo players to the former Commonwealth Bank Board.

The members of the present Opposition risked everything in order to give effect to their enlightened policy on banking. They willingly placed their Government in1 jeopardy in order that the people of Australia might be protected from private financial interests. Supporters of the Government may laugh as much as they like and declare that we aTe only making a sham-fight on this issue, but I warn them that, if they press on with this measure, the Opposition, acting according to its principles, will ensure that they face up to their responsibilities before the electors.

We know what will happen if the bill becomes law. The Government will choose individuals from the general community, in addition to a few financial specialists, in order to complete the proposed board. It has announced that it will find people who are not associated in any way with private financial institutions. Perhaps it will choose the honorable member for Wannon (Mr. Mackinnon), because he has just sold his shares in private banks. .That is the sort of thing that was done by anti-Labour governments when the former Commonwealth Bank Board was in existence. It might even choose somebody like the honorable -member for Mackellar (Mr. Wentworth), who is not connected with banking. How tragic that would be for the nation ! The Opposition has resolved that it will not fall for the Government’s proposition. As the Leader of the Opposition has said, we intend to oppose every clause in the bill relating to the establishment of a Commonwealth Bank board. We want to retain the existing system of control that was established by the 1945 legislation, under which the Governor, aided by the Advisory Council, whose members know all that there is to be known about finance, is responsible to the Treasurer and the Parliament. The history of anti-Labour activities in relation to banking is a sorry story. The Labour party believes that the effect of banking and financial policy generally is so great that it intimately concerns the life of every citizen and therefore that huge instrumentalities that control financial policy should be governed by the elected representatives of the people. In other words, we believe that the Parliament should decide financial policy, irrespective of the political complexion of the parties that command a majority in it.

We have had bitter experience of the control of hanking policy by private interests. The honorable member for Hume (Mr. Charles Anderson) declared that the trading banks had nothing to do with the onset of the depression, but I refer him to the report of the royal commission that was appointed by a tory government to inquire into monetary and banking systems. This is what the commission reported about those benevolent institutions that are known as the private trading banks -

Along with other parts of the system, the trading banks must bear some responsibility for the extent of the depression. In the more prosperous times preceding the depression they went with the tide and expanded credit.

There was no central bank to guide their policy, but even in its absence, the banks might have taken concerted action which would have helped to check the boom, and thereby have lessened the extent of the depression.

The re-establishment of a Commonwealth Bank board along the lines proposed by the Government will lead to a renewal of the financial policy that was largely responsible for the sufferings of many thousands of Australians during the depression. The honorable member for Hume said that the private banks did not make profits during that period of stress and hardship. The royal commission reported that the secret reserves of the trading banks at that time exceeded £50,000,000, notwithstanding disbursement of dividends at the rate of 4 per cent, mentioned by the honorable member for Hume. It is interesting to note that the profits of the trading banks between 1893 and 1946 amounted to £128,000,000. During two depressions and two wars, when most of the people were struggling against adverse conditions, those masters of finance still maintained their profits. They continued to prosper while the people suffered. I mention these facts in order to show why the

Labour party is viciously opposed to any scheme for the placing of control of the nation’s financial resources in the hands of any body other than the elected representatives of the people.

Do supporters of the Government, who speak glibly of what the private banks did for Australian industries, realize that during the worst period of the depression there were about 480,000 persons unemployed in Australia ? The number of Australians in receipt of a miserable dole at the 30th June, 1932, was 783,000. There were many bankruptcies at that period, which involved a. total of £7,000,000 worth of assets. At that time, a single unemployed man was granted 5s. 8½d. a week sustenance, and a married man was supposed to maintain his family on £1 a week. That pitiful situation was aggravated by the financial policy of the private banking interests which dominated the Commonwealth Bank. The Commonwealth Bank was powerless to do anything because it was controlled by people who placed profit before the welfare of the people. We believe that a bank board, to which, no doubt, such people as polo players and bedstead manufacturers will be appointed, as happened years ago, would hold governments to ransom.

I need not refer back to the depression in order to provide an illustration of the lengths to which financial interests will go in order to gain their ends. Instead I remind honorable members of something that happened in Victoria not long ago. When the Chifley Government introduced its progressive banking legislation, Sir Frank Clarke, vice-chairman of the National Bank of Australasia Limited, and a member of the Legislative Council of Victoria, decided, at the dictate of a bank with assets worth over £70,000,000, that he would prostitute his duty as a citizen and a representative of the people and serve the interests of the bankers by wrecking a government. The interests that ha represented used the power of finance to destroy the Labour Government in Victoria. That was a typical example of what we may expect if private finance gains control of the Commonwealth Bank. I hope that the people of Victoria will read the circular in which the then

Leader of the Opposition in the Victorian Parliament, Mr. McDonald, and the man who later became Premier, Mr. Hollway, received from Sir Frank Clarke their instructions to wreck the elected Labour Government of Victoria. That is the sort of thing that the representatives of financial interests will do and that is why the Labour party opposes the establishment of a Commonwealth Bank Board and will not allow the Government to putback into power those who seek to destroy the influence of the people’s bank.

I also remind the House of the occasion when the chairman of the former Commonwealth Bank Board, Sir Robert Gibson, dictated to the elected Government of Australia the terms and conditions upon which the board would provide for the people, through their own bank, sufficient finance to enable them to throw back the tide of depression. This story will bear repetition over and over again as a warning to the present generation of Australians of the tactics that will be used by financial interests in order to gain their own ends. On the 13th February, 1931, Sir Robert Gibson wrote to the Treasurer of the day, Mr. Theodore, in the following terms : -

Subject to adequate and equitable reductions in all wages, salaries and allowances, pensions, social benefits of all kinds, interest and other factors which affect the cost of living, the Commonwealth Bank Board will actively cooperate with the trading banks and the Governments of Australia in sustaining industry and restoring employment.

Every honorable member who believes that banks and other financial institutions exist for the purpose of serving the ordinary man and woman should bear in mind the attitude that they adopted towards the people on that occasion. The Commonwealth Bank Board should have been the servant of the people and should have been subservient to the will of the Parliament acting in accordance with the mandate of the people. Therefore, it should have provided the finance that was needed to prevent nation-wide suffering. It should not have been necessary for the government of the day to appeal to the board. Mr. Theodore, to his credit, replied to the chairman of the board in the following terms : -

The attitude of the board throughout the recent negotiations, and as disclosed in the letter now referred to, can only be regarded by the Commonwealth Government as an attempt on the part of the bank to arrogate to itself a supremacy over the Government in the determination of the financial policy of the Commonwealth, a supremacy which, I am sure, was never contemplated by the framers of the Australian Constitution, and has never been sanctioned by the Australian people.

That occurrence stiffened the opposition of the Labour party to the Commonwealth Bank Board. We say that governments, no matter what their political colour, should obtain the finance to provide for all the people, and should carry out their policies and implement the mandates given to them. The days have gone when governments could be dictated to, as was the Scullin Government and the Lang Government, by financiers and other interested groups. . We shall not again see a case such as occurred in Victoria; where one man, because of his financial power and his desire to serve financial interests, was able to wreck a government elected by the people. The 1945 banking legislation gave to the people of this country a bank managed in their own interests and subject to the Parliament of the day. No honorable member on the Government side, including the Treasurer, can point to one failing in that banking system. Political control, and domination of the bank by the government of the day to implement its own policy, cannot be shown at any point. Tribute has been paid by all members of the community to the benefits of the 1945 legislation. That being so, why should change be sought? If the bank is being managed in the interests of Communists, and if it is being brought under political control and if the officers are not efficient, why does the Treasurer not say so? He well knows that this hill is only to fulfil the Government’s obligations to interested parties in the banking field in order to give them complete control of the Commonwealth Bank, as they had prior to 1932. Every honorable member in this House realizes the significance of banking in the community. They realize that the salvation of this country during the war and at other times, particularly during the present time, depended to a considerable degree upon the financial stability brought about by the Commonwealth Bank. If the Government is sincere and honest why does it not carry out its policy by selling these great socialistic institutions? It is a shocking thing that honorable members on the Government side, who have bitterly assailed and tried to destroy this bank are not honest and frank enough to show the people clearly their intention, without using this back-door method of removing control from the Government and placing it in the hands of private interests. Why do they not say that they mean to destroy it? If they do so they will get their answer from the people who have learned the value of the bank. The Government may think that the Opposition is opposing this bill for political purposes. Nothing is further from the truth. We oppose banking proposals such as this because we realize the profound effect that financial policy has on the live and welfare of the people of this country. We realize the bitterness of the depression years, although I am not going to dwell on that. We realize that in more recent times our legislation has been attacked by private financial interests. We fully understand the power of finance, as was shown in the recent election, and we realize how it can work under false banners. Above all else, we have the cardinal responsibility, apart from expediency or anything else, of retaining the Commonwealth Bank as the people’s bank which holds the people’s money and should therefore be controlled by the people’s representatives. Only when this Parliament controls the bank, through men such as the previous Government appointed to its staff shall be have full control of the financial structure in the interests of the people of Australia. This sell-out the Labour party will vigorously oppose. The Government’s move to destroy the bank will not stand investigation, and whatever the consequences may be the Opposition will do its best to ensure that the legislation introduced in 1945, in the face of great opposition, shall be preserved. That legislation, even to-day, has won the commendation of the Treasurer who introduced this hill.

Mr HASLUCK:
Curtin

.- I rise to support this bill but before dis cussing the merits of the measure I should like to make passing reference to two small matters which were raised during the debate by Opposition speakers. The first concerns the references made to the part taken by bank employees in the recent general election. I should like to make it plain that I am speaking not of banks but of hank employees. I do not speak about the banks because I have no qualification to do so. I know nothing about the banks. I have no connexion at all with them. I am not aware that in my election campaign I had any contact with a banker, using the term in the sense of one who directs the policy of a bank, or even any conversation with bankers unless there were by chance some bankers among the interjectors who occasionally interrupted my meetings. I desire to speak only about things of which I know. I was chairman of my own campaign committee. I directed that organization and I know who worked for me and who did not. I know what money was spent on my behalf in the campaign. I am aware of the existence of a bank employees antisocialization committee. That committee did not work as a part of my own campaign organization ; but it did work in the electorate, and I concede that the work it did contributed to my success. Whatever that organization did was done of its own volition and by its own enterprise and not as part of a campaign organized by me. What I wish to speak of more particularly concerns the charges made against individual bank employees. On my own committee there were men who were employed in banks. They voluntarily offered their services to me, a fact which I appreciated. In some cases they were men that I hai’ known since boyhood and who had grown up in my community. On their behalf I rather resent that they should be attacked simply because they exercised that privilege as citizens to take part in an election campaign. They were all entitled, as adult Australians, to exercise their privilege according to their own consciences. I make no apology or excuse for them. On the contrary, I am proud that such men, as individuals, were associated with me in my election campaign and that as Australian citizens they were ready to accept their individual responsibility to share in the political life of Australia.

The second point I wish to mention concerns the statements by the honorable member for Grayndler (Mr. Daly) on the Governor of the Commonwealth Bank. He referred to Dr. Coombs in a way that suggested there, was some deep plot behind the decision of tie Government to retain him’ as Governor. He referred to Dr. Coombs as a doctrinaire socialist, and he referred to him in such a way as to suggest that in his own mind he regarded Dr. Coombs as having been appointed for political reasons and as having some sort of political function as governor of the bank. I suggest that the truth of the situation is that this Government hae perhaps a higher estimate of Dr. Coombs than has the Opposition. It is prepared to accept him as a man competent in his own particular branch of finance whose services are of value to Australia. On those terms we are prepared to continue him in that office. That reflects a soundness of judgment on the part of the Government and a sense of fairness rather than indicating that there is a deep laid plot to outwit some fancied and mysterious move by people of a different political persuasion. The retention of Dr. Coombs is a tribute to his eminence in his own field of study, and to the Government’s readiness to accept a man on his merits until he proves that such confidence is unwarranted.

– I know who has been crying “ stinking fish “ in this House most assiduously. The main opposition was made to the provisions of the bill relating to the bank board. I listened with amazement, perhaps because I am a new member of this House, to the way the Leader of the Opposition developed his arguments against the proposal to re-establish the Commonwealth Bank Board. My amazement was due to the discovery that behind his air of benignity and homespun honesty there lurked as considerable a mental arrogance as one could encounter in many a day’s march. There was a certainty that he alone in this country was aware of all the implications of financial policy and that he alone was competent to say what was in the best interests of Australia. That mental arrogance extended to his remarks about experts. He spoke of his reliance on experts, and their value, but it became more and more evident, although it was not explicitly stated, that his definition of an expert was a man who thought exactly the same way as he did. And that mental arrogance seemed to reach its peak when he turned to speak in defence of the provisions of the 1947 act for the control of the financial policy of Australia. At one stage, the Leader of the Opposition said that decisions on financial policy should rest with the Government. At that point the Treasurer (Mr. Fadden) interjected, “And not with the Parliament ? “ The honorable member for Dalley (Mr. Rosevear) replied with another interjection, “ It is the same thing”. The original remark and the interjection seemed to me to disclose that members of the Opposition have completely ignored the lessons of the last election, when the people clearly declared their desire that they, through the Parliament, wished to retain control over the actions of the Government. They are not prepared to hand over to governments authority to act in complete disregard of the interests of minorities. They are prepared to recognize executive authority in the’ Government, but they are not prepared to abandon their right, exercised through their elected representatives, to set a safeguard upon the Government.

The Leader of the Opposition said something to the effect that no one was better qualified to conduct the financial policy of the country than the Treasurer, or better informed as to how it should be done. He made that statement in support of the legislative provision which enabled the Treasurer of the Commonwealth to exercise what was virtually a financial dictatorship. The point which the Leader of the Opposition missed was that it is not a question of expertness or knowledge or information in the possession of the Treasurer that matters ; it is the question of dictatorship. That is what we object to. Our objection to the Treasurer exercising sole control rests, not on the ground that he is incompetent or insufficiently informed, but on the democratic ground that we disapprove of dictatorship, and a financial dictatorship is just as objectionable as any other kind. There is a close analogy between what the Leader of the Opposition said, and the sort of argument that used to be advanced in defence of fascism in Italy. There, the common argument was that at least Mussolini did make the trains run, and that his government was efficient. The whole justification for a financial dictatorship as advocated by the Leader of the Opposition was that it would be efficient, that it would be expert and knowledgeable. That same argument has been used to justify every dictatorship.

Apart from the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, the speeches of most honorable members on the other side have dealt with the experiences of the financial and economic depression of the ‘thirties. The argument was developed in its most concise way by the honorable member for Bendigo (Mr. Clarey), who reviewed the history of the Commonwealth Bank and its alleged failure to act effectively in 1930. However, the criticisms of the honorable member for Bendigo, and of other members of the Opposition, was not criticism of the form of bank control exercised in 1930 ; it was criticism of the policies that were applied in 1930. For my own part, I admit frankly that the policies applied in 1930 were unwise, but those policies did not arise out of the form of control of the Commonwealth Bank, nor did they arise out of viciousness in any section of the community. I think we ought to learn a little humility from history, and to realize that a good deal of error arose out of sheer ignorance. That ignorance was not peculiar to one side of politics, but was common throughout the political and economic life of this and other countries. A good deal of the trouble in 1930 was due, not to any particular system of banking control, but to sheer economic ignorance of what to do in the circumstances that existed.

Proceeding from that point, I suggest that honorable members opposite should remember that this proposed legislation of 1950 constitutes a very considerable advance over any legislation that a government of the political complexion of the present Government would have been prepared to introduce twenty years ago. Political thought has not remained stationary. We are not living in 1930. The non-Labour Government in power to-day is not the government that was in power in 1929. or in 1932. We have moved with the times. The ignorance that prevailed in 1930 has, in a large measure, been dissipated. Just as we are prepared to credit members of the Opposition with having grown up politically since 1930, so it ought to have entered into the liberality of their thought that we, too, have learned something since 1930. If this hill be examined objectively, not in the light of twenty years ago, hut in the light of circumstances as they exist in 1950, it will be recognized as a moderate, well-intentioned measure designed to provide efficient control of the Commonwealth Bank, and to give ample opportunity for that bank to play an effective part in the financial and economic life of the country.

Therefore, I commend the bill to the House. The arguments advanced against it ave rooted in a condition of affairs that no longer exists. Those who oppose the bill are trying to interpret present events in the light of twenty years ago. Actually, this bill sets out to do three things. First, it removes the danger of nationalization. That is a matter upon which the mind of the people has been made abundantly clear. Secondly, the bill institutes a form of control of thi Commonwealth Bank which pays due deference to the need for expert guidance and judgment, but which also pays deference to the need for some sort of representative or democratic membership of a body the decisions of which will have 30 important an effect on the lives and well-being of a great many people. Thirdly, it retains from the 1945 act those provisions which give the Commonwealth Bank ample opportunity to do the work it was intended to do.

Mr W M BOURKE:
Fawkner

.- On the face of it, this bill appears, as the honorable member for Curtin (Mr. Hasluck) has said, to be a liberal measure. It sets up what purports to be a democratic form of control of the Commonwealth Bank, so that responsibility for decisions will be spread among a number of persons. It even purports to grant additional capital for the bank to enable it to enlarge its activities. On the face of it, the bill appears to be designed to strengthen the Commonwealth Bank. However, we on this side of the House, are vigorously opposed to the bill, and we have very good reasons for our opposition. The honorable member for Curtin suggested that we discovered our reasons by delving into ancient history. As a matter of fact, we can learn many lessons from history, and we should be unwise not to profit from them. Being one of those unfortunate lawyers who are so much maligned in this House and elsewhere, I believe that there is advantage in looking back over similar cases in search of knowledge and of precedents by which we may bc guided. A glance back over the history of the Commonwealth Bank is well worth while if we would realize the inherent clangers of the measure now before the House.

When the Commonwealth Bank waa founded by Andrew Fisher in 1911, it was placed under the control of a governor. Sir Denison Miller was appointed the first Governor, and under his wise guidance the bank progressed. He was Governor from 1911 to .1923, and during that period the Commonwealth Bank assisted the government of the day, particularly during the 1914-18 war, when it saved the people of this country many hundreds of thousands of pounds. A savings bank branch was developed, and gradually the Commonwealth Bank entered more actively into the sphere of general banking business in competition with the private banks. It became apparent that the private banks did not like this new competitor, and they decided that the progress of the Commonwealth Bank should be impeded. I have been interested as a newcomer to this House to note how honorable members opposite are sometimes in favour of free competition and sometimes, but not always are critical of monopolies. During the last election campaign, we heard much about a particular form of monopoly, but nothing about the monopoly known as Australian Consolidated Industries Limited and the Australian Glass Manufacturers Company Proprietary Limited, which I regard as a vicious and ruthless monopoly. It has a firm grip of the glass manufacturing business in Australia, and exploits the people by forcing up the cost of living. Every time a person buys a bottle of milk or a bottle of jam he i3 compelled to pay tribute to the glass monopoly, but honorable members opposite have never criticized it. They extol the virtues of free competition, but when the Commonwealth Bank attempted to become a serious competitor of the private banks, its efforts were not appreciated, and steps were taken to reduce the competition. A plot was hatched to curb the activities of the Commonwealth Bank. It could not be destroyed altogether, because it was too well established, but it was to be rendered ineffective. “What was the method applied in order to render it ineffective? The method was to place it under .the control of a board. In 1924, the Bruce-Page Government appointed a board of eight to take over control of the bank from the Governor. It is interesting to note the similarity between the board which was set up in 1924, and the board which it is now proposed to appoint. In 1924, the board of eight included two ex officio members, the Secretary to the Treasury, and the Governor of the bank. The present bill .provides for the establishment of a board of ten members, ineluding three ex officio members, the secretary to the Treasury, the Governor and the Deputy Governor of the Commonwealth Bank. In 1924, the members of the board were chosen from persons who were actively engaged in agriculture, commerce, finance and industry, and I should like to hear honorable members opposite dispute the fact that those persons did actually represent the private banks.

It is interesting to recall what the original bank board did, because I think that we should bear it in mind when assessing the likely results of the restoration of the bank board. I direct the attention of the House to three activities that the board set about achieving, after it was established in 1924, in order to strangle the Commonwealth Bank. First, the board set out deliberately to curtail the trading activities of the bank by refusing new business. That policy ensured that there would be no more competition with the trading banks. That fact was well established by evidence before the Royal Commission on Monetary and Banking Systems in Australia. It is probably within the personal knowledge of most honorable members that the Commonwealth Bank in those days refused to accept new business if that business would have been taken from the private banks. The result was that there was no more active competition from the Commonwealth Bank, so the trading banks achieved their objective in that way.

The second way in which the activities of the Commonwealth Bank were curtailed was by separating the savings bank section from the general activities of that institution. That subtle move was most effective, because the Commonwealth Bank had succeeded in establishing a large savings bank business. By 1927, the deposits with the Savings Bank section of the Commonwealth Bank amounted to £47,000,000. When the savings bank section was separated from the rest of the bank, all the revenue and the profits arising from that side of the business and all the big financial resources that gave the Commonwealth Bank strength and stability, were taken away from that institution, so that its general structure was weakened. That was the second way in which, after the establishment of the board, the Commonwealth Bank was being strangled. It is interesting to note that the separation of the savings bank activities from the general banking activities of the Commonwealth Bank was made on the recommendation of a titled gentleman from abroad, Sir Ernest Harvey, the Comptroller of the Bank of England. The Commonwealth Bank was then developed as a central bank, but not in the sense in which we understand central banking to-day, whereby the central bank exercises some control over the activities of the general financial and monetary policy of the country in the interests of the people. It functioned largely as a clearing house for the benefit of the private banks, without exercising any real or effective control over them. The Commonwealth Bank, operating in that way, was of benefit to the private banks and served their purposes, yet it had no control over them in the interests of the people.

That statement leads me to the third method by which, after the bank board was established, the activities of the Commonwealth Bank were curtailed. Actually, everything had been done but destroy the bank completely. However, it would not have been expedient for the government of the day to make a straight-out proposal to sell the bank, and, therefore, it did the next best thing. In 1938, after the Royal Commission on Monetary and Banking Systems in Australia had made its report, the then Treasurer in the Lyons Government, Mr. Casey, introduced a bill, the effect of which would have been to sell the assets of the Commonwealth Bank to the private financial institutions of this country. At this point, I pause to remark that a number of the leading members of the present Government were also members of the Lyons Government at the time to which I refer. The bill, which was introduced by Mr. Casey, provided that the capital of the Commonwealth Bank should be increased by the issue of debentures to a maximum amount of £34,000,000. It was quite unnecessary to increase the capital of the bank in that manner. The Commonwealth Bank had commenced with a capital of £10,000, a loan that had been made by the Treasury, yet it had not been necessary at any time for the bank to raise more money. The institution established its own reserves and capital from its profits. However, the Lyons Government proposed that £34,000,000 worth of debentures should be issued to provide capital for the bank, and the interest on them would have been paid out of its profits. Furthermore, those debentures would have been available to the public and the private banks for purchase. 1 emphasize that the private banks would have been able to buy the debentures, and, in that way, would have gained control of the capital of the Commonwealth Bank.

I put it to the House that those are three good and substantial reasons why honorable members on this side of the chamber have grave suspicions about the proposal to revive the Commonwealth

Bank Board. I remind the House again that when the board was appointed in 1924, it curtailed the trading activities of the Commonwealth Bank and separated the savings bank activities from the general banking activities, thus weakening the general banking structure of the institution. By the proposal to issue debentures which, fortunately, was withdrawn because of the outcry from the people, the government of the day would have transferred the bank completely from the control of the people to the private financial institutions.

There is another reason why we suspect this effort to restore the Commonwealth Bank Board. Despite statements by honorable members opposite, we cannot dismiss the lessons of the depression in the airy words that were used by the honorable member for Curtin Q/Lt. Hasluck), who said that the mistakes that were made iri those years were due to sheer ignorance and not to the method of control that was exercised over the bank. The honorable member for Hume (Mr. Charles Anderson) went further than that, and said that none of the attacks by members of the Opposition on the private banks had been substantiated in any way. I do not propose to say much about the depression, but I may sum up in a few words by stating that it is not true to say that the private banks were responsible for the depression, or that they caused it. There was a general collapse of overseas markets and prices, and, in addition, the gross extravagance of the Bruce-Page Government would have brought any country, however prosperous, to its knees, and reduced it to bankruptcy. But it is equally untrue to say that the banks had no part in the depression and that many of the attendant evils could not have been averted if a wise and enlightened monetary and banking policy had been adopted. I challenge honorable members opposite to deny that, during the years of the depression, the banks called in their advances. During the boom years they had lent bigger amounts than they should have, and when the bubble burst and deflationary conditions set in. they called in their advances.

According to figures that I have obtained, the advances of the private banks between December, 1929, and March, 1932, were reduced by approximately £45,000,000. In those years the depth of the depression was reached, and the trading banks called in £45,000,000 worth of advances. They did precisely the reverse of what they should have done. If they had lent another £45,000,000 during those years, they would have done much to alleviate the misfortunes that were associated with the depression. I challenge honorable members opposite to deny that those figures are correct, and that the private banks, by calling in £45,000,000 worth of advances, contributed to the miseries and misfortunes that were associated with the years of depression. Furthermore, we cannot forget that the Commonwealth Bank Board allied itself with the disastrous policy of the trading banks. It refused to grant a fiduciary note issue of £18,000,000 that the then Treasurer, Mr. Theodore, had requested. That additional money would have reduced unemployment and alleviated the miseries of the people who were suffering from the depression. I have given that cursory sketch of the background of the Commonwealth Bank because we should bear those facts in mind when we are considering this bill.

The Chifley Government made a great advance in banking legislation in 1945. In my opinion, the Banking Act and the Commonwealth Bank Act, which were passed in that year, constitute the most important legislation that has been enacted by this Parliament since its establishment at the beginning of the century. The Commonwealth Bank Act placed beyond all doubt that the Commonwealth Bank should operate as a central bank and should continue with its general banking activities. I was interested to note that the Government does not propose to repeal section 12 of that act, and I shall be interested to see how it is operated in future if the bank board should be appointed. Section 12 (2.) provides -

The Bank, through the General Banking Division, shall not refuse to conduct hanking business for any person, by reason only of the fact that to conduct that business would have the effect of taking away business from another bank.

That provision ensures that the disgraceful policy that was pursued by the Commonwealth Bank when it was controlled by a board after 1924 shall not be repeated. The Commonwealth Bank Act 1945 also provided for the establishment of other departments of the bank to cater for branches of banking business, such as the industrial finance department and the mortgage bank department, ‘which were not adequately catered for by the private banks. The Banking Act 1945, which is complementary to the Commonwealth Bank Act, made provision for the two matters that are the crux of this debate, namely, the establishment of special accounts for lodgment by the private banks, and the control of interest rates by the Commonwealth Bank. Some Opposition speakers have stated that the trading banks, which contributed so heavily to the election expenses of the Liberal party and the Australian Country party, were waiting for the pay-off. Whether the private banks made payments to individuals, or made a big fund available generally to those two political parties I do not know; but there is no doubt that the trading banks did contribute a substantial sum of money to the electoral expenses of the Government parties. I know that in my electorate there were teams of from 30 to 40 men out canvassing every day for weeks on end, working in the interest of the Liberal candidate. I have no complaint against those men as individuals. They were sent out, of course, as economic conscripts. They had to do as they were told by their employers. Their wages were being paid by the banks, and that very important contribution was being made to the Liberal party propaganda in the election campaign. It is only reasonable that the private trading hanks, which made such a big and valuable contribution to the propaganda of the parties opposite during that election campaign, must get their pay-off, their rake-off. It is common talk round the country that the pay-off that the banks are to get is twofold. In the first place they want the special accounts system abolished. That system was established originally by members of the present Government when they were previously in office, for a very good purpose. As the Commonwealth Bank has stated in its last report -

The Central Bank has been able, by making calls to banks’ Special Accounts, to draw off from the banking system a considerable part of the additional cash arising from war-time finance and the growth of overseas funds, and to immobilize it, thus preventing its use as a base for a secondary inflation.

Mr CALWELL:

– Some of them have hypnotized themselves into believing that it will be, but they are the only people who do so. The average member of the community does not believe that those selected for appointment to the Commonwealth Bank Board of the future will he any different from those who were selected in the past. We do not want a Commonwealth Bank Board. We cannot find anybody on the Government side in this Parliament who can tell us in what respects the Banking Act 1945 is weak. No honorable member opposite can tell us where the Governor of the bank has failed in his duty if, in fact, he has failed at all. None of them can tell us how he could have carried out his duties better than he has done in the past. All that they are determined to do is to upset something which we did because they have to obey the demands of the private banking institutions. They have received their orders. At the annual meeting of the National Bank of Australasia Limited, the chairman, Mr. H. D. Giddy, said -

We would prefer a system whereby the vital aspects of national banking and credit policy would be debated in Parliament.

What right have the private banks to demand anything more than any other section of the community? They seem to think that they have a prescriptive right to lay down the banking policy of this country.

Mi Beale. - Mr. Giddy did not say that he demanded such a system but that he would prefer it.

Mr CALWELL:

– When bank managers say to the Minister for Supply (Mr. Beale), “ We prefer you to cast your vote in this direction”, is not that accepted by him as a direction from them? They do not give him any choice. They use the language of their class. This Government is not game to repeal the important sections of the banking legislation. Not yet, at any rate ! It prefers to adopt a more sly and subtle way of getting round the difficulty. It will leave the job to the Commonwealth Bank

Board. The hoard will do the job and the Treasurer will have nothing to do with it. The Parliament will not have a voice in the matter because only when the Treasurer disagrees with the board will he deign to notify us that the GovernorGeneral in Council has expressed an opinion and given a direction to the board. There will be no means by which we shall be able to move to disallow the Treasurer’s direction. All he will be able to do will be to notify us of what he has done. Honorable members opposite say that outside interests should have equal representation on the Commonwealth Bank Board. If they are honest will they not agree that the government of the day should have the right to appoint one-half of the directors of the private banks. How would they react to such a proposition? They would immediately talk about interference with free enterprise and, as you know, Mr. Speaker, free enterprise is merely laisser faire capitalism. Honorable members opposite want to maul the people’s property once more. They want to take control of the people’s property so that, as the honorable member for Fawkner (Mr. “W. M. Bourke) has said, the board oan raise the rate of interest. That is all they are worrying about to-day.

Members of the Australian Country party should not be fooled on this issue. In .1934 the present Minister for Commerce and Agriculture (Mr. McEwen) submitted a motion in this House which resulted in the appointment of the Royal Commission on Banking and Monetary Systems which trenchantly criticized the private banks in the terms that were quoted by the honorable member for Grayndler (Mr. Daly) during this debate and have been quoted by other honorable members in earlier debates in this Parliament. Included in the membership of the royal commission was only one democrat, one friend of the people - the present right honorable member for Macquarie (Mr. Chifley). The commission was so shocked at what it discovered that it made a slashing indictment of the banking system of Australia; but the government of the day, instead of giving effect to its recommendations, extraordinarily enough permitted the present right honorable member for La Trobe (Mr. Casey), who was then Treasurer, to introduce a bill in this House to establish a debenture issue for the Commonwealth Bank which was to have been taken up by the private banks. Some clauses of that particular piece of legislation are almost unbelievable. One clause - I am not sure whether it was clause 16 or 62-

Mr White:

– It does not matter much.

Mr CALWELL:

– That is true. It is the effect and not the enumeration that matters. At all events those investments were to have been free of Federal and State tax. Although the government of the day had sweeping majorities in both Houses of the Parliament the proposition was so hot that it was dropped. The banking legislation of 1924 and 1931 has been referred to by several speakers on the Opposition side of the House. We have dealt with the legislation introduced by the Scullin Government. I have referred to the motion made by the Minister for Commerce and Agriculture in 1934 which led to the establishment of the Royal Commission on Banking and Monetary Systems. I have also referred to the bill that was introduced in 1938 by the present right honorable member for La Trobe. There was also the Banking Act 1 945 and the banking legislation of 1947 which were introduced by the present Leader of the Opposition. Now there is the 1950 bill which is as still-born as was the measure that was introduced by the present right honorable member for La Trobe in 1938. The mental gymnastics in which members of the Australian Country party have engaged on the subject of banking amaze me. The Postmaster-General (Mr. Anthony) has participated in this debate. In a speech which the honorable gentleman delivered in this Bouse on the 26th May, 1938, he told us of the plight of the dairy fanners of Queensland, which, he said, was due to the fact that they were heavily indebted to the private banking institutions of that State. He said -

Out of 12,275 dairy farmers in Queensland, only 99 had taxable incomes last year in excess of £250.

In 1914 the surplus of assets over liabilities of the banks of Australia was £5,071,000. After three years of human misery, tragedy and misfortune, during which thousands and thousands of our people suffered indescribably, the surplus of assets over liabilities of these banks had increased to £26,447,000. That was in 1917. In the post-war period, when chickens were coming home to roost and when every industry in Australia was floundering in a morass of difficulty because of the sharp ascent of prices, what happened to the banks? The Leader of the Opposition quoted certain figures to show what the assets and liabilities of the banks were on the 20th March last. I took his figures and by the simple process of subtraction found that the surplus of liabilities over assets at that date was £7fi.792,000.

The misery of the depression had not affected the banks. Their assets had risen and their surplus of assets over liabilities was £76,000,000 in 1931 as compared with £5,000,000 in 1914. The banks did well out of the depression. They always do well out of human misery, and from 1914, they had planted, in addition to the £13,000,000 in reserve funds, amounts to bring those reserve funds up to £33,000,000 in 1928. No wonder honorable members opposite speak with guilty consciences when they try to defend the priva.te banks of this country. The private banking institutions are a collection of traders who have monopolized the credit of the nation for the purpose of making profit for themselves and their shareholders. The private banking institutions have bought governments and politicians, and honorable members opposite largely owe their positions in this Parliament to the fact that the private banks spent large sums of money on their behalf at the general election. Is any honorable member opposite prepared to say he has not taken donations from private trading banks?

Government Members. - Yes .’

Mr CALWELL:

– Nobody outside will believe them. Did the Liberal party, as a party, or the Australian Country party, as a party, take donations from private banks?

Government Members. - No !

Mr CALWELL:

– Of course they took them. The honorable member for Gippsland (Mr. Bowden) is not a leader of his party. How does he know what was done? It is the people at the top who take the donations, and they allow them to percolate down to the people in the lower strata. There are people in this Parliament who have had a lot to do with private trading banks. The honorable member for Wannon (Mr. Mackinnon) left a bank board when he got into this Parliament, but the press did not announce that until this bank bill had been introduced. I challenge his right to speak here because of his interest in a private bank and I challenge the right of the honorable member for Evans (Mr. Osborne) to speak or to vote on this issue because he is the head of a legal firm which is the legal adviser to the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Limited. He is financially interested. His brother is managing director of that bank. It happens, by chance, that a gentleman named Card, who is associated with a bank employees’ organization, and who was to be elected as Liberal candidate for the electorate of Evans, had to move from that seat so that somebody else could take his place.

Mr Gullett:

– I rise to order. I am under the impression that according to the Standing Orders personal attacks are definitely out of order.

Mr Ward:

– Go back to sleep.

Mr Gullett:

– I submit that the honorable member who is addressing the House is doing neither more nor less than attacking personally honorable members on this side of the House, particularly the honorable member for Lowe (Mr. McMahon), and is even attacking the relatives of honorable members on this side of the House. I ask for your ruling, Mr. Speaker, as to whether this sort of comment has any bearing on the banking legislation. If it is in order two can play a t this sort of game.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The relatives of an honorable member have no immunity whatever in this place from attack by any honorable member. I heard the honor able member for Melbourne (Mr. Calwell) refer to two honorable members only and by the names of their constituencies. One, I think, is present. I heard no objection from him, hut I wish to assure the honorable gentleman that honorable members’ wives, other relatives and friends have no immunity whatsoever in this chamber. The honorable member’s time has expired.

Motion (by Mr. Ward) put -

That the honorable member for Melbourne (Mr. Calwell) be granted an extension of time.

The House divided. (Mr. Speaker - Hon. Archie Cameron.)

AYES: 37

NOES: 64

Majority . . . . 27

In division -

An honorable member crossing the chamber,

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the negative.

Mr WHITE:
Minister for Air and Minister for Civil Aviation · Balaclava · LP

– We have just heard a characteristic speech by the honorable member for Melbourne (Mr. Calwell) on a favourite subject. I made a note of his text, which was for once, accidentally I think, on the beam. It was, “We are now handing over the Commonwealth Bank to private interests”. The title of the bill declares that its purpose is to repeal the Banking Act 1947-1948 and to amend the Commonwealth Bank Act 1945-1948. The honorable gentleman was right insofar as the object of the bill is to make the Commonwealth Bank a people’s bank and no longer a politicians’ bank, which it became under the Labour party. Finance is a popular subject with socialists, Communists and all demagogues. Their theme is that they have only to nationalize the Commonwealth Bank and they acquire great wealth and prosperity in some magical way. They will not leave finance to the people who understand how to manage banks. The theme is familiar and threadbare. The honorable member for Melbourne began his speech with a flourish and started to repeat the old story that we have heard so often about the banks robbing the people. When I interjected that they had repaid their debts and had paid interest as well, he made a gallant endeavour to extricate himself from an awkward situation, but had to admit that they had done so. However, he said that they had taken a long time about it and had finally discharged their responsibilities to the heirs of the original depositors. I am reminded of what happened to the Government Savings

Bank of New South Wales during the depression, when a Labour government was in power in that State. One saw many advertisements in the Sydney newspapers offering bank books at 10s. in the £1, and many people sold them at that rate. The only bank of importance in Australia that closed its doors was the Government Savings Bank of New South Wales, operating under a Labour regime.

– If he is like Abraham Lincoln, the honorable member for East Sydney (Mr. Ward) is a George Washington.

The present Leader of the Opposition travelled round Australia with the perambulating royal commission that I have mentioned. Anybody who studies the voluminous report that it produced will find that the honorable member for Melbourne was quite right. It shows that only one member of the commission could think along certain lines. Only one man was in step! The present Leader of the Opposition was the author of the minority report in almost every instance. But he discovered one truth, a fact of which the honorable member for Melbourne does not seem to be aware. That truth was that the trading banks did not exploit the people. The right honorable gentleman reported that the amount of their profits was moderate. He was a signatory to that portion of the commission’s report.

Mr Calwell:

– Quote what he did say.

Mr WHITE:

– That is the sense of what he reported.

Mr Calwell:

– Produce the report.

Mr SPEAKER:

– .Order! The honorable member must cease interjecting.

Mr WHITE:

Motion (by Mr. Griffiths) negatived -

That the debate be now adjourned.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

In committee:

Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 (Repeal of Banking Act 1947).

Mr TURNBULL:
Mallee

.- This clause is one of the most important in the bill. I am very pleased that it should have been inserted. By it the Banking Act 1947 is to be repealed, and I am sure that the people of Australia will appreciate that because it is a great blow against socialism.

Clause agreed to.

Clauses 4 to 6 agreed to.

Progress reported.

page 1620

ADJOURNMENT

Malaya - Flood Relief - Canberra Hostels - Rat Menace - Aborigines

Motion (by Mr. White) proposed -

That the House do now adjourn.

Mr WARD:
East Sydney

.-! rise to direct attention to the failure of the Prime Minister ( Mr. Menzies) at question time to-day to give a straightforward reply to a question I had asked with reference to the statement appearing in the press that the Government contemplated certain activities in connexion with the Malayan campaign. There has .been a great deal of press comment about the possibility of Australia becoming an active participant in operations in that area. I think it is a very serious and important matter for the Australian people, about which they desire some definite information. I therefore directed a question to the Prime Minister to-day seeking some advice as to whether the Government contemplated involving this country in active participation in that campaign. I also asked what were the vital Australian interests referred to in the press articles. In one newspaper the statement regarding vital Australian interests was attributed to the Prime Minister himself. If it be a matter of defending private investments, I believe that they are not worth the loss of one Australian life. Therefore, this Government should state exactly what it proposes to do. According to the press, the Government is not only considering active participation in the Malayan campaign, but also thinks it should become involved in all the Asian campaigns. There is some suggestion that the Government should do something about straightening out the position in Burma. These are very serious matters which are not affected by the fact that people may volunteer for service. From the viewpoint of the nation the important thing is whether Australia should become involved. I believe, myself, that the Australian people would take a very dim view of any action by the Government which would involve them once again in active warfare. It is of the utmost importance to Australia that our people should live at peace with their neighbours. If the matter be one of defending investments, the British or the Americans or any other people who have interests in those areas, if they find the campaign going against them, can retire. They do not have to live in such close proximity to Asia as Australians do. When members of the Opposition direct questions to the Government upon important matters they do not want to be brushed aside by replies which are not answers to the questions. I want the Government to say plainly, and in unmistakable language, whether it is contemplating .any participation in these various campaigns. Any such participation would be a grave mistake from the point of view of the people of this country. The Australian Government would be held up to strong criticism from a large section of the Australian people. This nation which is now short of man-power cannot ‘afford to become involved in any of these overseas adventures. Therefore I ask the Government to state specifically whether any approach has been made to it for the provision of forces for operations in these areas, and if so what attitude it is adopting. I should prefer from an Australian viewpoint, that the Government should say unequivocally that in no circumstances will Australian forces be used in those areas.

Mr FAILES:
Lawson

– 1 direct the attention of the House to the condition of affairs in the eastern States following the floods that occurred prior to the Easter vacation and which continued in many parts during the vacation. The damage done during those floods has assumed the proportions of a national calamity. I appreciate that the position is largely one to be dealt with by the States, but so grave is it in many parts of the country that I consider it to be worthy of mention here. There are many phases of this damage. In my electorate I heard with much grief that lives were lost. The damage to roads is considerable. Unfortunately it is not possible at .the present time fully to estimate the damage, but in the Shire of Coonabarabran the estimated damage is of the order of £50,000. The Municipality of Mudgee has supplied me with a figure of £1,455 worth of damage in that town, and I expect that .throughout the whole of the electorate of Lawson the damage will be of similar degree. The Castlereagh River, which is one of the streams in flood, is a swift running river and practically all the bridges or the approaches to the bridges over that river have been swept away. Fencing has been extensively damaged. It has not been just rolled over as is the case in flat country, but entire fences have been washed away from both sides of the river. I have a telegram from the Coonabarabran Pastures Protection Board - only one of such boards in my electorate - which reads as follows : “ Estimate flood damage loss Coonabarabran Board £150,000. Five hundred miles fencing lost”. The fencing problem is not one that stands alone because when fences are lost rabbits, which are controlled to some extent by fences, are free to run over the pastures. Moreover, fly-blown sheep present many difficulties because in that area the pasture is pratically one large paddock.

– I give that assurance. This Government is hellbent on another war with some one, for the obvious reason that it represents the persons who always profit from wars. The Government represents those who become millionaires overnight from war. The Government was put into power by those who profit while others die. What the honorable member for East Sydney said about Malaya is true. If this invitation by the British Government to Australia to participate in the conflict is merely an invitation to assist in defending some millionaire’s capital in Malaya, then the whole of the capital involved is not worth one Australian life. Let us look at the position in Malaya, and con sider the circumstances that brought about the present conflict. It was brought about by British Imperialism. The cold, hard fact is that the persons whom this Government represents are interested only in the exploitation of raw materials and the people of Malaya. Now the Government is doing its very best to persuade the British Government to permit it to intervene in the dispute in order that good Labour men may be shot in the defence of British capital, and so that the capitalists of Australia, whom the Government represents, can make a few more millions, as they did during the last war, and during every other war. This Government claims to be democratic, and to represent the ordinary people. Well, the ordinary people do not want war. The ordinary people do not want to fight in Malaya. The Malays have as much right to be allowed to mind their own business as we have to mind ours. What is happening in Malaya has nothing to do with this Government, or with any other government. It is a tragedy that there should be in office in Australia at this time a government that is bent upon making another war, and that it should be going out of its way to invite the British Government to permit it to send decent Labour men to defend the capital invested in Malaya by British, Australian and American millionaires.

Mr FRASER:
Monaro · Eden

– I propose to discuss a matter that affects the Department of the Interior. It relates to charges made in government hostels, and I have been informed that representations made to departmental officials on this point have been unsuccessful. The practice is to grant a rebate of board to residents of hostels who take advantage of holiday week-ends to absent themselves from Canberra in order to visit Sydney or Melbourne or places in other States. This practice has been followed for many years, but within the last few weeks an alteration has been made which limits the period of time for which a rebate may be claimed. I am quarrelling, not with that, but with the way in which the provision is applied. The present situation appears to be Gilbertian, and I am sure that it will be corrected by the Minister for the Interior (Mr. McBride) now that it has been brought to his notice. Over the Easter week-end, the stipulation was made that a rebate of board would be allowed to those who were absent from the hostels over the holiday period, but only on the condition that they appeared in the dining-room of their hostel on Tuesday morning for ‘breakfast. It is impossible, so far as I can ascertain, to find a reason for this curious stipulation. Nevertheless, representations made to departmental officials by residents of the hostels have been unsuccessful, and the only course open to me, therefore, is to bring the matter to the notice of the Minister. It is important to the residents since an absence of four days may involve a rebate of £1 15s., which in these days of high and rising costs means much to the men and the women who live in government hostels. In one case that was brought to my notice a resident, having been absent for four days over Easter, paid £5 5s. as board for a fortnight. That was accepted, because it was recognized that he had been absent for four days. However, on the following day, he was informed that he must pay an additional £1 15s. because he had not appeared in the dining-room for breakfast on Tuesday morning. Apart from other considerations, many people do not eat breakfast, and it may be that after a holiday period some persons might regard breakfast with particular aversion. If it is necessary to restrict the period of absence for which a rebate may be claimed, it should be done without making it a condition that the claimant shall partake of breakfast on Tuesday morning. The rebate could be limited to the actual days of the holiday week-end. If a guest were absent for more than those days he should, perhaps, be not allowed to claim a rebate for the extra period of absence. That there should be any physical necessity for him to partake of breakfast on Tuesday morning in order to obtain the benefit of the rebate for the period during which he had been absent from the hostel, appears to me to be entirely absurd. I commend the matter to the Minister for the Interior and trust that, upon investigation, he will have thi9 apparent anomaly corrected.

Mr HANDBY:
Kingston

.- I cannot allow to pass without comment the accusations of warmongering that have been made by the honorable member for East Sydney (Mr. Ward) and the honorable member for Hindmarsh (Mr. Clyde Cameron) against honorable members on this side of the chamber. I find it incredible that the honorable member for East Sydney should even consider, on the basis of a report in some newspaper that he did not name, that the Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies) had made a statement that might commit this Government and the country to an act of war. The minds of the people of Australia should be set at rest on this matter, and I believe that unless the Government makes a specific announcement, they should disregard any mention of war that has been made by the honorable member for East Sydney and the honorable member for Hindmarsh. The majority of honorable members on this side of the chamber have known the horrors of war, and only those who are in that position realize the futility of it and the necessity of preserving this country from further conflict. I feel certain that the Government will do everything that it possibly can to prevent this nation from being embroiled in further hostilities. The two honorable members to whom I have referred have, without just cause and on the flimsy basis of a press report about which we know nothing, accused Government supporters of warmongering. If such accusations are to be made, they should be levelled against those two honorable members. For the peace of mind of the people of Australia, this House should treat those statements with the utmost contempt. An honorable member should not speak of such a catastrophe as another war without having some firm basis for his remarks, or in the absence of an authentic statement by the Prime Minister. In all sincerity, I urge honorable members to dismiss from their minds anything that they may read in the newspapers about the matter to which the honorable member for East Sydney and the honorable member for Hindmarsh have referred, because I believe that if such a decision involving Australia were made, this House would be aware of it before any newspaper could publish it.

Mr CURTIN:
Watson

Mr CURTIN:
WATSON, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– It is a national matter.

Mr BEALE:

– Very well. The honorable member believes that the extermination of rats in country towns and the suburbs of the large cities is a matter to which the Australian Government should devote its time and energies. I believe that State governments and municipal councils are not only able but also willing to undertake the responsibility of killing rats. What I desire to suggest at the moment is that we should show some common sense and a sense of proportion in this Parliament in respect of the things that we are supposed to do for the people.

The matter that has been raised by the honorable member for Lawson (Mr.

– Would I be in order, Mr. Speaker, in asking the Minister in charge of the House a question?

Mr SPEAKER:

– No. The honorable gentleman has spoken to the motion. He will have to leave his question until to-morrow.

Mr WHITE:
Minister for Air and Minister for Civil Aviation · Balaclava · LP

– in reply - I know that the remarks of the honorable member for Fremantle (Mr. Beazley) arise from humanitarian considerations. It is very sad to see the aborigines on the trans-continental railway line. In the honorable member’s own State of Western Australia the policy is to keep the aborigines away from that line. It does nothelp to encourage them to come there. Mrs.

Daisy Bates has lived among the aborigines at Ooldea for many years. She has done great work among them. The care of aborigines at Ooldea is a matter for the South Australian authorities, but I shall bring the honorable gentleman’s submission to the notice of the Minister for Fuel, Shipping and

Transport (Senator McLeay), who comes from South Australia, so that he may confer with the Government of South Australia to see whether fruit may be provided in an emergency. I think that the honorable member will agree that fruit should not be provided regularly, because it would only attract the aborigines to the line.

Mr Haylen:

– That would be the worst thing for our tourists to see.

Mr WHITE:

– Exactly. It is not edifying to see these people, who would he better off in reservations where proper care can be given to them.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 1628

PAPERS

The following papers were presented : -

Commonwealth Bank Act - Appointment Certificate - G. R. Brown.

Commonwealth Public Service Act - Appointments - Department -

Defence - G. Barrett, J. Hepburn.

Interior - T. A. Miller.

Labour and National Service - J. N. G. Gartside.

Social Services - K. H. Corvan.

Trade and Customs - R. R. Bull, N. F. Walker.

Works and Housing -C. F. Bode, J. E. Carney, A. Green.

Customs Act - Regulations - Statutory Rules 1950, No. 17.

Dairy Produce Export Control Act - Regulations - Statutory Rules 1950, No. 13.

Defence Act and Naval Defence Act - Regulations - Statutory Rules 1950, No. 12.

Defence Forces Retirement Benefits Act - Regulations - Statutory Rules 1950, No. 14.

Defence (Transitional Provisions) Act -

National Security (Industrial Property) Regulations - Orders - Inventions and designs (3).

Regulations - Statutory Rules 1950, No. 15.

Excise Act - Regulations - Statutory Rules 1950, No. 16.

Lands Acquisition Act - Land,&c., acquired for-

Defence purposes -

Banyo, Queensland.

Mount Gambier, South Australia.

Richmond, New South Wales.

Wollongong, New South Wales.

Department of Civil Aviation purposes -

Bendigo, Victoria.

Ceduna, South Australia.

Department of Works and Housing pur poses - Wagga Wagga, New South Wales.

Postal purposes -

Albany, Western Australia.

Loomberah, New South Wales.

Loxton, South Australia.

McLeod, Victoria.

Rydal, New South Wales.

The Entrance, New South Wales.

Thomastown, Victoria.

Toukley, New South Wales.

Waikerie, South Australia.

Whyalla, South Australia.

Northern Territory (Administration) Act - Regulations - 1950 -

No. 2 (Alice Springs Administration Ordinance).

No. 3 (Licensing Ordinance).

No. 4 (Licensing Ordinance).

Seat of Government Acceptance Act and Seat of Government (Administration) Act - Regulations - 1950 - No. 1 (Leases Ordinance).

War Service Homes Act - Land acquired at Bankstown, New South Wales.

House adjourned at 11.22 p.m.

page 1629

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

The following answers to questions were circulated: -

Building Materials

Mr Griffiths:
SHORTLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES

s asked the Minister representing the Minister for Trade and Customs, upon notice -

Is it a fact that rebates of duty on timber and building materials have been granted in certain instances and made retrospective to the 10th December last?
If so, will these rebates be passed on to the consumer in each instance in respect of goods already contracted for, and delivered, at the old and greater price?
If not passed on, will the rebates be allowed to benefit the importers affected?

Mr McBride:
Minister for the Interior · WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · LP

– The Minister for Trade and Customs has supplied the following information : -

Yes.
The rebates do not affect any timber or buildings materials under notice which were imported and entered for home consumption prior to 10th December, 1949. The local selling prices of these importations would therefore properly include the Customs duty paid. As regards the importations benefiting by the concession which have been sold at the duty paid price it will be a matter for the purchasers or users to approach the importers for a price adjustment corresponding with the duty rebate. It is known that a number of importers is making these adjustments but as regards any who do not enforcement is not practicable.
See answer to 2.

Jerusalem

Mr Keon:
YARRA, VICTORIA

n asked the Minister for External Affairs, upon notice -

. Is it a fact that the Government of Israel has refused to carry out the decision of the United Nations Assembly regarding the internationalization of Jerusalem which decision was sponsored by Australia before the United Nations General Assembly ?
What action has the Government taken or what action does it propose to take in an endeavour to ensure compliance with United Nations decisions by the Government of Israel ?

Mr Spender:
LP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows : -

On the 9th December, 1940, the General Assembly restated its intention that Jerusalem should be placed under a permanent international regime which should envisage appropriate guarantees for the protection of the Holy Places, and requested the Trusteeship Council to complete the preparation of the Statute of Jerusalem, to approve the statute, and proceed immediately with putting it into operation. The draft statute had been drawn up by the Trusteeship Council in 1948 at the direction of the General Assembly. During its present session which began in Geneva, on the 19th January, the Trusteeship Council has been engaged in the first part of its assignment, namely, the revision of the Statute of Jerusalem. The Australian representative has taken full part in the council’s discussions. Our latest reports indicate that the revision of individual articles of the statute is almost completed. When the Trusteeship Council has finally approved the revised statute it will probably forward the statute tothe governments most directly concerned, namely, the Governments of Israel and Jordan, with a request for co-operation in its implementation. It is true that, although both the Israel and Jordanian Governments have said they are willing to protect the Holy Places and give guarantees of freedom of access thereto, they have expressed strong opposition to the General Assembly’s decision regarding the internationalization of Jerusalem. However, the stage at which they will formally be asked to carry out the Assembly’s decision by helping to put into effect the revised statute, has not yetbeen reached.

Australian National University.

Mr Fadden:
Treasurer · MCPHERSON, QUEENSLAND · CP

n. - On the 21st March, the honorable member for the Australian Capital Territory (Dr. Nott) asked the following question : -

Will the Treasurer inform me whether public funds are made available to the Australian National University in Canberra through its representatives, to participate in bidding at local auction sales, and so, wittingly or unwittingly, bid against the public? Will healso state whether the university, in its urgent and understandable desire suitably to accommodate its staff, could not be served better by negotiating through the appropriate department?

I now desire to inform the honorable member as follows: -

Although until the 30th June, 1951, the annual grant to the Australian National University is subject to the Treasurer’s approval and any additional funds for the erection or purchase of buildings it requires are subject to parliamentary approval and the usual Treasury procedures, the university is, nevertheless, a statutory authority, and responsibility for its action lies with the interim council appointed to manage its affairs. I am, however, satisfied that the activities of the university in buying houses in the Australian Capital Territory are not such as would have any appreciable effect on property values and I can assure the honorable member that the university keeps closely in touch with the appropriate Commonwealth departments on this matter.

Land Settlement of ex-Servicemen.

Mr Mcbride:
LP

– On the 28th March the honorable member for Moore (Mr. Leslie) referred to the disastrous fires which had occurred in Western Australia, and asked whether I would consult with the appropriate State authorities to ensure that adequate relief was available to settlers under the War Service Land Settlement Scheme who may have suffered losses. As promised, I have had inquiries made and find that only one settler under the War Service Land Settlement Scheme lost farm buildings during the recent fires in Western Australia. These buildings were insured and arrangements are in train to have them replaced. No settlers suffered loss of hay-stacks, but some lost green feed. The State Settlement Authority has ample reserves of hay available for soldier settlers in need and can also make available to private farmers at cost approximately 100 tons. I am assured that the position of settlers under the War Service Land Settlement Scheme is satisfactory.

Canberra: Industrial Areas; Milk Supply

Dr Nott:

t asked the Minister for the Interior, upon notice -

When is it anticipated that the sub division of the Molonglo settlement area into minor industrial leases will be an accomplished fact?
What area in the Australian Capital Territory has been suggested to the Minister as a suitable area for subdivision into farmlets ?
Has a decision been arrived at with respect to the allocation of a site for the new railway station for the Australian Capital Territory; if so, what area has been alienated for this purpose?

Mr McBRIDE:
WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · LP; LCL from 1951; LP from 1954

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows : -

The area set apart for industrial purposes near Molonglo railway siding will not be restricted to minor industries. The subdivision of the land will he made when investigations into railway requirements now proceeding, and other matters necessary for adequate planning, have been completed.
An area in the Divisions of Narrabundah and Symonston was proposed for subdivision into farmlets when essential engineering services can be provided for the area.
No site has been allocated for a new railway station for Canberra, and no early action is contemplated to provide a new site.

Dr Nott:

t asked the Minister for the Interior, upon notice -

When will the report on the proposed or suggested expansion of the milk supply in the Australian Capital Territory, which at present is inadequate, be made available to the honorable member for that territory?

Mr McBride:
LP

– The answer to the honorable member’s question is as follows : -

The report of the committee examining the milk supply in the Australian Capital Territory has not yet been completed, but I understand it will be submitted to me shortly. I have previously informed the honorable member by letter that when I receive the report I shall communicate with him.

Defenceforces.

Mr Francis:
Minister for the Army · MORETON, QUEENSLAND · LP

s. - On the 29th March, the honorable member for Adelaide (Mr. Chambers) asked me whether I would give consideration to the issue of towels, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste to members of the Citizen Forces who are required to attend military camps of training. I have investigated this matter, and I find that at the present time hand towels are issued to all personnel in Citizen Military Forces camps of training. Toilet soap is also provided. They are not, however, issued for week-end bivouacs. With regard to toothbrushes and toothpaste, these are personal items which the member uses in civil life, and he can readily bring them to camp with him. There is, therefore, no necessity for an official issue tobe made.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 19 April 1950, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1950/19500419_reps_19_207/>.

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House of Representatives19 April 1950

ME. SPEAKER

Mr CHIFLEY:Leader of .the Opposition · Macquarie

Mr Menzies:

Mr CHIFLEY:

QUESTION

POLIOMYELITIS

Dr EVATT:BARTON, NEW SOUTH WALES

Sir EARLE PAGE:Minister for Health · COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

QUESTION

NEW GUINEA

Mr WHEELER:MITCHELL, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr SPENDER:Minister for External Affairs · WARRINGAH, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

QUESTION

COAL

Mr EDMONDS:HERBERT, QUEENSLAND

Mr MENZIES:LP

QUESTION

APPLES

Mr TOWNLEY:DENISON, TASMANIA

Mr CASEY:Minister for Works and Housing · LP

QUESTION

ME. E. THORNTON

Mr BERNARD CORSER:WIDE BAY, QUEENSLAND

Mr SPENDER:LP

Mr DALY:GRAYNDLER, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr HOLT:Minister for Immigration · HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

Mr Calwell:

Mr SPEAKER:

Mr Calwell:

Mr SPEAKER:

Mr Calwell:

Mr Beale:

Mr SPEAKER:

Mr Calwell:

Mr SPEAKER:

Mr Calwell:

Mr SPEAKER:

Mr Calwell:

Mr Tom Burke:

Mr SPEAKER:

Mr Calwell:

Mr Menzies:

Mr Calwell:

Mr Menzies:

Mr Calwell:

Mr SPEAKER:

Mr Menzies:

Mr Calwell:

Mr SPEAKER:

Mr Calwell:

QUESTION

MALAYA

Mr WARD:EAST SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr MENZIES:LP

QUESTION

ROYAL AUSTRALIAN ATE FORCE

Dr DONALD CAMERON:OXLEY, QUEENSLAND · LP

Mr WHITE:Minister for Air · BALACLAVA, VICTORIA · LP

QUESTION

HEALTH AND MEDICAL SERVICES

Mr BIRD:BATMAN, VICTORIA

Sir EARLE PAGE:CP

Mr FITZGERALD:PHILLIP, NEW SOUTH WALES

Sir EARLE PAGE:

Mr ANDREWS:DAREBIN, VICTORIA

Sir EARLE PAGE:

Mr FRASER:EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

Sir EARLE PAGE:

QUESTION

GRAIN SORGHUM

Mr SWARTZ:DARLING DOWNS, QUEENSLAND

Mr McEWEN:Minister for Commerce and Agriculture · MURRAY, VICTORIA · CP

QUESTION

WATERFRONT EMPLOYMENT

Mr GRAHAM:ST GEORGE, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr MENZIES:LP

Mr CREMEAN:HODDLE, VICTORIA

Mr HOLT:LP

QUESTION

House of Representatives
19 April 1950

Mr CHIFLEY:
Leader of .the Opposition · Macquarie

Dr EVATT:
BARTON, NEW SOUTH WALES

Sir EARLE PAGE:
Minister for Health · COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

Mr WHEELER:
MITCHELL, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr SPENDER:
Minister for External Affairs · WARRINGAH, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

Mr EDMONDS:
HERBERT, QUEENSLAND

Mr MENZIES:
LP

Mr TOWNLEY:
DENISON, TASMANIA

Mr CASEY:
Minister for Works and Housing · LP

Mr BERNARD CORSER:
WIDE BAY, QUEENSLAND

Mr SPENDER:
LP

Mr DALY:
GRAYNDLER, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr HOLT:
Minister for Immigration · HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

Mr WARD:
EAST SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr MENZIES:
LP

Dr DONALD CAMERON:
OXLEY, QUEENSLAND · LP

Mr WHITE:
Minister for Air · BALACLAVA, VICTORIA · LP

Mr BIRD:
BATMAN, VICTORIA

Sir EARLE PAGE:
CP

Mr FITZGERALD:
PHILLIP, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr ANDREWS:
DAREBIN, VICTORIA

Mr FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

Mr SWARTZ:
DARLING DOWNS, QUEENSLAND

Mr McEWEN:
Minister for Commerce and Agriculture · MURRAY, VICTORIA · CP

Mr GRAHAM:
ST GEORGE, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr MENZIES:
LP

Mr CREMEAN:
HODDLE, VICTORIA

Mr HOLT:
LP

Mr CASEY:
LP

Mr CHAMBERS:
ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Mr DAVIES:
CUNNINGHAM, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr MENZIES:
LP

Mr GILMORE:
LEICHHARDT, QUEENSLAND

Mr MENZIES:
LP

Mr GULLETT:
HENTY, VICTORIA

Mr HOLT:
LP

Mr WENTWORTH:
MACKELLAR, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr MENZIES:
LP

Mr TURNBULL:
MALLEE, VICTORIA

Mr CASEY:
LP

Mr EDGAR RUSSELL:
GREY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

Mr MENZIES:
LP

Mr CLYDE CAMERON:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

Mr MACKINNON:
WANNON, VICTORIA

Mr McEWEN:
CP

Mr SHEEHAN:
COOK, NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr HOLT:
LP

Mr WILSON:
STURT, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Mr MENZIES:
LP

Mr MENZIES:
LP

Mr WHITE:
Minister for Air and Minister for Civil Aviation · Balaclava · LP