Z 8 APR 1964-

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4 '  AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY FEDERAL SECRETARIAT

FIFTH FLOOR, AINSLIE BUILDING, 39 AINSLIE AVE., CANBERRA, A.C.T. TE. L. 4 0393; 4 0394.

GENERAL SECRETARY: CYRIL S. WYND.HAM

INFORMATION RELEASE: 6

OUTSIDE CONTROL OF THE LIBERAL PARTY

.Leply by lair. E . G. Whitlam, Q.C. , M.P. , tc by Mr. Turner Liberal, Bradfield, N.S.W. House of Representatives. Thursda y . 23rd

MR. T,7;HITLAM :

Anybody who listened to the honorable member for Bradfiel(9. (Mr. Turner) might have thought that there was something obscene about political parties. Every member of this House is here because he was selected. by a political party as a candidate and because voluntary members of that political party - all political parties are voluntary organisations - worked to return him to

this House. Every honorable member knows very well that if his political party no longer endorses him as a candidate for an election and the members of his party refuse to work for him at an. election, he no longer ?^11 be a. member of this House. Political parties are a fact of life. They are a necessary part of the democratic process. There is no efficient democracy in the world which is not operated on the basis of political parties.s'Je in

_=. ustr alia and in the English-speaking world believe that the two-

party system is a good one.

It is regrettable that the honorable member for Bradfield had so little time to inform the public on the operations of his own party. I propose to adopt the same sober and non-partisan approach to which he himself aspired. He gave only two or three instances of outside control over members of this Federal Parlia-ment. I will content myself with giving only two or three instances in relation to his party. Perhaps he could have told us why, at the behest of Sir Philip McBride - one of the very few

ex-politicians on the federal executive or conference of the Liberal Party - he and all his colleagues refused to appear on the television programme called "The Candidates" before the election in 1961.

Mr. Killen: That is not true.

Mr. ' ,dhitlam : One member of the Liberal Party appeared on that programme. There was a direction from an outside source, and that direction was obeyed. The principle which distinguishes the Liberal Party from the Labor Party, according to the honorable member for Bradfield is that outside bodies only advise Liberal members. The complementary principle is that, while outside bodies advise, inside members consent. This is the principleof

advise and consent in Liberal politics.

It will be remembered that after the 1961 election, on

2nd February, 1962, the federal executive of the Liberal Party instructed Liberal politicians to get closer to the party organ-isation.

Pi s. D aly: Instructed.?

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Mr. Whitlam: Yes, "instructed" is the word. On 9th March, 1962, the federal executive of the Liberal Party resolved to summon all Federal Liberal Ministers to appear before it.

Mr. Jess: You are only going on a newspaper report.

Mr. Thitlam: I can only go on newspaper reports in respect of the Liberal Party. But if the honorable member wants to know what happens at Labor Party conferences and who attends them, he can obtain from the Library or from any of us photographs of all the people who attend, printed copies of all the reports on which they

act, minutes of their deliberations and the texts of their decisions. These are public documents. But can one find out the membership of State executives of the Liberal Party?  Not in respect of Victoria. Can one see reports of the proceedings of Federal and State conferences of the Liberal Party?  No. But

one can attend our conferences.

The honorable member for Bradfield came into this House disgusted with the proceedings of the Liberal Party in N.S.W. He came in at a time when his then leader, Mr. Treatt, was being subjected to Ash Street-inspired resolutions of no confidence in him from branches of the Liberal Party throughout the State.  A little later, Mr. Cotton, the then president of the Liberal Party in N.S.W. acknowledged the public image of the Ash Street junta

as "a political back-room wielding insidious control over the Liberal members of Parliament."

In the three years immediately after the honorable gentle-man entered this House, three successive leaders of the Parlia-mentary Liberal Party in N.S.W. were disposed of by the outside controllers. At the time I remarked to my present leader, "If the honorable member for Bradfield had only remained in the N.S.?,: Legislative Assembly, he would be the Leader of the Opposition."

nd my leader, with the gift of phrase which he has and which no one in this House or outside can equal, said, "Turner would have had his turn". Soon afterwards, Mr. Blake Pelly, M.L.A. resigned over Ash Street control.

Let me pass to South Australia. In November of last year an elector in that State wrote to the Liberal and Country League and the Labor Party, asking for the names and occupations of members of their State and Federal executives.The then secretary

of the Labor Party in that State, who is now the honorable member for Bonython (Mr. Nicholls), gave the elector all the information that ho requested. The general secretary of the Liberal and Country League said that clause 6 of the constitution of the Liberal and Country League prohibited him from giving the inform-ation requested, and that members of the Liberal and Country League would not like the fact that they were members of that party publicised. The Liberal executive in South Australia is both faceless and nameless.

In Victoria the House will remember that in September, 1961, the State executive of the Liberal and Country Party expelled one member and cautioned three of the Liberal members in the Legislative ssembly. The secretary of the party refused to release the names of the members of the State executive of the party.

The Melbourne "Herald", one of the Liberal Party's most devoted adherents, said -"The people who assume the right to make these decisions should be clearly named to the public"

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This must have been belated solace for Mr. Hollway, former Premier of Victoria. He was deposed as leader of the Liberal Party because he refused to obey such outside direction to abandon the two-for-one distribution plan.

I pass now to Tasmania. During the life of the Parlia-ment of Tasmania, now expiring, Mr. Jackson, the Leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party, was deposed at the explicit direction of the State Executive of the Liberal Party. In March 1960, Mr.

Jackson said

"Yesterday, as the Leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party, I was asked to accept a direction from the (outside) organisation that completely severed two basic principles of Liberal freedom. I refused to accept that direction and consequently had no alternative but to resign from the party."

Another Liberal member of the Tasmanian Parliament, Mr. Hodgman, who resigned in protest at the same time, stated -"It was no surprise to me when I was told by ,Zr. Jackson that the emergency sub-committee

of the State executive had demanded his resig-nation. I was shocked however to hear of a further direction from this sub-committee that Mr. Jackson was to be replaced by 1,r. Bethune

and that Dr. Young was to be elected deputy leader, coupled with the threat that if this was not done endorsements and organisation support would be withdrawn."

That is, the Liberal Party executive in Tasmania decided not only that Mr. Jackson should be sacked but who should replace him.

The outside control of the Liberal Party is in the hands of the hidden persuaders, not only the party executives but more particularly the people who run the shipping, television and oil companies and the banks. I will start with the banks, because

they give a very clear example of outside direction. The feilowing comment appeared in "Rydge's Business Journal" in Ã¢ÂÂ¢ relation to the 1957 banking legislation -"It took the Federal executive of the Liberal

Party to force most Liberal Ministers to support the proposals. It took a meeting of the Liberal Party council - the Party's most powerful body - to pass a motion - in the face

of a personal appeal against it by the Prime Minister - before he changed his attitude."

We do not know who were present on that occasion.

I mentioned the shipping companies. The link between the shipping companies and the Liberal Party and its ancestors pen precedes Lord Bruce's sale of the Commonwealth Shipping Line. He is still a director of the P. & 0. company. Last month one

of its subsidiaries, Union Steamship Company Limited, forced a change in the promised operations of the "Empress of Australia" to Tasmania. Not able to beat the Australian National Line in fair competition, the company resorted to the old established and well proven tactic of applying pressure on a Liberal government which obliged and forced its own line to welsh on firm under-

takings given on sailings to Tasmania.

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Civil aviation and television are the two biggest indust-ries in Australia which cannot be carried on without the consent of the Commonwealth Government. Accordingly, in this field the present Commonwealth Government has chosen its darlings.The principal one is Mr. Ansett who follows Danton's advice:

Audacity, more audacity and still more audacity - do a thing on a big enough scale and you will get away with it.I need not list all the benefits which have been given to him in his airline operations. He himself modestly sums up the effect of them in this way -

"Th e legislation gives the company Australia-wide aviation franchises of about 50% of the industry's revenue which totals approximately F =., 36m. a year".

This was three years ago -"This franchise is for another fifteen years and its value cannot be calculated."

Mr. Curtin : Who said that?

Mr. W.vh.itla m:  That was an admission by Mr. .Axisett.Now I come to television licences. Mr. Ansett, not satisfied with his rebuff by the Control Board which had to report on the Brisbane licences, decided to buy up the company which obtained the

licence. I say no more about him. Could there ever be clearer examples of the influence which powerful companies exer-cise over this government. What about Sir Frank Packer?

Ansett now controls two television companies and has interests in another two, all in State capitals.  Sir Frank Packer has two capital city stations and large interests in two provincial city ones. He has also been consoled with a knight-hood and with a place in the N.S.W. Legislative Council for his

son.

Let inc come now to the oil companies. It will be well remembered that lbs. W.H. Anderson, the first president of the L;.beral Party when it was elected to office in Canberra, was a d rector of the Shell Oil Company. Very soon the C.G.R. company La which the Commonwealth Government had a large shareholding was sold to the interests which he represented. He now is a director of the Reserve Bank of Australia but you can see his influence and that of his colleagues in other respects. 71hy did Mr. R.W. Miller have so much difficulty in getting Australian-built.and Australian-operated tankers on the Australian coast?  The simple reason is that the government has very close links with the

overseas oil companies who wanted to keep the tanker trade to themselves.

Let us turn now to another example.  That about the sale of Australia's own oil supplies from Moonie? I would not want to create any unnecessary dissent in the House by quoting Mr. Evans, the Queensland Country Party Minister for Mines, on Sir William Spooner, but the "Sydney Morning Herald" had.this to say -

"The tenor of Sir William Spooner's remarks have unfortunately tended to give the impression that he found all the sweet reasonableness to be on the side of the Shell Oil Company."

Senator Spooner is more subservient to these outside oil interests and the Shell Company in particular than any Syrian or Saudi Arabian shiekh. Liberals accept outside control by overseas

companies.

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What about the Ligertwh wood report? Why was it pigeon-holed? Tho got at this report, not in hotel corridors but in club smoke rooms? ..' hy has the report of the Constitutional Review Committee been pigeon-holed for so long? Jho are the outside

controllers, the finance companies, the hidden persuaders of the Liberal Party in this instance who forced the Government to reject the report? The honorable member for Bradfield either did not know or did not vouchsafe the information. I confess that he is

freer than many of his colleagues because he does not sit near the gangway where Ministers can stand over him.

Fundamentally it is the power of the purse which deter-mines Liberal policy and keeps Liberal members of Parliament in line. They know that they will be deprived not only of endorse-ment but also of electoral resources if they do not follow the

line. Obviously the Liberal Party changed many of its attitudes in recent years because its funds were being cut off.This is why the former Attorney-General had to leave that portfolio;

why for four years he had been thwarted on the legislation relating to monopolies and restrictive trade practices; why for five years

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we have marked time on constitutional reform, and why for three years nothing has been done about tax evaders. The obvious answer is that the government's wealthy backers didn't want any-- thing done.I believe that I have time to list some of the little capitalists who really control the Liberal Party.I shall deal with the two principal States. It will be remembered that Senator Spooner confessed that he was a collector in New South :dales for the Liberal Party.He was a collector at the time when a Ir. !:1ood resigned from the party and gave this reason for his resignation -"On the plea that certain donors did not want their names released, finance had been taken out of the hands of the State Executive and there was no accounting to the Executive on party funds. The party's administration and control had largely been taken away from the Executive and vested in a few members of the central committee. I feel too much that the executive is the facade behind which these committees operate."Liberals are very frank when they resign.Some of Senator Spooner's fund-raising activities were taken over by as'. Bernard Dargan. His eminence in the field of science has since been recognised by Senator Spooner's appointment of him to the Australian Atomic Energy Commission.I turn now to some of the little capitalists who have formed at one time or another the finance committee of the Liberal-Country Party in Victoria. They are Mr. Brain, chairman of the T. & G. Life Assurance Company; Mr. Kirkhope, chairman of Mayne Nickless Ltd.; Mr. K.A. Taylor, former chairman of the Fire and Accident Underwriters Association of Victoria; Mr. Herbert Taylor, former president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce; Sir Maurice Nathan, president of the Australian Retail Furnishers Dissociation and Lord Mayor of Melbourne; Mr. Anderson, director of the Shell Oil Company, federal president of the

Liberal Party and a member now of the Reserve Bank Board; Sir

George Coles, the founder of G.J. Coles and vice-chairman of the National Bank; and Sir Ian Potter, the millionaire stockbroker and company director.

'where are their reports? Are the minutes of their deliberations available to the public or to members of this House? These are the type of men who really run the Liberal Party.

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Date of Issue: 27/4/64 additional copies of this statement may be obtained from the l^ustralian Labor Party Federal Secretariat on request.

