1956-03-01 22 1 1 REPS 395 0 1956-03-01 Mi. Speaker (Hon. Archie Cameron) took the chair at 10.30 a.m., and read prayers. 395 Questions 395 395 KX7 0 0 WARD, Edward Mr WARD - Can the Vice-President of r.he Executive Council, who is acting for the Minister for Defence, inform the House whether it is a fact that Army ducks have been made available in the Windsor district of New South Wales for flood rescue work? Is it a fact that the local State Liberal member, as part of his election campaign, has been visiting various parts of his constituency in one of the Army ducks, and that this has hindered and retarded the work of rescue and relief? Is it also a fact that residents requiring transport to Windsor from their flooded properties have had to wait for the council flood boat while the State Liberal member and candidate for that electorate at next Saturday's State election has continued to use the Army duck on his campaign tour? Will the Minister have inquiries made and inform the House upon whose authority the Army duck was diverted from flood relief work for the abovementioned purpose? 395 KNX UAP; LP from 1944 0 0 HARRISON, Eric Sir ERIC HARRISON - This matter really comes under the jurisdiction of the Minister for the Army. I shall make some inquiries from the Minister to ascertain whether he can supply the information to the honorable member. I know nothing about the use of Army ducks. The only duck about which I know anything is the way in which the Leader of the Opposition is ducking away from the New South Wales election campaign. 395 395 KVR 0 0 SWARTZ, Reginald Mr SWARTZ - My question is directed to the Minister for Immigration. Is it a fact that, since the commencement of operations under the InterGovernmental Committee for European Migration. Australia has taken nearly one-third of the emigrants sent overseas under that scheme? Has Australia been more successful than Canada and other countries in attracting European migrants? Is the proportion of British immigrants being maintained and, if so, are we still able to attract more British immigrants than other countries? 395 009MC LP 0 0 HOLT, Harold Mr HAROLD HOLT - The Australian Government has been closely linked with the work of the Inter-Governmental Committee for European Migration, and it has received from the committee valuable co-operation in the movement of suitable selected immigrants from Europe, all of whom have come within the range of selection of our own Australian selection officers. From memory, I think that approximately 30 per cent, of the total number of migrants who have been moved by this organization have come to Australia. I am glad to be able to say that we have been able to secure a high proportion of the number of people who have left Great Britain. According to Board of Trade figures published by the United Kingdom, the figure has been in the vicinity of 28 per cent. Canada has taken about 20 per cent, over the same period. Australia is currently receiving more immigrants from the United Kingdom than are Canada, New Zealand and South Africa combined - a highly satisfactory result. 395 395 KXI 0 0 WEBB, Charles Mr WEBB - In directing a question to the Minister for Trade I remind him of a statement he made in the House a few days ago in connexion with the sale of the Australian Whaling Commission's station at Carnarvon, in Western Australia, that a selected group of persons had been approached in regard to the sale. I now ask the Minister to be good enough to advise the House just who constitute that selected group of persons. 395 009MB CP 0 0 MCEWEN, John Mr McEWEN - I did not say any such thing. What I said was that everyone who was engaged in whaling in Australia had been written to and told that the Government was prepared to sell the whaling station, and asked if they were interested in the sale, and were offered all possible information on the matter. At the same time, by public statements, it was so clearly known that this was the Government's policy that without any prompting from the Government, certain groups of businessmen in Perth, Sydney and various other places have approached the Government. They have been given every possible facility to know and understand everything about the station. It seems that the only organization in Australia which was in blissful ignorance of all this was the Labour Government of Western Australia, and that does not seem to be very much of :i testimonial to it. 396 396 KEP 0 0 FALKINDER, Charles Mr FALKINDER - I direct to the Prime Minister a question which I put with some diffidence because of its subject matter. It has been the custom of the House, in the event of the death of a sitting member, to meet and place on (cord its sympathy, to be conveyed to his relatives, and then to adjourn for 24 hairs as a mark of respect. I invite the Prime Minister to consider an alteration to that procedure, whereby the House will meet, record its sympathy, and then adjourn to S o'clock on the evening of the same day. I do not offer this suggestion in any attempt to lessen the proprieties to which we should adhere on such occasions or to lessen our respect for honorable members concerned, but for reasons which I think every honorable member will understand. 396 N76 LP 1 0 MENZIES, Robert Mr MENZIES - The problem to which the honorable member refers has, I think, been in the minds of a number nf honorable members. Certainly it has !>pen in my mind. It is quite plainly a matter on which some sensible agreement ought to be arrived at. As the honorable member will agree, it is not, and should not be. a matter of dispute, but a matter for agreement and I propose, at an early d fi te. to take an opportunity to have a word with the Leader of the Opposition about it. 396 396 KXZ 0 0 PETERS, Edward Mr PETERS - I direct a question to t.lie Vice-President of the Executive Council. As the right honorable gentleman has been making unsubstantiated charges of corruption against public men in this country, and has been posing as the champion of what he calls " fundamental morality ", will he use his undoubted influence in the Government to have the incomes, and the sources of income, of all public representatives published periodically? This practice is followed in other countries of the world and has been a method, on the one hand, of protecting the reputations of honorable members from unscrupulous accusations and, on the other hand, of protecting the people from malpractices. 396 KNX UAP; LP from 1944 0 0 HARRISON, Eric Sir ERIC HARRISON - On . the one hand, I have made no charges of corruption against any government or any member of any government. 396 KXZ 0 0 PETERS, Edward Mr PETERS - I did not say "government ". I said " public representatives ". 396 KNX UAP; LP from 1944 0 0 HARRISON, Eric Sir ERIC HARRISON - Or public representatives. I have made no charge of corruption, and if I did, and if a royal commission were appointed to inquire into the charges, I should not run away, as the honorable member for East Sydney ran away from such a commission, on the excuse of parliamentary privilege. With regard to the principles of fundamental morality in government I hoped that the honorable member would be in accord with me in that regard. I would think it rather strange if he were not. However, although I would dissociate the honorable member for East Sydney from the principles of fundamental morality, I think that the honorable member for Scullin is in accord with me in that regard. With regard to his suggestions that certain matters should be published, 1 shall have a look into that, and if it is within my power to do something in that regard we shall see what can be done, although it might reveal some rather strange circumstances. 396 396 4U4 0 0 KILLEN, James Mr KILLEN - I ask the Prime Minister whether any definite date has been fixed for the visit to Australia by the Prime Minister of India. Further, will the Government consider, in the preparation of Mr. Nehru's itinerary, visits by him to every State in the Commonwealth ? 396 N76 LP 1 0 MENZIES, Robert Mr MENZIES - No date has been arrived at. The matter remains completely in general. I have not anticipated that Mr. Nehru will visit Australia before the Prime Minister's conference in June. I had thought that perhaps, at that time, I would be able to discuss with him what he wanted to do. Whether he will desire to visit every State is entirely a matter for him to determine. These journeys of an official kind are not always without their strain for the visitor. 397 397 2V4 ALP 0 0 CAMERON, Clyde Mr CLYDE CAMERON - ls the Postmaster-General aware that the result of the decision of the Full Bench of the Commonwealth Arbitration Court to reject the Public Service Arbitrator's determination in inspect of telegraphists and postal clerks and to substitute in its place other rates of pay has resulted in a reduction of £5 a year in the case of the one group and an increase of only 4½d. a week in the case of the other group on the rates fixed by the Public Service Board itself in December, 1954? Is he aware also that the board has refused to negotiate with the union concerned, in spite of its promise to do so in the event of the Overseas Telecommunications Commission deciding to approve of marginal increases to telegraphists employed by that organization? In view of this information, will the Postmaster-General consult the Prime Minister, if that is necessary, with a view to having an instruction issued to the Public Service Board to meet the union concerned for the purpose of carrying on the negotiations which it promised, but so far has refused, to carry out? If the Prime Minister is not prepared to issue that instruction to the board, will the Postmaster-General do what the Overseas Telecommunications Commission did, and negotiate directly with the union concerned on the subject of these marginal rates? 397 KCA CP 0 0 DAVIDSON, Charles Mr DAVIDSON The honorable member for Hindmarsh has directed to me a lengthy and a detailed question. I suggest to him that if he wants detailed replies to all the parts of this question lie should put it on the notice-paper. However, as an immediate reply, I want to say to him that I am quite satisfied that the Public Service Board, in carrying out its functions, is guided, under the policy of this Government, by the decision of the Commonwealth Arbitration Court. Of course, the board is, itself, a wage-fixing authority for the Public Service and for allied governmental instrumentalities. The honorable member has suggested that I should take some action in the Postmaster-General's Department which would be outside the scope of the Public Service Board. I say to him that the board, in its consideration of wages and conditions, always confers with the allied governmental instrumentalities, and I certainly would not consider any suggestion that the department should act on its own initiative, outside that policy. 397 397 KBH 0 0 WILSON, Keith Cameron Mr WILSON - I desire to ask the Prime Minister, as the president of the Olympic Games Committee, whether it is a fact that ticket holders for the Olympic Games will not be permitted to take cameras to, or photos of, the games. If so. will the Prime Minister request the Olympic Games Committee to "remove this ban so as to enable amateur photographers to add to the pleasure of the games, not only for themselves, but also, for their friends who are unable to attend the games and who, if cameras are allowed, will have the opportunity of seeing slides or prints of the games after their conclusion? 397 N76 LP 1 0 MENZIES, Robert Mr MENZIES - The plain truth, in reply to this question, is that I do not know. I do hope that my friend will not presume that the Olympic Games are within my administration as Prime Minister. I thank Heaven that they are not. 397 397 JO8 0 0 BARNARD, Lance Mr BARNARD - I preface my question by reminding the Prime Minister that just before the recent election an announcement was made in Canberra that plans for a new Bass Strait ferry were well under way. In view of the fact that recent events have proved Taroona to be most unpredictable, will the Prime Minister have these plans finalized so that the vessel may be replaced at the earliest possible da.t«2 398 N76 LP 1 0 MENZIES, Robert Mr MENZIES - I will take _ the matter up with my colleague, the Minister for Shipping and Transport, who has, I know, been directing a great deal of attention to it of late. I am happy to hear from the honorable member that Taroona is unpredictable. One aspect of its operation that can always be predicted with complete certainty is that it will cost us, by way of subsidy, £200,000 a year. 398 10000 0 0 SPEAKER, Mr Mr SPEAKER - Order ! I must call the attention of honorable members to the fact that two questions have just been addressed to the Prime Minister on matters that are outside his control. I must ask honorable members to confine their questions to matters for which Ministers are responsible or I shall have to ask them to sit down. 398 KBH 0 0 WILSON, Keith Cameron Mr Wilson - I rise to order. I understand that the Government has made a substantial contribution to the finances of the Olympic Games Committee. As this money comes from revenue, are not honorable members entitled to ask of the Prime Minister questions concerning the work of the committee? 398 10000 0 0 SPEAKER, Mr Mr SPEAKER - I should not think so. The money has been voted to the committee and I do not think that the Government, as a government, is taking an active interest in the running of the Olympic Games. 398 398 L0V 0 0 WIGHT, Bruce Mr WIGHT - I ask the Postmaster-General whether his department has now decided to issue a special postage stamp to commemorate the work done in Australia by the Royal Australian Flying Doctor Service. If so, will the department give special consideration to the design that has been submitted by the officers of the Royal Australian Flying Doctor Service? Finally, if it is true that the stamp is to be issued, could the Postmaster-General arrange for the Royal Australian Flying Doctor Service to be notified of the date of issue long before public notice of it is given, so that the service may be able to capitalize on the first-day covers, and obtain the profits therefrom which otherwise would go to private stamp dealers? 398 KCA CP 0 0 DAVIDSON, Charles Mr DAVIDSON - The honorable member has been in touch with me for quite some time about the issuing of this stamp. A design was submitted by him and it has been forwarded to the stamps committee for consideration. I believe that his very laudable desire will be given effect, and I shall certainly take into consideration the proposal that he has now made. 398 398 JF7 0 0 BEAZLEY, Kim Mr BEAZLEY - I refer to the recent statement by the Minister for Trade that gifts from the United States of America had had the effect, in certain areas, of cutting off the sale of similar Australian goods. I wish to know whether that was a private statement of opinion, or whether commercial or diplomatic representations have been made to the United States in the matter. 398 009MB CP 0 0 MCEWEN, John Mr McEWEN - It is a matter that has been discussed very publicly at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade conferences, and since. Broadly, the attitude of the Australian Government is that if the United States of America or other countries wish to give, or sell cheaply, surplus or other goods to needy people in circumstances which would not interfere with the normal trade of other countries, we shall offer nothing but encouragement. The criticism is of countries who are possessed of surpluses and decide to give those surplus goods, or sell them cheaply, to the customers of other normal trading countries, and to that extent distort the ordinary pattern of trade and subtract from the ordinary export income earning capacity of the trading countries. 398 JF7 0 0 BEAZLEY, Kim Mr Beazley - The criticism is directed to the United States of America itself? 398 009MB 0 0 MCEWEN, John Mr McEWEN - Quite clearly, yes. 398 398 LLW 0 0 DEAN, Roger Mr DEAN - I ask the Minister for Social Services whether a decision has been made to establish a regional office of his department in Newcastle, and, if so, whether a regional director will be appointed. If these decisions have been made, could the honorable gentleman inform me as to the area that will be controlled by the regional director, and whether it will include those parts of New South Wales north of the Hawkesbury River? 399 KZE CP 0 0 ROBERTON, Hugh Mr ROBERTON - I have no knowledge of the opening of any regional office anywhere, but it shall be my pleasure to make the necessary investigations and inform the honorable member foi' Robertson direct. 399 399 JWX ALP 0 0 FRASER, Jim Mr J R FRASER - I ask the Prime Minister whether the Government has under consideration a proposal to amend the Seat of Government (Administration) Act so as to incorporate in that enactment the provisions of section 92 of the Constitution, as has been done in a comparable act relating to the Northern Territory. As this matter bears so directly on the transport of goods by road from the State of New South Wales to the Australian Capital Territory, and thus is reflected in the cost of materials and the prices of commodities here, will the Prime Minister take the earliest opportunity to make some announcement on the matter? 399 N76 LP 1 0 MENZIES, Robert Mr MENZIES - I confess that I have never thought of the point, but it is an extremely interesting one. I shall be very happy to have a discussion with the Attorney-General and try to arrive at some mind about the matter. 399 399 KDA 0 0 DUTHIE, Gilbert Mr DUTHIE - Does the Prime Minister recall that he made an election policy speech in 1949? Does he recall that he gave certain guarantees regarding government enterprises, and that he said - I state quite categorically what we shall do about them. We shall, among other things, be encouraging the improvement of existing mercantile fleets. and be requiring the new Government shipping line to justify its existen re nationally and competitively. Tn view of this guarantee, has the Prime Minister changed his mind in respect of the Commonwealth shipping line? What has the Commonwealth shipping fleet or the Australian Shipping Board done to warrant any change in the present arrangement, whereby these 43 ships are operated as a Government enterprise? 399 N76 LP 1 0 MENZIES, Robert Mr MENZIES - To the extent that the honorable member's question reminds both him and the House of the excellence and quality of my 1949 policy speech, I am indebted to him. It is a piece of absolute unselfishness on his part to remind us of it. 399 KID 0 0 LUCHETTI, Anthony Mr Luchetti - And extravagance on yours. 399 N76 0 0 MENZIES, Robert Mr MENZIES - No, I stand by every word of it. It is an admirable document. As to the rest of the honorable member's question, it obviously relates to a matter of policy, and therefore cannot be answered. 399 399 1V4 0 0 CAIRNS, Jim Mr CAIRNS - I preface my question to the Minister for the Interior by saying that at the federal election held on the 10th December, 1955, instructions were given, consistent with section 130 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act, that each candidate was to be represented at each polling booth by only one scrutineer. When the provisions of section 131 of the act were pointed out, particularly the provision that " all the proceedings at the scrutiny shall be open to the inspection of the scrutineers ", candidates were allowed more than one scutineer, so as to obviate the delay which would have resulted from counting in the presence of only one scrutineer. Will the Minister take action to see that the confusion which resulted from the conflict between sections 130 and 131 will be avoided, and the practical requirements of the scrutiny met? 399 KEN LP 1 0 FAIRHALL, Allen Mr FAIRHALL - I assure the honorable member for Yarra that I shall look into the subject-matter of his complaint and make every endeavour to see that there is no possibility of confusion in the future. 399 399 KFG 0 0 GRIFFITHS, Charles Mr GRIFFITHS - I ask the Prime Minister whether it is a fact that surplus finance from this year's revenue cannot be allocated to ex-servicemen for the purchase of existing dwellings because it is required for the loan programme. Does the Prime Minister consider investments for loan programmes more lucrative and more pressing than the return received from war service homes investment and the satisfactory housing of ex-servicemen or does the right honorable gentleman believe in encouraging the present black market that is now being operated by certain financiers when finding temporary finance for ex-servicemen who are waiting for the War Services Homes Division to find and grant permanent finance ? 400 N76 LP 1 0 MENZIES, Robert Mr MENZIES - I cannot profess that I clearly follow the point that has been made by the questioner because, in point of fact, the Commonwealth has no loan moneys to use for this purpose. Therefore, I should have thought the question hardly arose. I will have a look at the details of the question he has put, and if something can be said further, I will be glad to do so. 400 400 KRK 0 0 MCIVOR, Hector Mr McIVOR - I address my question to the Minister for Labour and National Service. In view of the fact that those working under State awards are receiving 19s. a week more than workers operating under federal awards, does the Government intend to make any attempt to bring the federal awards into line with the State awards in order that this anomaly may be rectified? 400 009MC LP 0 0 HOLT, Harold Mr HAROLD HOLT - As I think the honorable member will he aware, there is a case partly heard before the full bench of the Commonwealth Arbitration Court at the moment. That case covers, in some degree, the particular matter referred to by the honorable gentleman. Counsel for the Commonwealth has already indicated that at a later stage of the proceedings a statement will be made on behalf of this Government, and I do not propose to add to that at this juncture. 400 400 JPE 0 0 BIRD, Alan Mr BIRD - My question is directed to the Prime Minister. What is the term for which the former Minister for the Army has been apponted Consul-General in New York, and what salary and expense allowance is he receiving in that office? 400 N76 LP 1 0 MENZIES, Robert Mr MENZIES - I will refer this matter to the Department of External Affairs, and I will have that information obtained and circulated to the honorable member. 400 miscellaneous Debate resumed from the 29th February (vide page 384), on motion by Sir Eric Harrison - That Mr. Downer, Mr. Drummond, Mr. Joske, Mr. Kent Hughes, Mr. Lucock, Mr. Mackinnon, Mr. Timson and Mr. Wentworth he members of the joint committee appointed to consider foreign affairs generally and, in particular, to inquire into matters referred to it by the Minister for External Affairs. That the foregoing resolution he communicated to the Senate by message. Mr. CALWELL (Melbourne) [10.59 J. - Last evening the Vice-President of the Executive Council (Sir Eric Harrison), who was in charge of the House, tried to rush this motion through the chamber. We had no notice of it, and we secured the adjournment of the debate in order that honorable members might have the opportunity to express their views about the fitness or otherwise of the various honorable members who, in the terms of the motion, are to constitute this foreign affairs study circle. I should like to say, in passing, that when we received the names of the senators who will constitute part of the joint committee, we were amazed, but not surprised in another way, to find that the sole member of the AntiCommunist Labour party has joined this committee. The names submitted to the House for approval commence with that of the honorable member for Angas (Mr. Downer). I think the honorable member for Angas might very well be a member of this committee, because he is a very able and very likeable man. As a matter of fact, he should have been in the Ministry. Why he was excluded and some of thu duds were allowed in, I do not know. I hope what I have to say about his qualities will not damage his prospects in the future, and I sincerely trust that he is at least in the third eleven. Speaking seriously, of all the Government supporters included in the list, I know no honorable member who works harder or discharges his duties with a higher sense of responsibility than does the honorable member for Angas, and I wish him well in whatever he undertakes. He has served on the Foreign Affairs Committee for a considerable time, and it is probably right and proper that, if there is to be continuity in that body, he should be a member of it still. The honorable member for New England (Mr. Drummond) is a very learned man, and was for a time Minister for Education in New South Wales. He has taken a long and active interest in political life and in the cultural affairs of his own State and, indeed, of Australia. We offer no objection to his appointment to the committee. But I am intrigued by the fact that a former New South Wales Minister for Education has to join a study circle to learn something about foreign affairs. This seems to be all wrong, and I have no doubt that we shall be given some explanation of why the study circle should not be constituted into a proper foreign affairs committee. But that is by the way. The Minister for Social Services (Mr. Roberton) is looking at me intently while I am discussing the honorable member for New England. 401 KZE 0 0 ROBERTON, Hugh Mr Roberton - I am looking at the honorable member with a sort of affection. 401 BV8 Melbourne 0 0 CALWELL, Arthur Mr CALWELL - I thought it may have been because the Minister has a guilty conscience since he has forestalled the honorable member for New England as a representative of the Australian Country party in the Ministry. The name of the honorable member for Balaclava (Mr. Joske) has been included in the list of nominees for the Foreign Affairs Committee. I suppose the honorable member had to be included. He has just returned from the United Nations head-quarters in New York. Having had the United Nations mayonnaise liberally showered over him, he is regarded as an expert. The honorable member for Chisholm (Mr. Kent Hughes) is to be a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. His appointment will be scarcely a solatium, though it is intended as such, for his wounded feelings after his undeserved exclusion from the Ministry. It shows what would have happened in the party room had the Ministers been selected by the same means «s the proposed members of the Foreign Affairs Committee were chosen. The honorable member for Chisholm won nomination for appointment to this committee on the votes of his fellow members, but he was not able to win approval for a place in the Ministry from the "top brass " of the Liberal party as exemplified "by the Vice-President of the Executive Council. The honorable member for Lyne (Mr. Lucock) is a very thoughtful young man, and he naturally wants to learn something about our foreign relations and to discover whether we have a foreign policy - it is very doubtful whether we have. The honorable member for Corangamite (Mr. Mackinnon) is a very quiet and reserved gentleman who probably will break forth in this study circle, although he has not done much up to date. He comes from a very distinguished family, and I am sure he knows a great deal about the government of nations. Perhaps he knows more than do a lot of his colleagues. Then there the honorable member for Higinbotham (Mr. Timson). I thought he was in line for the Speakership. Certainly, at one time, he was tipped for that position. His appointment to the Foreign Affairs Committee, too, is intended as a solatium for his wounded feelings. Now I come to the piece de resistance. the honorable member for Mackellar (Mr. Wentworth). If there is one committee of which he should not be a member, it is the foreign affairs study circle, or any other committee concerned with foreign affairs. The honorable member was the grand inquisitor on the original Foreign Affairs Committee. He thought that this was not to be a study circle. He thought it was to be a place where he could pursue his heresy hunts. He wanted to arraign people for treason before this committee. He wanted to be allowed to run loose through the Department of External Affairs, seeking out those whom he regarded as Communists, fellowtravellers, and the like. His years of study in the study circle do not seem to have improved his technique at all. We do not like him on this committee, because he just will not grow up on questions of foreign affairs. 401 JS7 0 0 BRAND, William Mr Brand - He hates the "Corns." too much. That is what the honorable member means. 401 BV8 0 0 CALWELL, Arthur Mr CALWELL - He may hate Communists, but there are other people whom he hates more, and they are members of the Australian Country party, because he thinks that they are far more dangerous to the peace of Australia and the good government of this country, and he is right. He has made a success of professional anti-communism. He can always get a press when he wants to inveigh against some honorable member on this side of the House. He is the perfect smear-master when it comes to labelling his opponents Communists. He does not believe half of it, of course, but it suits in the present frame of mind of the electorate. These are the people who a re to constitute this committee. We will not have any reports from them, of course. They will not tell us when the Indonesian ambassador comes to address them and gives his opinion of Senator Rankin for his recent utterances. We will not hear from them why the Minister for External Affairs found it necessary to prostrate himself before Dr. Soekarno and apologize because one member of this Parliament exercised the right of free speech and said what he thought was right concerning the Indonesian President some time ago. If I may say so parenthetically, I thought that the display of cringing servility towards the Indonesian President by the Minister for External Affairs was equalled only by the late El Glouai when he prostrated himself before the restored Sultan of Morocco, Ben Yussef, and begged for mercy. The Government has had it in its power to make this committee a real committee over the years. It has refused to do so. We shall allow the motion to proceed, but we do not expect any better results from this committee than we got from the previous one. Mr. WENTWORTH (Mackellar) fi 1.8]. - There is one verse in the Bible which I think I need never read so long as I am in this House. That is, "Woe to you when all men speak well of you ". I am sorry that I have not received even a solatium from the honorable member for Melbourne (Mr. Calwell), who is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. He says that he does not like me on this committee. He may not like me in other political places either. I make no apology for seeing in foreign affairs to-day a conflict between the two systems of communism and freedom. I make no apology whatsoever for that, because that is the essence of foreign affairs to-day, and if that essence is embodying itself, as it is, in the atomic situation, when this material situation embodies that non-physical conflict, at least I can say that I have shown some interest in this matter. I make no apology whatsoever for anything that I have said or any line that I may have followed. I do not think it right that when the world is locked in this ideological conflict, which will determine by its issue the whole future of mankind, honorable members of the Opposition should seize the opportunity to try to make a few cheap political points. It is no laughing matter that humanity lies in imminent danger of extinction. It is no laughing matter that the freedoms that we have won over some thousands of years of struggle upwards from slavery all lie in jeopardy. It is no laughing matter, as the honorable member for Melbourne seems to think, that those who believe that these things are of the essence of foreign affairs should endeavour to join even a study circle in relation to them. I make no apology whatever for what I. not by myself but in common with other members of the committee, said in a report in relation to a certain Dr. Burton, intimately connected with both the Communist party and the Labour party and forming one of the links between them, when he went overseas and, knowing what he was doing - because he could not plead ignorance - signed a report which came very near to treason, even if, by reason of the technical deficiencies of our law, it did not actually constitute treason. I make no apology for what I. in common with, other members of the committee, did or reported to the House on that occasion. If the phrase " cringing servility " is to be used, as it was used a few minutes ago by the honorable member for Melbourne, then I must apply it to him. He is not a Communist. I do not believe even that he likes the Communists. But he is cringing servilely to his leader, who is taking the party in the direction of communism. The honorable member for Melbourne is paying off for the fact that he has made a deal which has retained for him the deputy leadership of his party in this House. He is now, as so many other Labour people are, saying things which are helpful to communism and which follow the Communist line, for his own personal advantage. If that is not cringing servility, I do not know what is. Mr. WARD (East Sydney) [11.12 J. - 1 want to add to the criticisms that have been made of this committee, and deal with the remarks of the honorable member for Mackellar (Mr. Wentworth). The honorable member for Mackellar ought to examine his own conscience and then decide whether he could be a useful member of this committee. He never misses an opportunity to attack the Labour party and its leader because of what he states to be the party's cringing attitude towards, and its domination by, the Communist party. The honorable member cannot deny that on one occasion, when he was doing a little cringing and crawling himself, he called on Mr. Roach, a prominent member of the Communist party on the south coast of New South Wales, to talk to him about certain difficulties which he was having in running a newspaper there. At that time, the honorable member made a donation to Mr. Roach to support the waterside workers in a dispute in which they were then engaged. He decided also to present them with a cup, to be competed for at the annual six-hour day celebrations in Wollongong. It was known as the Illawarra cup and was to be presented for the Lest marching display in the procession. In the first year of the competition, the cup was won by the south coast section of the Waterside Workers Federation and the honorable member had the pleasure of presenting the Illawarra cup to Mr. Healy, the general secretary of the federation. So we can imagine what hypocrisy the honorable member engages in when he attacks the Labour party and its leader. Let us look at his firm opinions. I believe that the honorable member is fanatical. He sees the hand of communism everywhere. How could he be a useful member of this committee? Some time ago, he issued a pamphlet in which he referred to a preventive war. He wanted the Western powers to take advantage of the time that still remained, according to him, to drop their atomic and hydrogen bombs immediately on the Soviet. That was his solution of world problems. What contribution could a man who holds such views make to the Foreign Affairs Committee? As a matter of fact, I have heard him referred to in the corridors as "Bomb happy Bill ". He has it on his brain. I can understand that a lot of people in the. world are worried about the present situation and the development of these great weapons of destruction, but the honorable member for Mackellar has become a complete fanatic. He thinks of nothing else, and sees the menace of communism in every direction. I suggest, as has also the honorable member for Melbourne (Mr.Calwell), that the Foreign Affairs Committee is purely a study circle, and that it will make no reasonable contribution towards the solution of Australia's difficulties or the formulation of foreign policy. The Government originally wanted Opposition members to join a committee which was to consider only matters referred to it by the Minister for External Affairs. No provision was made for the making of a minority report to the Parliament. As a. matter of fact, the Opposition members could not report to anybody. They could not report even to their own party or convey in conversation to any member of the Parliament what they had learned. How utterly ridiculous that would be! Therefore, in my opinion, the Australian Labour party has adopted the correct attitude. In relation to the personnel of the committee, I am perfectly satisfied, whatever I might say about other individual members of it, that the honorable member for Mackellar is a fanatic, and that he has fixed opinions about certain aspects of Australia's foreign policy. That has proved to the satisfaction of Opposition members that they did the correct thing in not associating with the committee and certainly in not associating with the honorable member for Mackellar. 403 DB6 0 0 WENTWORTH, William Charles Mr Wentworth - I wish to make a personal explanation. I refer to two matters, one of which is trivial and the other important. The version given by the honorable member for East Sydney (Mr. Ward) of what happened on the south coast is, to say the least, highly fanciful and almost completely untrue. It has been mentioned before in this House by the honorable member for East Sydney and 1 have previously exposed its falsity. The important matter is what he said in relation to a pamphlet that I issued. His statement on that matter also happens to be untrue. What I said in that pamphlet was not as it has been stated by the honorable member. I said that, while the democracies had the monopoly of atomic weapons, they should use them to enforce world control and to ensure permanent peace. If that had been done at that time there need have been no war, and Ave would not now stand, as the whole world stands, in danger of obliteration. That is a serious matter. I feel that I must direct the attention of the House to that misrepresentation - I shall not call it a deliberately misleading statement - by the honorable member for East Sydney. I am. indeed very sorry that he does not appear to like it. 404 KZE Riverina CP Minister for Social Services 0 0 ROBERTON, Hugh Mr ROBERTON . - One of the penalties that I have had to pay for w hat has happened to me in the past few weeks - and I assure the House that it was entirely unsought and unexpected - has been the necessity to surrender my place on the Foreign Affairs Committee. It was my privilege to be a member of that committee from its inception, and I think I attended every meeting of it. Iii my opinion, perhaps the finest thing ni its kind that the Government has ever d.,ne has been to establish a committee of this description for the distribution of information to members of this House anr! members of another chamber so that they may, in turn, inform their colleagues, whoever they may be, of the changing circumstances of modern society so far as external affairs are concerned. As I Iia ve stated, I very much regret that I arn no longer a member of the committee. I enjoyed every hour that I spent with it. I enjoyed meeting representatives of other peoples of the world, and I consider that the work that was done by the committee was of inestimable value to inn and to the country as a whole. Having ?aid that, let me say that, for the life of me. I cannot understand the attitude of the. Opposition. So far as I am in a position to judge that attitude, it can be described only as a miserable confession of cowardice. At one stage there was in existence no foreign affairs CoIn.mitteee, but only the Department of External Affairs, whose titular head - now the Leader of the Opposition - had the prerogative, apparently, of determining the foreign policy of the then Government. I remind honorable membersand, indeed, the people also, that that being so, Australia became, for the first time in our history, a dubious international risk. We were not trusted by any other reputable country on the faceof God's earth. It was not until the people in their wrath rejected the LabourGovernment and elected the MenziesFadden Administration, as we know it to-day, which in turn established theForeign Affairs Committee, that we as a nation were able to recover the position. The Foreign Affairs Committee has played a very important part in that recovery. I am on intimate terms with some of the ablest members of the Opposition, for whom I have the greatest regard. To my certain knowledge, they are very eager to play their part as an Opposition and to nominate some of their number for appointment to this committee; but honorable members opposite are forbidden to take any part in the deliberations of this body. What a lamentable state of affairs! That sort of thing could not possibly happen in the Australian Country party, nor could it happen, I believe, in the Liberal party. There is, as I have stated, a group of Labour men in this House and in another place who are anxious, to my certain knowledge, to inform themselves about important events in other parts of the world, but they are expressly forbidden to have anything to do with the committee. My friend, the honorable member for Melbourne (Mr. Calwell) has been placed in the invidious position this morning of having to stand up and try to defend that indefensible attitude. One of the complaints that have been voiced by the Opposition against the committee is that its members might not be able to obtain information they want. I can assure honorable members on both sides of the House that, if and when they are appointed to the committee, they will be fully loaded with, all the information they are likely to absorb. The reading that is necessary to keep oneself informed can be described only as being prodigious. No matter how limited a man's capacity may be, he cannot fail to improve himself by being associated with the committee. Proof of what I have to say is to be found in our own experience. No sooner was there a cleavage in the ranks of the Opposition, no sooner was the Anti-Communist Labour party established in this House and in another place, than the very first thing that party did was to indicate that it wished to participate in the Foreign Affairs Committee's discussions, and play its full part in that committee. And it did. I was privileged, together with other members of the committee, to sit with members of the Anti-Communist Labour party from day to day, and if any one cares to ask those who were at that time members of that party their opinion of the value of the work of the committee, I am quite certain the answer would be that the committee's functions were of inestimable value to the country as a whole. The proof of that was emphasized last night, I believe, in another place, when again the Anti-Communist Labour party, given the opportunity to do so, immediately indicated that its members in the Senate would be represented on the Foreign Affairs Committee. It is simply impossible for any private individual to keep himself informed of all that is happening throughout the world unless there is a committee of this description, with the latest information available to it from day to day, and with representative people appointed to it, competent to absorb that information. I did not know the names of the honorable members selected to represent this House on the committee until I heard them announced by the honorable member for Melbourne, who is Deputy Leader of the Opposition. The honorable member for Angas (Mr. Downer) was previously a member of that committee. I sat with him continuously since its inception. 405 BV8 0 0 CALWELL, Arthur Mr Calwell - He is a very able man. 405 KZE 0 0 ROBERTON, Hugh Mr ROBERTON - I agree, and if the honorable member for Melbourne would pay a little more attention to what the honorable member for Angas has to say from time to time I am quite certain that it would be of great value to him. The honorable member for New England (Mr. Drummond) is another old member who has been renominated, and, it is to be presumed, will be re-appointed to the committee. The honorable member for Balaclava (Mr. Joske) is a newly nominated member, and I know, from the character of the man and the quality of the work that the committee does, that he will find it of absorbing interest. So, too, with the honorable member for Chisholm (Mr. Kent Hughes). His experience in other parts of the world should make him a very valuable member of the committee. The honorable member for Lyne (Mr. Lucock) - and I think the House should know this - has been very anxious to be, like a great many other members on both sides of the House, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The fact that I have been placed in the position that I now occupy gave the honorable member for Lyne this opportunity, and I have no doubt that he will discharge his duty with all the ability that he has. The honorable member for Corangamite (Mr. Mackinnon) cannot be otherwise than a valuable member of the committee, and can only discover, as we all have discovered, the absorbing interest to be derived from the work of the committee. The honorable member for Higinbotham (Mr. Timson), with whom I composed my differences yesterday, for which both he and I are glad, has been appointed as a member of the committee, and I am sure he will enjoy his work on the committee. The honorable member for Mackellar (Mr. Wentworth) is only the third retiring member of the committee to be reappointed. He, of course, is a most colourful character, and, though I must confess that it is my invariable practice, as soon as he begins to speak, to retire from the scene, that is probably my fault. But he has been a very valuable man in the Foreign Affairs Committee, whatever his disabilities may be in other directions. I do not know the identities of those nominated by the Senate to be members of the committee, but I close by saying that I, as a perfervid democrat, deplore the attitude of Her Majesty's Opposition on this question, as I do its attitude on a great many other questions. Here is an opportunity for members of the Opposition, by their own decisions and their own acts, to be represented on a committee that is of transcendental importance to our country as a whole. Yet here is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition placed in a position this morning of having to inform the House that the Opposition is expressly forbidden to participate in the work of a committee. 406 2V4 Hindmarsh ALP 0 0 CAMERON, Clyde Mr CLYDE CAMERON . - I think the House must feel indebted to the Minister for Social Services (Mr. Roberton) for having, like the honorable member for East Sydney (Mr. Ward), put the honorable member for Mackellar (Mr. Wentworth) in proper perspective. The Minister has made it clear, as has the honorable member for East Sydney, that the House regards the honorable member for Mackellar as being somewhat of an oddity. We agree with the Minister for Social Services in that regard, and I leave the honorable member for Mackellar to think over the views of not only the honorable member for East Sydney, but also those expressed by one of the Ministers in the Government that he supports. I should like to say at once that I fully support the appointment of the honorable member for Angas (Mr. Downer). It seems to me, as the honorable member for Melbourne (Mr. Calwell) has stated, that this is the Government's way - a rather shabby way too, I might say, incidentally - of giving some small consolation to this man who, it knows in its own mind, should have been appointed to the Cabinet; because, if ever a man were entitled to be added to the Cabinet as a result of the contributions he has made to this Parliament in debate, and because of his general understanding and demeanour in the Parliament, that man is the honorable member for Angas. It is a tragedy that a man such as he should have been left out of the Cabinet and given this job in the " study circle " while a man such as the Minister for Social Services should be appointed to the Cabinet. One would have no difficulty in going through the list of Cabinet members and finding the names of at least five or six men who could never have survived a ballot of their fellows in a joint party meeting of the Liberal and Australian Country parties had they been compelled to face one. What I have said of the honorable member for Angas also applies to the honorable member for Balaclava (Mr. Joske), because he, again, is one who was surely entitled to expect promotion to the Cabinet as a result of the work that he has done in this Parliament. It must have come to him as something of a shock when he looked at the calibre of some of the Ministers who now constitue the Government, especially some of those in the " second eleven ", and had to ask himself whether the Prime Minister at heart considered them to be of greater intellect than he is. I refer now to the remarks made by the Minister for Social Services about the honorable member for Chisholm (Mr. Kent Hughes). He spoke of that honorable member's great suitability for membership of the Foreign Affairs Committee, saying that he is a man who has travelled widely. Unfortunately for the honorable member for Chisholm, he is indeed a mau who has travelled widely. Had it not been for his recent visit abroad to the island of Formosa where he kowtowed to Chiang Kai-shek, and for the statements that he made about his visit to Taiwan, which is the Formosan name of Formosa. I think the honorable member for Chisholm might still be a member of the Cabinet. It is well known that, privately, he has expressed the view that the reason for his omission from the Ministry was that the Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies) and the Minister for External Affairs (Mr. Casey) did not agree, with statements that he made publicly in relation to Formosa. However, this gentleman will now join the Foreign Affairs Committee, and the Prime Minister will have the consolation that the views of the honorable gentleman, when he is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, will be taken very little notice of. They will be taken far less notice of than if he were a Minister. The Prime Minister thus made sure that the honorable gentleman, as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, would be prohibited, according to the terms of his appointment, from giving any information or making statements that bear on any of the information given to him as a member of that particular body. I come now to the most interesting aspect of the whole matter, and that is the regret that has been repeatedly expressed by members of the Government about the refusal of the Opposition to become identified with this Foreign, Affairs Committee. On the one hand, members such as the Vice-President of the Executive Council (Sir Eric Harrison) and other irresponsible types such as the honorable member for Mackellar have told this Parliament repeatedly that the Leader of the Opposition (Dr. Evatt) is nothing more nor less than a Communist stooge: and that the honorable member for East Sydney, likewise, is nothing more nor less than an under.cover agent of Russia in Australia. Having said this and given the impression that they really meant it, they then express regret that the Opposition has not identified itself with this Foreign Affairs Committee to which, if it is half as important as we are led to believe it is, the Opposition would undoubtedly elect the very two people that Government supporters so roundly condemn whenever the opportunity presents itself. The Opposition would, of course, elect its own leader, and the honorable member for East Sydney would always be assured of election to any committees such as this, that the Opposition might find itself prepared to identify itself with. I would like to ask whether the Government, in these circumstances, wants to give to itself the right to tell the Opposition whom its representatives should be and whom its representatives should not be. If the Government is not going to take unto itself that right, we can only assume that the Government, in extending its invitation to the Opposition to be associated with this committee, did so in the knowledge that the men whom it has condemned here as being unworthy of the Parliament would be the men who would sit on this committee. It either proves that the committee is what we say it is - an ineffectual body that is nothing more nor less than a study circle - or else it shows, as is more probable, that the Government members themselves do not really believe the attacks that they have made and the things that they have said about the Leader of the Opposition and members of the Opposition, such as the honorable member for East Sydney. The reason that the Opposition has repeatedly rejected the invitation of the Government is mainly that we believe that the committee is not given the full right that it should be given. We do not believe that the Minister, for example, should be the only one who should have the right to say what matters shall be considered by the committee. We believe that the committee, if appointed, should have the power to call upon any of the departmental officers to inform its mind on any matter of foreign affairs that the committee considers ought to be dealt with. The committee should have the right, moreover, to advise the Minister for External Affairs on matters of foreign affairs when it believes that the Minister is astray, or about to make a decision one way or the other. The Opposition, moreover, believes that a committee which is compelled, in the circumstances, to consider only those matters that are referred to it by the Minister, and which is compelled to consider only that information which is weeded out by the Minister as being suitable for its ears, cannot serve its purpose in the way that the Opposition would like to see it serve this country. I direct attention to the fact that, the honorable member for Angas expressed his complete opposition to the Government's decision and the Minister's decision, to enter into the peace treaty with Japan which allowed for the rearmament of Japan. There are other members of the committee who supported the views of the honorable member for Angas in opposing the decision of the Government to rearm Japan so shortly after Australia had been fighting Japan in a theatre so near to our own shores. If one is able to use the standards of debate in foreign affairs as the criteria by which to judge whether or not this study circle has had any important results, one is compelled to say at once, and without hesitation, that the study circle has been a dismal failure. Apart from the expressed views by the honorable member for Angas, the views expressed by the honorable member for Mackellar and some former members of the committee, particularly the Minister for Social Services, who has just left the chamber, are a classical example of poorly-informed minds, or of the minds of people who are so prejudiced as to be incapable of being informed, no matter what information is available to them. The Opposition is very suspicious that the original purpose of the Government in inviting the Opposition to become identified with the committee was to try to commit the Opposition to the Government's plan at that time to become involved in an aggressive war against the people of Asia. We have to consider that the Foreign Affairs Committee was first appointed at a time at which the Prime Minister had come back to this country and promised the people of Australia that he would be able to provide them with a war against Asia within three years. The Foreign Affairs Committee was formed in the hope that the Opposition would be foolish enough to become identified with it, so that the Government r-ould then say, when it declared war on the people of Asia, in accordance with the plans that were undoubtedly so carefully laid by the Government and its advisers in America, that the Opposition was behind it, and that Australia, as a nation, was united behind the Government's aggressive designs in Asia. The Opposition was not prepared, therefore, to allow its name to be used as the excuse for declaring this aggressive war on people in Asia, whose only wish was to govern themselves. We made it clear, therefore, that if this committee was to have any power, it would require the right to examine any particular aspect of foreign affairs, and the right to call for information on foreign affairs. It would also have to be able to give an intelligent view on all matters relating thereto. The Opposition, as I say, repeats that it is not prepared to become linked with the Government's designs in Asia one way or i ho other. Sir ERIC HARRISON (WentworthVicePresident of the Executive Council and Minister for Defence Production) f 11.44]. - in reply - I just want to straighten the record on this matter. It seems to me that things have gone completely off the rails. They went off the rails originally with the statement of the honorable member for Melbourne (Mr. Calwell) when he said that the Government was making another attempt to rush business through this House without notice. The honorable member has had long enough experience of parliamentary practice to know that when a message comes from the Senate, the Government has to do something about it. The Government submitted the motion, and the honorable member for Melbourne then asked me, across the table, whether I intended to proceed with it that night, or grant him the adjournment of thedebate. I told him that I would grant the adjournment of the debate, and hetook the opportunity so presented. Now he says that the Government is attempting to rush this motion through the House without giving him notice of its intention. Of course, it is characteristic of the way in which he has handled the debate. Honorable members opposite have not observed the ordinary . ethics of debate. The debate upon the resolution to bring the committee into existence was fitting and proper, but honorable members opposite have used this debate as an opportunity to smear, and damn with faint praise, Government nominees. They have sought, for instance, to create disaffection by describing an honorable member as a great man who should have been in Cabinet. They have sought to smear other honorable members by raking up, as did the honorable member for East Sydney (Mr. Ward) when speaking of the honorable member for Mackellar (Mr. Wentworth) anything harmful that they could find. Other members of the committee have been damned with faint praise. That has been the intention of honorable members opposite in thisdebate. From the business paper one sees that three other statutory committees with nine, ten and nine members respectively have been appointed without resort topersonalities. Honorable members opposite are not prepared, when their supporters are on committees, to display the elephantine humour of the honorable member for Melbourne, or the smears of the honorable member for East Sydney and the honorable member for Hindmarsh (Mr. Clyde Cameron). The Government's nominees are the chosen of the parties. They were chosen by ballot. There was no arranging of forces, nor were promises given in return for votes within the party. There was nothing like the grouping of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Opposition to ensure their reelection. No one was dumped in the way that the honorable member for East Sydney was dumped so conclusively by his leader. Our nominees were balloted for in a legitimate manner and no doublecrossing took place. One Labour supporter put it rather well when he said (hat voters in the Labour party ballot should have marked their cards with a double-cross. Mi-. Duthie. - I rise to order. What lias this to do with the motion before the House? 409 10000 0 0 SPEAKER, Mr Mr SPEAKER - It is as near to it as anything that I have heard this morning. 409 KNX Wentworth UAP; LP from 1944 0 0 HARRISON, Eric Sir ERIC HARRISON - No one could accuse the honorable member for East Sydney of being wistful, but there was a wistful note in the voice of the honorable member for Melbourne when he realized that in our party a straight vote could be taken and that but for the adoption of less ethical methods, he might not have retained his position as Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Importing those less ethical methods into this debate he has sought to destroy a committee which has rendered valuable service to the people of this country, and which has interested itself in matters of which we, in our insularity of a few years ago, took little notice. Now the House is internationally minded. This is attributable entirely to the work of such committees. In offering the Opposition membership of the committee we are saying to them, " Please come in and instruct your minds on these matters. Even if you have some taint of red we are perfectly certain that acquaintance with the wider sphere of international politics will brain wash you, and that you will come into the fold without any leaning towards the left". Honorable members opposite should consider that, because one section of their party did so. It became very active and played a good part in the conduct of the Foreign Affairs Committee. We know that there are still, on the other side of the House, members who, while rendering lip service to their leader, would not, in their heart of hearts, have a bar of him. Some of them during the last election in Victoria even put themselves forward, not as Evatt candidates, but as Cain candidates in order to show their contempt for their leader. This is the party that now seeks to discredit a committee of this calibre. I merely wished to put the record straight in regard to the procedure necessary to bring the matter before the? House, and to draw attention to the unethical approach of honorable member* opposite. There was no need whatever to challenge the membership of the committee because honorable members opposite had already, on another occasion, challenged the principle of its establishment. Having done what I rose to do, and made one or two additional remark? that I think are quite pertinent, I shall resume my seat. Question resolved in the affirmative. 409 miscellaneous ADDRESS-IN-REPLY Debate resumed from the 29th February (vide page 384), on motion by Mr. Chaney - That the following Address-in-Reply to the Speech of His Excellency the Governor-General be agreed to: - May it Please Your Excellency: We, the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, in Parliament assembled, desire to express our loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign, and to thank Your Excellency for the Speech which you have been pleased to address to Parliament. Mr. Pollard That the following words be added to the Address: - "and we desire to add that, in the opinion of this House, the Government should at once terminate all negotiations for the sale or disposal of any of the assets of the Australian Whaling Commission located at Carnarvon, Western Australia." 409 K5L Watson 0 0 COPE, James Mr COPE .- I take this opportunity to add my congratulations to those that have been offered to honorable members who have made their maiden speeches. However, one gentleman who supports this Government marred a very fine speech by showing that he intends to adopt the usual reactionary attitude of some Government members, and will try to smear this party as being associates of the Australian Communist party. If the honorable member for Moreton (Mr. Hallen), who made a veiled assertion to that effect, cares to examine the position without bias he will discover that although, admittedly, one Labour supporter was elected to this Parliament on Communist preferences, the same is true of a Liberal member of this chamber and a Liberal member of another place. However, I am not so foolish, bigoted or biased as to state that any of those three gentlemen are associated with the Communist party, or are pro-Communist. Government supporters seem to take advantage of anything of this nature to cast a slur upon members of the Opposition. I am proud to be able to say that I have never been associated with the Communist party and that I have probably fought its members much harder than have Government supporters. It is also interesting to note that of 112,000 votes polled by Mr. Healy, the No. 1 Communist candidate for the Senate in New South Wales, the Liberal senator received 82,000 as against 30,000 for the Labour candidate. I can just imagine the hue and cry that there would have been among Government supporters if the position had been reversed. Our anti- Australian press would have published the news in big headlines. But nothing was said about it in the newspapers, or by Government members, except so far as was necessary to cast veiled aspersions upon respectable members of the Opposition. During the adjournment debate last night something came up about a certain resolution, which was defeated, concerning the Communist party in Queensland. Does it mean that because a resolution of that kind is defeated, those who vote against it are Communists? Do Government supporters say that more than 50 per cent, of the people - the proportion that voted against the dissolution of the Communist party in the 1951 referendum - are Communists? The aspersions that are cast on honorable members of the party to which I belong are too ridiculous for words. The Labour party is always bitterly opposed to the Communist party, because it is the desire of the Communist party to wreck us. The Communists know that while. Labour has an opportunity to govern, with its policy of full employment and a fair and just deal for the workers, communism is dead. The Communists try to injure the Labour party and to put Liberal and Australian Country party governments in power, because they know that an opportunity might then come their way to gain followers, for it i3 likely that the actions of such governments will result in a depression, poverty and unemployment. That is why the Communist party on various occasions has arranged its preferences at election time, certainly in a veiled manner, so that they will go to supporters of the present Government. At various times, honorable members opposite have spoken about disunity in the Labour party. Let us examine the position of the Government parties. In New South W'ales last year, a gentleman named Mr. Murray Robson was elected to the leadership of the Liberal party. That, gentleman wanted a coalition with the Country party. Mr. Lyle Moore would not agree with that proposal, and he resigned his position because he did not believe in a coalition with the Country party. Only a few weeks later Mr. Murray Robson was deposed from his position as leader because he had wanted to bring about the coalition. Mr. Lyle Moore finally had his way, and he returned to the position of president of the Liberal party. The result of that dissension is that in three country electorates in New South Wales that are at present represented by Labour members, the Liberal party is opposed to Country party candidates. I refer to the State electorates of Mudgee, Dubbo and Young. I can mention another instance in Victoria, where Mr. Bolte last year became Premier. When Mr. Bolte found that he had enough Liberal supporters, he immediately dumped the Country party and formed a government of his own. We have only to consider the course of events in this Parliament. The Prime Minister, when allotting positions in the Cabinet, completely overlooked the Australian Country party for what I consider was the first portfolio that should have been given to that party. I refer to the Ministry .of Primary Industry. There is in that position a Liberal, a city-bred man, who has had no experience- 411 KHY 0 0 HOWSE, John Mr Howse - He comes from the country. 411 K5L 0 0 COPE, James Mr COPE - He was born there, probably. 411 KHY 0 0 HOWSE, John Mr Howse - And has lived there most of his life. 411 K5L 0 0 COPE, James Mr COPE - He probably has, and so have most of the Australian Country party members. 411 KZW 0 0 LAWRENCE, William Mr Lawrence - It is a pity that more Opposition members have not. 411 K5L 0 0 COPE, James Mr COPE - At present in New South Wales there is a ministry of sixteen members, seven of whom come from the country. That is an answer to the honorable member's interjection. We on this side of the House believe that there is disunity within the Government parties. That was evidenced during the debate on the Ministers of State Bill, when an attack was made upon the Liberal party section of the Government by a gentleman who sits in the Government corner on this side. Then, one of the honorable gentlemen on the other side of the House - I do not know which electorate he represents - stated that the honorable member who had made the attack was annoyed because he had not been admitted to the Cabinet. Apparently, in this one-man band, if I may use the expression that was used by the Vice-President of the Executive Council (Sir Eric Harrison) in speaking about the Labour party's voting procedure, an honorable member must be on side with the Prime Minister before he can make headway in the Government parties. That is quite obvious to every one. 411 KGC 0 0 HAMILTON, Leonard Mr Hamilton - Well, what follows? 411 K5L 0 0 COPE, James Mr COPE - Something important follows, from my point of view. I take exception to the fact that in the Governor-General's Speech very little was said about housing. It is my opinion that immigration should 1 be entirely curtailed until the Australian people, and the new Australian people within Australia, are housed. I say that for this reason: In the electorate in which I live, and which 1 am honoured to represent, there are many thousands of people without homes. There are many young married people, with two or three children. Recently, a lady approached me to see if I could get her a home. She and her husband are living in one room and they are trying to raise a family. There are scores of thousands of young married couples throughout Australia who are willing to raise families and accept the responsibilities of family life, if they can get homes. I fully appreciate the need to populate our country, but we also have other responsibilities. It is all very well for Ministers, and others, who have their homes, to advocate that we should increase our population, but what sacrifice are they making? The people who are making the sacrifices are the ones who are looking for homes, and I think that something should be done to help them. I asked a question on this matter of the Minister for Immigration yesterday, but, as usual, his answer was completely evasive. I asked him whether this Government can guarantee continuity of employment to the immigrants who are already here, to the Australian people, and to the immigrants who intend to come here. I say that the Government cannot offer such a guarantee, because when the proposed economic sanctions are brought into operation, after the various State elections are over, we will see want and misery even worse than we saw in 1952 and 1953. Honorable members will recall that at that time many hundreds of new Australians marched into the City of Sydney, demanding work, and they rioted in Rawson-place. That is a spectacle which could be seen again, and, in my opinion, we will see it in a worse form. Honorable members opposite offer no constructive ideas on what should be done about the housing position. Their only suggestion is to divert money from some other source into housing projects. A statement that was made recently by the secretary of the New South Wales Housing Commission, Mr. Bourke, shows the trend in this matter. From last year's allocation of loan money to the New South Wales Government, 4,900 homes were built. but in this year only 3,700 homes can be built. The position will be worsened next year when the effects of increased interest rates for housing loans are felt. I was appalled to find that in the Governor-General's Speech no reference was made to any intention to restore quarterly wage adjustments to employees working under federal awards. It is most unjust that wages were pegged in 1953 for those employees, and that they are still pegged. They are still pegged, yet we see prices rising week after week and no attempt is being made by this Government to curb that trend in any way. The Menzies-Fadden Administration was elected in 1949 on the false promise that it would put value back into the fi. It had no intention of honouring that promise, and the failure to do so has created the position in which we find ourselves to-day. We all remember that the late Mr. Ben Chifley told us in 1948 that unless the prices referendum was carried we should have a position that could be likened to that of a dog chasing its tail. I think honorable members on both sides of the House will admit that that prophecy has come true, for to-day the position is just one in which wages are chasing prices all the time. We also remember that when we had federal prices control in 1948, the living wage was £5 12s. a week. Now, without federal prices control, it is £12 15s. in New South Wales. The present Government stated, in 1948, through the anti-Australian newspapers, that the States could control prices. It is my firm belief that it knew then that the States could not control prices. The Government deceived the people in order to induce them to vote against the referendum, much to the detriment of Australia and the Australian working people. Finally, I emphasize that honorable members on the Government side should think well before casting aspersions at the members of Her Majesty's Opposition. I advise them to look round the chamber, and to ask themselves whether they are honest, whether they are here as elected representatives of the people. If they do so, I am confident they will not brand decent honorable people as being pro-Communist. The policy of the AntiCommunist Labour party is to try to defeat communism by introducing fascist methods. We of the Australian Labour party believe that the correct way to defeat communism is to have a happy, contented and prosperous nation in which everybody is entitled to work and in which there is a job for every one. We do not believe in introducing one evil in order to get rid of another, but I think that some honorable members on the Government side would be only too willing to introduce fascist methods in order to defeat communism. 412 KHY Calare 0 0 HOWSE, John Mr HOWSE .- I think I heard the honorable member for Watson (Mr. Cope), say that he would like to see our immigration programme slowed down. That is a very short-sighted view because, unless we maintain our inflow of migrants, this country cannot possibly develop or go ahead. I hope to refer to that matter later. Nor should we accept the counsel of despair that so many of our economists are putting forward. I believe those men are living in ivory castles, far removed from realities. They arc dealing with the economic man, the rational man. Some economists seek to tell us what the rational man should do and how he should behave in certain circumstances, but the so-called rational man breathes, eats, sleeps, drinks and gambles. He does not behave in the manner in which the economists believe he should behave. Every man in Australia has great faith in Australia. He believes in Australia, and he is prepared to push ahead and see that it is developed. Australia can, and must, go ahead. It cannot mark time. We cannot halt. We cannot say, " Let us wait for a better opportunity to do these things ". We must go ahead, and for that development, we need two things. We need a large population, and we need capital. Immigrants have played a very great and important part in the development of Australia, especially since the war. They have been largely responsible for maintaining our building programme and our transport services. They have done much for our public utilities. There are over 40 nationalities working on the great Snowy Mountains scheme. There are two further instances of the good that immigrants have done. The sugar industry would have come to a complete standstill within three years if it had not had the help of new Australian labour. Again, half the fruit-pickers of the Commonwealth are new Australians. In the steel industry, they have played a major part. It will be seen from this that the new Australian is helping our export industries greatly. In short, it can be claimed that the new Australian has put more into this country than he has taken out of it. I think we all are in agreement that Australia should maintain a vigorous immigration policy. Although the State Premiers agree on very few things, this is one matter upon which they do agree. Australia needs an increased working force. We have the native-born Australian and the immigrant from whom to draw. Even assuming there are difficulties, and there must be difficulties when we are trying to digest a large number of people coming into the country, it is our duty to provide homes for those people, because we have a duty to increase the population of the country. We are living in a fools' paradise if we shut our eyes to that fact. Most of us will remember the words of William Morris Hughes, which, although spoken over 30 years ago, are just as applicable to-day as they were then. We must all agree with his statement that, " We must populate or perish ". But the migrants coming into the country to-day are no longer refugees or people without a country. They are people who have opportunities in their own homelands and it would be a great mistake if we slashed our immigration programme, as we did in 1952. We cannot just turn the flow of immigrants on and off as we do a tap. If we did so, it would be hard for us to recover ground. It took almost three years to get back to a normal immigration intake after 1952. The other thing necessary to our development is the attraction of overseas capital. That cannot be forced into Australia. It must be attracted here. We must have a climate, and political and national opinion which are favorable to R.- [IB] the attraction of overseas capital. An excellent example to follow would be Canada, a country that has forged ahead rapidly. Canada has had stable government, perhaps the most stable government since the war. Incidentally, it is of interest to note that it is a Liberal government, and that probably explains a great deal. Secondly, the Canadians have an expansionist attitude of mind. Profitmaking there is popular. It is accepted by practically all sections of the community. It is not the despised and wicked thing the right honorable Leader of the Opposition (Dr. Evatt) would like to have us believe here. In Canada, dividends on Canadian securities are free of tax up to 20 per cent, on ordinary and preference shares. The effect of this, first of all, has been to make the Canadian capitalminded. He has been given faith in the future and in the development of his country, and the right climate of opinion for overseas investment has been produced. The result has been to give Canada a tremendous impetus, and a healthy economy that is plain for all to see. This has made Canada the envy of the world, and has caused a huge inflow of overseas capital, particularly from the United States of America. We all know that, in the United Kingdom and the United States, there are large funds that could be invested in Australia. Although a certain amount of overseas capital has been invested here, we need more to keep pace with the rate of development that we have undertaken. We cannot compel Britain and America to invest in Australia. It is our responsibility to create and maintain an attractive field of investment. We must have some form of special incentive to attract British and American money here. In short, Mr. Speaker, we must have in Australia a climate of opinion very encouraging to the investment of overseas capital. By this means we shall bc able to attract overseas money and harness it to its proper use of developing our great country. I wish now to speak about the part being played by the Australian Government in the field of television. As you, sir, know, £305,000 of the taxpayers' money has already been spent on television in the current financial year out of die amount voted in- the Estimates. The ultimate expenditure this financial year might even he £2,017,000. According to announcements made recently in the press and elsewhere, the expenditure already made is quite inadequate, and honorable members may be sure that it will be exceeded. Let us just consider our precious import licences, which the Government is trying to curtail. Up to the present time, for television alone, the national broadcasting stations have obtained licences to import from dollar and sterling areas goods to a total value of £720,000. and commercial stations have obtained licences for goods worth a total of £1,580,000. The money to pay for these goods comes out of the pool of overseas funds that we are trying to conserve. In addition, television will involve constant spending abroad on technical matters, programmes, films and artists. This government expenditure on .television comes at a time when we should be restricting our imports, watching our expenditure, and carefully pruning government spending, as we have done in many departments. As all honorable members know, at the present time, the prices of our primary exports are falling, our own costs of production are rising, and we are having real difficulty in selling many commodities such as wheat, dried and tinned fruits, wine, eggs and butter. Also, the imports that we are obtaining from abroad are becoming increasingly dear. In these circumstances, every non-essential import should be carefully considered, and a proper system of priorities should be introduced. The Government is not undertaking this. Although it urges us to produce more, farmers are allowed to SO short of many items of essential equipment. I mention only a few such as wire netting, galvanized iron, machinery and rotary hoes for small farmers. These things cannot be imported in sufficient quantity because we have not enough sterling and dollar currency available, although, apparently, there are unlimited sterling and dollar funds available for television. "What will be the use of television to the man on the land for the next five or even ten years? He will be digging into his pocket to help pay for Commonwealth expenditure on television, but will not b* able to enjoy television himself. Hp will, receive no benefit from that expenditure. He will get only a reduced flow of imports of the goods he needs, and the extremely doubtful pleasure of paying higher taxes. We must ask ourselves whether television is really essential. The popular answer seems to be that it must be essential, because first-class nations have it. I do not think we can accept that as an argument for the immediate introduction of television in Australia. However wo look at it, television is a luxury for a few, because it will attract labour, capital and materials from essential industries. We are already able to see the effect of th? impending introduction of television on the work of the Postmaster-General's Department in country areas. The department is not replacing maintenance and mechanical workers as they leave its service. It says that this is not retrenchment, but the result is that the number of men working on the installation and maintenance of telephone services is shrinking. The department will not pay overtime for certain work and therefore employees leave and go where overtime is obtainable. Although telephone services in country areas generally are reasonable, they are by no means worthy of boasting or pride. Yet we tell the man in the country, "You will pay for television to be enjoyed in the city where you will not see it, but you cannot obtain a new telephone service or have your existing service improved " ! What will be the effect of television om the national economy? As I have said, it is a luxury and the effect of luxuries is always inflationary. Television will greatly increase the demand for hire purchase finance. I understand that television receivers are selling in Britain for £100. We can only guess what they will cost in Australia. It may be anything up to £200. We cry that we want more people on the land, but we are encouraging a lop-sided, luxury, milk-bar economy. We are giving people more incentive to remain in the cities, and less encouragement to live in the country. Perhaps we are too heavily committed on television to turn back, but I ask the Government to leave it to private enterprise to take the risk of introducing it. Private enterprise can judge the risks, and, if it is prepared to go ahead, well and good ; it will have the responsibility. If the Government allows the Australian Broadcasting Commission - a highly efficient organization - to go ahead at full steam and put a great deal of public money into television, it will force private enterprise to enter the field perhaps much earlier than it wishes. The Government should hasten slowly in this matter. Admittedly, it must control the quality and quantity of television programmes. However, it could well leave it to private enterprise to proceed with television, as it did with radio broadcasting. Private enterprise knows the economic risks and what the people want. As I have said, the Government must control both the quality and quantity of programmes, but it should withdraw from the field otherwise, and, if necessary, enter it very slowly at a much later time. Mr. GRIFFITHS (Shortland) [12.24J. - The electoral commissioners badly mauled the Shortland electorate in the recent redistribution of electoral boundaries. 415 LLW 0 0 DEAN, Roger Mr Dean - The boundaries were extended. 415 KFG 0 0 GRIFFITHS, Charles Mr GRIFFITHS - The size of the electorate was more than trebled. No doubt, this was done to make secure the seats of Liberal members such as my friend the honorable member for Robertson (Mr. Dean) and others, at my expense. In the redistribution, 27,000 electors were removed from my electorate, and .some 25,000 were added to it from other divisions. I wish to convey my thanks to both the old and the new electors of Shortland for the confidence they have reposed in me by electing me again as the representative of Shortland in this House. I desire also to join with previous speakers in extending congratulations to the new members of the House on the excellence of their maiden speeches, which reflected credit on themselves ann augur well for their future. Other contributions which were worthy noting and commenting upon were made by the honorable member for Mackellar (Mr. Wentworth), the right honorable member for Cowper (Sir Earle Page,,,ih, honorable member for Blaxland (Mr. E. James Harrison) and the honorable member for Robertson. The honorable member for Robertson referred to the recent waterfront dispute and he challenged honorable members to say where they stood in relation to it. I have been consistently opposed to strike action by members of industrial organizatons, except as a last resort. So far as 1 am aware, union members are the only ones who suffer grievously as a result of direct action. At all times there should be more conciliation and possibly les? arbitration on matters in dispute. Had there been more conciliation in the case of the waterside workers, whose case had been before the court on eight or nine occasions, and who had not had an increase in their marginal rates since ] 948, the trouble on the waterfront might have been avoided. For years the shipowners knew that trouble was brewing. Long before application was made for a 10 per cent, increase in rates, they knew that the men were dissatisfied with their margins. After the tally clerks and casual storemen and packers had received increases of 9d. and 8£d. an hour, respectively, in their marginal rates, and the watersiders' application had not been proceeded with, the shipowners knew that a strike was imminent. They have known for years that the working conditions on Australian wharf? are so bad and primitive that wharf labourers have only been awaiting an opportunity to voice their protests against lack of facilities and amenities. The strike was of some value, even though the greatest losers were the men themselves. The handling of the dispute by the executive of the Australian Council of Trades Unions and its somersault decision did grave harm to the organized industrial Labour movement. If, in the opinion of the Australian Council of Trades Unions, the strike was justified in the first place, it was still justified when the returntowork order was given. The leaders of the Australian Council of Trades Unions knew full well that the conditions governing the back-to-work order did not include any guarantee that the men would receive an increase greater than the 6d. an hour which had been promised by the owners, and that there was no undertaking that the rotten conditions of employment in many ports would he improved. The leaders of the Australian Council of Trades Unions knew that the shipowners' promise of an increase of 6d. an hour, with a guaranteed fortnightly payment of £20, was loaded, and the Australian Council of Trades Unions deserves the censure of the industrial movement for its handling of the dispute. Does any honorable member believe that the guarantee of £20 a fortnight was given out of the shipowners' goodness of heart? The catch was that, the guarantee was on a basis of a fortnight's employment. If no work was offering in the first week of a pay period, and in the second week there was full time and overtime, no guarantee applied in relation to the first week's work that was lost. That meant that the men had to be on call all the time. They had to be ready, turn out from their homes, and attend for four hours each day in order to be available if work was offering. At the present high rate of wages they would receive more than £20 in a fortnight if ample work was available, but in order to receive the guaranteed £20 they would sometimes have to work full time and overtime in the second week of the pay period. Their families would be expected to live on £20 or £22 a fortnight, knowing full well that had the men worked full time, or had the guarantee been given for the first week, they would have received more than £30. I have said previously in this House that the facilities and conditions of employment at many wharfs are so bad that it is impossible for waterside workers to do a better job than they are doing. In 1952, following a dispute at Newcastle, the Government sent Mr. Kelly, an officer of the Prime Minister's Department, to inquire into conditions at that port. He found that conditions were the most primitive in the Commonwealth and he made a scathing report to his senior officers. To-day, those conditions remain unchanged. Iron-wheeled hand trucks are being pulled by men over roughly timbered wharfs at a cost of strained muscles and backs. These fourwheeled vehicles are 20 or 30 years old, and the wheels have flat sections which cause jolting every time the wheel turns. Only within the last couple of weeks I inspected conditions in the great storage sheds at Newcastle. The floors have sunk, the concrete has broken, there are no cranes to assist in the storage of wool and other merchandise over the height of S or 10 feet which men can reach with the aid of fork lifts. This means that these stores are repeatedly only half full of merchandise waiting to be loaded. The worst feature of ship loading is the loss of time caused by the shipowners' refusal to have cargo stored at the wharfs in order to take advantage of the available labour at all times. I understand that in some cases wool will not be removed from the wool stores to the wharf unless it is paid for on the spot after the sales, and, as a result, watersiders are kept waiting for work, and loading is delayed. Some owners do not like paying penalty rates. Others have no organizing ability and time and again they do not call for labour while ships lie idle at the wharf. I should like to quote a couple of instances of delays that have taken place, but I assure honorable members that, throughout the year, there are hundreds of such occasions, and dozens of ships are delayed in port because of the inaction of owners and their failure to organize efficiently and so facilitate the turn-round of ships. I have particulars of cases in respect of dozens of ships where many hours have been lost through waiting for cargo, because of the inability of owners to organize proper working. First I refer to the case of the vessel Dong Hae. Work on this vessel commenced at 8 a.m. on the 14th May, 1955. Only twenty men were selected for the 8 a.m. shift, although the ship was capable of working 102 men at this stage. The agents selected another 58 men at 1 p.m. Their stated reason for not picking up the full complement of men was that they could not obtain sufficient fork lifts to keep two hatches working. As there was labour available on this day and all requirements could have been supplied, 504 man-hours were lost through the inability of employers to supply mechanical equipment. On the 5 p.m. shift, no labour was called for, but labour would have been available, if required. In that instance, 576 man hours were lost. On the 6th May, the vessel picked up 96 men for an 8 a.m. start. It did not requisition labour for the 5 p.m. shift, although plenty of labour was available. So 576 man-hours were lost to the vessel on that day. On Saturday, the 7th May, the vessel did not apply for labour, although plenty of labour was available. On that day 376 man-hours were lost to the vessel. On Sunday, the 8th May, the vessel again did not apply for labour. On the 9th May, 94 men were picked up for an S a.m. start. That was an overtime night, and the vessel could have worked labour until 9 p.m. There were slight showers during the day, and the agents dismissed the men at 2 p.m., although other ships in the port worked until 9 p.m On that day, 564 man-hours were lost to the vessel and the port. On the 10th May, 94 men were picked up for an 8 a.m. start. The weather was showery again, and the agents dismissed the men at 2.30 p.m., although the vessels Rhexenor and Tulane, in adjacent berths, worked until 9 p.m. As other vessels in adjacent berths worked during that afternoon, it was possible for the owners of this vessel also to use men to discharge its cargo during the afternoon. This sort of thing went on during the fourteen days that the ship was in port. In that time, the owners caused a loss to the ship and the port of at least 3,083 man-hours. In addition, there was a further loss of 1,360 man-hours, caused by the failure of the owners to apply for night labour when it was available. The imposing total of 4,445 man-hours was lost on the working of this vessel. That means that the vessel was in port, taking up valuable berthing space and labour, for approximately 40 per cent, longer than was necessary. Perhaps I should mention that when SS. Sierra arrived in the port of Newcastle to unload cargo, it was unable to do so because SS. Dong Hae was still unloading cargo. So SS. Sierra had to by-pass Newcastle, go on to Brisbane and then come back to Newcastle to discharge its cargo. Enfield is another case in point. On the morning of the 18th May, 25 men were picked up for that vessel, but at that time it had not even left Sydney. It did not arrive in Newcastle until the 19th May. Due to faulty liaison between employers, the engagement of the men was not cancelled until after 9 a.m., when it was too late to use their labour again that day. A total of 200 man hours was lost to the port in that instance. I could cite dozens of cases of the faulty working of ships in the port of Newcastle. But what worries me most is that, in these days of mechanization, there are not to be found on the wharfs of the port of Newcastle cranes of a type - indeed, cranes of any type - that could lift cargo from the wharfs and from the holds of ships. It is true that Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited has such cranes on its wharfs, but on the wharfs operated by the Maritime Services Board facilities for the quick handling of cargo are not available. 417 KIF 0 0 HULME, Alan Mr Hulme - What is the State Government doing about it? 417 KFG 0 0 GRIFFITHS, Charles Mr GRIFFITHS - This is not a question of what the State Government is doing. It is a question of the cause of the slow turn-round of ships generally. I submit that these are matters requiring investigation, not only by the State, but also by the Commonwealth. The Kelly report, published in 1952, showed clearly what was happening then. It is still happening, because no improvements have been effected in the port of Newcastle since that inquiry was made. On the wharfs there are large sheds that possibly could hold all merchandise unloaded from ships and waiting to be loaded into them, but the sheds are only half-filled all the time, because there are no facilities in the sheds for stowing or storing the merchandise in such a way as to assist the quicker- turn-round of ships. There arc no amenities on the wharfs which would make for better working conditions and, therefore, a better understanding between the employers and the employees. The honorable member for Blaxland referred to the black market in finance, especially in New South Wales. Owing to the lack of finance provided by the War Service Homes Division, ex-servicemen are forced to resort to the black market in order !.:> obtain temporary finance for the purchase of homes. Recently, a gentleman wrote a letter to me in which he said - I have a loan of £2,000 approved by War Service Homes, but on advice it is doubtful whether finance will be available this year from them. I am a returned serviceman, married, with six children. I have already paid a deposit of £800 on a home and am living in it, paying rent, but now the vendor is pushing me for settlement and threatens to cancel the sale and make me forfeit my deposit. War Service Homes advises me to obtain temporary finance. Well, I have approached the Bank of New South Wales, the Commonwealth Trading Bank, the Commercial Bank of Australia, Rural Bank building societies and some private persons, offering to pay high rental and big interest, but so far have not been able to get any offers at all, not even to the extent of £1,500. I submitted that letter to the Minister for Social Services (Mr. Roberton). I have nothing to growl about in relation to the contents of the letter which the Minister wrote to me in reply. But it seems strange to me that a man who served his country in war, a man with six children who has paid £800 deposit on a home, is faced with the prospect of losing that deposit money and of being thrown out of his home by an unscrupulous owner because no finance is available to him from the War Service Homes Division. On the 27th February, the Minister wrote a letter to me in which he said that my correspondent had entered into a contract to purchase a home and that it would appear that, at that time, he expected to be in a position to obtain finance from some source other than the War Service Homes Division. My correspondent approached all the recognized financial institutions, but they refused to lend him even £1,500, although he was prepared to pay a rate of interest higher than the general rate. Therefore, it seems to me that those institutions and the War Service Homes Division are forcing men to raise loans on the black market, probably at rates of interest between 12 per cent, and 20 per cent. The Minister, in his letter, stated also - lt is noted from the correspondence that Mr.- has paid a deposit of £800 and that the vendor is pressing for settlement. Unfortunately, the contract of sale into which he has entered does not protect him against forfeiture of the deposit if the vendor presses his claim. The Minister admitted that the man might forfeit his deposit; - This position has been brought about by the action of your correspondent himself in committing himself to the purchase of the home prior to submitting an application under the Act. Had he done this prior to paying the deposit of £800, the division would have been able to advise him of the action to take in order to protect hie interests in the matter. I regret to say that, in many instances, the division alters its policy quickly and often. On the 6th September, 1955, the War Service Homes Division warned an applicant for finance not to seek temporary finance elsewhere, although it had advised him that he would have to effect repairs to the house at a cost of £300 or £400 before money could be made available to him. Then, on the 28th September, 1955, the division told the applicant, to obtain' temporary finance in order to complete the transaction. In the first case that I mentioned, the Minister said that he regretted that it was not possible for the division to deal with the application in this financial year, but that all possible steps would be taken to complete it in 1956-57. Unfortunately, the Minister did not specify the date in 1956-57 when the money would be made available to the applicant for the completion of the transaction. I ask the Minister to consider this correspondence again with a view to fixing a firm date upon which the finance will be available so that my constituent will not forfeit his £800 deposit, and so that negotiations may be entered into with the vendor. Mr. Speaker, I suggest that this is a convenient time at which to suspend the sitting. 418 10000 0 0 SPEAKER, Mr Mr SPEAKER -The honorable member has only about two minutes of his allotted time left. 418 KFG 0 0 GRIFFITHS, Charles Mr GRIFFITHS - Very well, I shall conclude my remarks at this stage, because to continue would be of no use. Sitting suspended from 12.47 to 2.15 p.m. Debate (on motion by Sir Eric Harrison) adjourned. 418 miscellaneous Mr. Peter Howson made and subscribed the oath of allegiance as member for the Division of Fawkner, Victoria. 419 miscellaneous ADDRESS-IN-REPLY Debate resumed. 419KVR00SWARTZ, ReginaldMr SWARTZ. - I wish to deal with the amendment moved by the honorable member for Lalor (Mr. Pollard). I think it is fairly obvious to all that this amendment stems from the philosophy of socialism and, as it has been moved by the honorable member for Lalor, whose adherence to the philosophies of socialism is well known, I would say that the amendment is not entirely surprising but, indeed, is understandable. But there are other aspects of the matter which are not quite so clear. One of them is the claim which has been made on a number of occasions by members of the Opposition during this debate that in some way the Western Australian Government was in ignorance of the proposed sale of the whaling station at Carnarvon, in Western Australia. I think it should be clearly stated to the House, and particularly to the people of Western Australia, that this proposal was previously raised publicly on many occasions over a number of years. It was raised in this House on many occasions. [ can recall occasions when it was raised by members of the Opposition. I can remember having raised the matter myself, since I have been a member of the Parliament. First, it is a matter that has been ventilated publicly through the normal processes of the Parliament; secondly, the files of the Premier's Department of Western Australia must contain considerable correspondence relating to the matter, and the Western Australian Government should have had no difficulty in referring to such correspondence. I am sure that the exact contents of that file would be within the knowledge of the present Western Australian Government. There should also be in the mind of the Western Australian Premier himself some definite understanding of the situation, arising from correspondence in that file, concerning offers which wore made in the past by the Commonwealth to the Western Australian Government in relation to the sale of the whaling station. The fact that this matter was open to the public view long ago is confirmed by a press statement which was issued by the then Minister for Commerce and Agriculture, who is the present Minister for Trade (Mr. McEwen) in this Government. The honorable member for Canning (Mr. Hamilton) has already referred to this press statement, as have several other honorable members, during this debate, but I think that, for the purposes of the records, I ought to quote some brief extracts from it, and also to ensure that the position is generally understood. I have here a copy of a press report of that statement made by the then Minister for Commerce and Agriculture on the 6th November, 1952. It reads - Questioned to-day, Mr. McEwen said the Commonwealth Government was considering selling its million pound Western Australian whaling enterprise. He said the Commonwealth Government was close to a decision " in its discussions with the Western Australian Government on the future of the enterprise. The Government believed it should fill no function as an operating producer or trader in the whaling or any other industry. The Government believed that the Commonwealth Whaling Commission was established by the Chifley Labour Government to demonstrate the opportunities in Western Australia for modern, adequately capitalized, well-equipped whaling enterprise. The Commission had operated through two full seasons and fulfilled this aim very satisfactorily. "For the future the Commission can only be regarded as a production activity which is not our concept of the normal function of Government", said Mr. McEwen. "In accordance with the general political philosophies of this Government, I have assumed that the Government will not want to go on indefinitely with whaling as a purely productive enterprise. " But this enterprise has been of such great importance, actual and potential, to Western Australia that I have been in consultation with the Government of Western Australia to ascertain its views on the future of the Commonwealth whaling station. " There has been an exchange of views which is notyet complete. If the Government had to get out of whaling it would not wish its station in Western Australia to discontinue operations, which were of great benefit to Western Australia and to Australia's overseas earnings. " The Government would want the station to continue in efficient operation. It would not want the station to pass into the hands of overseas interests, if there were Australian interests adequately capitalized and sufficiently well -equipped to run the station The Minister concluded his statement by saying that he was unable to say when the Government would make a final decision to sell the enterprise, or to offer it for sale, but he added that no private concern at that time had yet made an offer for the enterprise. He added also that it was understood that the Western Australian government of the day wanted the whaling station to continue in operation, preferably in the hands of Western Australian private operators. For the sake of the records I think that those facts should be reiterated, because they definitely indicate that the Western Australian government of the day was clearly in possession of information about the Australian Government's desire to sell the whaling station and had, indeed, conducted negotiations regarding the matter. These facts, of course, would have been within the knowledge of the members of the Western Australian Parliament at the time, and the present Western Australian Government, being then in opposition, must also have had that knowledge at that time. Naturally, when it took over the reins of office, the present Western Australian Government would have immediate and free access to the files containing all the correspondence relating to the negotiations that occurred. I think it has been proved conclusively that the members of the present Government of Western Australia were, either when they were in opposition, or later when they took office, in possession of the details connected with the Australian Government's desire to dispose of the whaling station, and one might gather, from the recent statements to the contrary, that the Western Australian Government has denied knowledge of the situation for purely political purposes. It is quite open, as the Minister for Trade has already said, for the Western Australian Government to submit an offer for the station within the next fourteen days. As the House has already been told, the financial year of the Australian Whaling Commission terminates at the end of this month, and it has been decided to give the Western Australian Government the opportunity to make an offer to buy the station up to the loth March, should it wish to do so. I think every one will agree, therefore, that 'the Western Australian Government has been given an opportunity to submit an offer, and that it is well within its capacity to do so if it has any real intention of taking over the station. I feel, and I believe a number of people in this House suspect, that there may not be any real intention on the part of the Western Australian Government at the present time to proceed with any such action. As honorable members know, there is to be a general election in Western Australia within a very short time, and I very much fear that the claim of lack of prior knowledge by the Western Australian Government about the sale of the whaling station is another case of a particular issue being used for purely political purposes. Many other matters concerning thu Australian whaling industry have been raised during this debate. Some of the statements made have been entirely erroneous, and I feel it my duty, having been associated with the Department of Commerce and Agriculture as Parliamentary Under-secretary to the Minister, and now being associated in the same capacity with the Department of Trade and the Department of Primary Industry, thai 1 should say something in- regard to the background of the Australian whaling industry, in order to correct some of the statements that have been made, and to bring the true position to the knowledge of people who, in ignorance of it, may believe those misstatements. The first important consideration that, one must consider in relation to the whaling industry anywhere is the conservation of whale stocks. In relation to this matter, Australia is represented on the International Whaling Commission, and the commission acts on the advice of the scientific sub-committee which has been established and regularly introduces special conservation measures that are recommended throughout the world for the conservation of whale stocks at all times. Australia is also a member of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and, indeed, plays an important part in the meetings and functions of that convention. I might mention at this stage that the Director of Fisheries, Mr. Anderson, who is a member of the Department of Primary Industry at present and who is the Australian representative on the commission and at the convention, has played a particularly important and active part in representing the interests of the Australian whaling industry. He has established for Australia a good reputation among the other countries that are interested in negotiations < concerning the conservation of whale sto:ks throughout the world. Australian scientists have also played an important part, from the scientific point of view, in important aspects of biological work dealing with the humpback whale, and their contributions have been recognized by other countries. Australia has built up a high reputation in that regard as we'll as a reputation within the commission itself. Quotas are imposed by the Australian Government on Australian shore-based stations for whaling and they are based on the following premises: - First, on data from the operations of similar stations in other countries; secondly, on rs ti ma tes which are worked out by Australian, advisers on the number of whales which can be safely taken from the main streams without seriously depleting the whale stocks; thirdly, on a study of the scientific data available on reproduction of whales; and fourthly, on the seasonal data that is available from whaling operators within the industry in Australia itself. Australian quotas are based on all that information and all those figures. I was interested to hear a remark made by the honorable member for Yarra (Mr. Cairns) indicating that the International Whaling Commission was controlling the quotas in Australian waters. I should like to emphasize for the information of the House that that is not so. The quotas that are established for Australian waters are purely voluntary and are based on the information that I have just mentioned. The International Whaling Commission in no way has any voice in the estimation of those quotas or in the enforcement of the quotas. However, I should like to follow up the reference to conservation by indicating to the House the quotas which have been fi 'located during the past season, because 1 think it is quite important and quite pertinent to the present debate. The information that I have indicates the principal whaling operators that are functioning in Australia and the quotas that have been allocated to them. On the east coast, there are two operators. One of them is Whale Industries Limited, of Tangalooma, Queensland. The quotas for the coming season have yet to be announced, but the quota for this firm in respect of last season was 600. The other operator on the east coast is the Byron Whaling Company, of Byron Bay, New South Wales, which has a quota of 120. So the total quota for the east coast of Australia is 720. Several undertakings operate in the West Stream, which is off the coast of Western Australia. The Cheynes Beach Whaling Company, of Albany, had a quota last season of 120. The Australian Whaling Commission's station, which is situated at Carnarvon and which is, of course, the subject of the present debate, had a quota of 500. The Nor-West Whaling Company, of Point Cloates, had a quota also of 500. So the total quota for the west, coast of Australia last season was 1,120. This figure refers, of course, to hump-back whales only. A provisional quota of 150 for the coming season has been worked out for the Norfolk Whaling Company, of Norfolk Island. So the total quota allocated to all operators in Australian waters is 1,990. That figure has been based on information obtained by the Department of Primary Industry through its Fisheries Division. Prior to last season, the quotas allocated to the Australian Whaling Commission and the Nor- West Whaling Company had been 600, but during last season the quota was reduced from 600 to 500 for conservation purposes. I mention that in order to indicate the fact that conservation is being studied and is being practised in Australian waters. I think that is recognized by other countries which have quite a lot of faith in the methods that are adopted here and the way in which we practise our principles. There is no restriction as to the number of whales of each sex which may bc caught, although it is illegal to take a female whale when accompanied by a calf. That question has arisen during this debate, so I think that I should clarify that point. Reference was also made to the size of whales and I think that, for the information of the House, I should quote the minimum size of whales that can be taken in Australian waters. The minimum length of blue whales which may be taken is 70 feet; of fin whales, 55 feet; of humpback whales, 35 feet; of sei whales, 40 feet; and of sperm whales, 35 feet. The control of the Australian whaling industry is exercised under the Australian Whaling Act 1935-1948. Certain conditions operate under this act under which whaling operators can obtain a licence to operate and, also, a licence to operate their catcher-vessel. There is a payment of £200 for the licence to operate, and of £50 for the licence for a catcher-vessel. The act also lays down that an inspector will be stationed at every whaling station that is operating around the Australian coast - that is, at each shore-based station. The inspectors who come under the Inspection Division and who are associated with the Fisheries Division carry out the task of seeing that the provisions of the act are adhered to by operators in Australian waters. It might be said that these controls and restrictions on the industry appear to be rather irksome, but the conditions and results indicate that the restrictions on the industry' in Australia are warranted very much indeed. The lessons that we have before us of the depletion of blue whale stocks in Antarctic regions in the pre-war years, and in the immediate postwar years, indicate what can happen in the industry if we do not control it. At the present time, in the Antarctic regions, the heavy exploitation of the fin whale which is taking place should be a lesson to us. There are indications that unless there is a drop in the world price of whale oil there will be, during the nexttwelve months, a great depletion of the stocks of fin whales in the Antarctic. These are indeed lessons that we should learn in the conduct of our own industry around the shores of Australia. The Government intends to maintain control of the industry on this basis and to ensure that quotas are equitable and are observed. The preservation of our stocks of hump-back whales on the Australian coast will ensure the maintenance of a profitable industry for the future. There is no restriction on the number of sperm whales that may be taken, but restrictions are, in effect, applied by the fact that there is a much smaller market. 4221000000Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER- Order! The honorable member's time has expired. 422JSSLeichhardt00BRUCE, HenryMr BRUCE.- i congratulate the new members upon their contribution to this debate. It is very pleasing to see so many young men with ability come into this Parliament. I can visualize that the Labour party, especially, will be strengthened in the very near future as a result of the presence here of nien who can take control, and carry on the good work for a number of years to come. I wish to recall the fight of the workers, in my day, to establish arbitration courts. Working conditions then are unbelievable to any one who did not experience them. In railway and other construction camps in the far north of Queensland, and ou the black soil plains, men received 6s. a day, had no amenities, and had to supply and carry their tents and blankets from job to job. Their conditions were comparable with those of coolies in many Eastern countries to-day. They had little or no opportunity to have a family, let alone a home. If they had families they could not bring them up in the civilized conditions to which they were entitled. Miners worked under the most primitive conditions thousands of feet below the ground. The winning of gold and other metals was then considered more important than the safety of the miners. Silicosis was so rampant that few men engaged in the mining industry lived beyond the age of 50 years. At one period the average age of the women at Charters Towers, one of the leading gold mining towns of Australia, exceeded that of the men by ten years. This was the result of the ravages of this dreaded industrial disease. It must be remembered that these conditions existed under tory governments. The men decided to work for the creation of an arbitration court. They visualized that it would be a point of contact between the employers and employees, and that this would ensure that they got reasonable conditions and sufficient pay to maintain themselves and their families in comfort. The first arbitration act in Queensland was passed by a tory government. However, the act was soon seen to consist mainly of penalties for breaches of awards. It provided that only a man who worked in an industry could represent the employees; but the employers could send along any one whom they wished, and so could employ legal advocates. The owners selected one of their managers, and a legal adviser, to appear for them. I was selected by the miners to represent them and was successful in obtaining a small concession in wages and conditions. However, though penalties could be imposed on the employees for breaches of awards, none could be imposed on employers. My main contention during this debate will be that under the present arbitration system penalties are imposed on workers and not on employers. We all live by the production, purchase, and sale of commodities. The worker has but one commodity to sell, his labour. The employers have never attempted conciliation but have used all the money and legal assistance at their disposal to fight improvements of working conditions. The worker is subject to penalties when he asks for a better price for his labour, but the business man who asks for a better price for his product is not penalized. The position is entirely unrealistic. Recently agents handling razor blades were told that the price would go up by 4d. a packet. There was no question of resorting to arbitration and, consequently, no question of penalties, although the people will have to bear the price increase which in the aggregate will cost them thousands of pounds. If the workers seek even a small increase of pay they must go to an. arbitration court and become liable to penalties if they do not follow its rules and regulations. The Courier Mail in Brisbane has just sent word around to its agents that the price of that paper is now to be one penny more. Thus the management will collect thousands of pounds more from the readers without going to an arbitration court, and becoming liable to penalties if it does not follow a certain procedure. The two examples of price increases that I have given may seem minor, but in the aggregate they yield hundreds of thousands of pounds. We have the outstanding case of the ship ina companies imposing an additional 10 per cent, freight charge. That charge will cost the primary producers of Australia millions of pounds. But again there is no question of arbitration. They did not have to go to arbitration; they imposed that charge without reference to any one. All the charges I have mentioned have been imposed without reference to arbitration, and, consequently, without any question of penalties. There is also the outstanding case of General Motors-Holden's Limited. Two years ago the profits of that company amounted to £7,000,000. Last year its profits were as high as £10,000,000. On the capital outlay of the company it was obvious that it had charged an entirely unfair and unjust price for its cars. But did it apply to an arbitration court? Have we any machinery to deal with these people? No! Neither, of course, can any penalties be imposed upon them. I have cited four cases illustrating the fact that private companies and business people can impose taxes on the people who use and consume their products. No one can deny that that is so. I maintain that we shall never have industrial peace and additional production unless these matters are dealt with. Let us look at the other side of the picture. The employers applied to the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration for a reduction of wages and an increase in hours. The judge who sat on the case in his wisdom pegged the wages, but he did not peg the prices of the commodities that a worker must buy to keep his wife and family. We have the astonishing position of a judge, who no doubt thinks he is very just and is doing the right thing, pegging the wages of workers, while at the same time the people who sell their products to the workers are allowed to charge what they like. I have given the House three or four instances, but, of course, I could mention many more. It must be obvious to all honorable members, irrespective of party affiliations, that these things cannot go on. We cannot allow one section of the community to be exploited, while allowing another section full freedom to do the exploiting. Recently, the court viciously slashed the wages of shearers, and the shearers are refusing to shear for the new wage rates. The representative of the Graziers Association has threatened to take action - although I do not know whether he will do so - and he has stated that each man who refuses to shear is liable to a penalty of £100. 424JS700BRAND, WilliamMr Brand- That is under Labour's arbitration legislation in Queensland. 424JSS00BRUCE, HenryMr BRUCE- I do not care who introduced the legislation, it is wrong. But that is the position. Workers may be fined up to £100 each for refusing to accept an unsatisfactory award. What I want to stress is that penalties may be imposed upon workers, but that they cannot be imposed upon businessmen. The businessman can sell his commodity for whatever he likes, without fear of penalty, but the worker has no such freedom in selling, his labour, which is the only commodity he has to sell. Just before I came to this House this afternoon I heard a wireless report that the Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen's Association has been fined £700. I did not have time to ascertain what breach had been committed or what was the reason for the fine. I mention the report merely as an illustration of a very subtle method of taking the funds that a union has provided to defend its cases. Employers are subject to no penalties, and they can filch legally from the workers the funds that they have subscribed to defend themselves from attacks on their wages and conditions. This is a very subtle method, but, believe me, the people are beginning to wake up to these methods of robbing them that are being used now and have been used in the past. I can mention to the House the case of a union the members of which had not been on strike for 25 years. It had had a case pending before the Arbitration Court for a couple of years. In all that time the case had not been dealt with, and the members of the union went on strike. The members of that particular union have to study for six years to acquire the necessary skill and knowledge to do their jobs. They have to devote as much time to study as does a lawyer or a doctor - excluding, of course, the specialists. When those employees went on strike, the employers themselves said that they were entitled to increases in wages. When the workers had previously applied for an increase in wages the employers went into the court and advanced such convincing arguments against an increase in wages that the Arbitration Court refused any increase. Therefore, we have the position of the employers admitting that they had wrongfully gone into the court to resist the application of this union. There is no question about these facts ; they were all published in the newspapers. The employers have their organization built up, and they said that, as a matter of principle, they go into the court to fight all applications for improvements in conditions or increases in wages. The Waterside Workers Federation of Australia applied for increased wages for its members, and its representatives were told that the men would be granted a fraction of the amount for which they had applied, but that they must forfeit conditions of work that they had enjoyed for years. What do the employers think the workers are? What do they think the people of Australia are? They said, " We will grant a fraction of what you ask, but we must take from you conditions that you have enjoyed for years ". It is like some one who offers a child a lolly, providing that the child gives up the lolly he already has. Yet we have judges sitting in the courts and giving judgments such as that. It is quite childish. In the past, when the workers had not the benefits of education that they have to-day, these things could be put over and were put over them. It is a different world to-day. How anyone can believe that it is reasonable to offer people a fraction of what they have asked for, provided they give up something that they have enjoyed for many years, passes my understanding! It is amazing to me that businessmen, politicians and the public generally do not realize that our arbitration system permits of the imposition of penalties upon one section of the community while at the same time allowing complete freedom to the other section. That position cannot continue. Unless we can set up courts with authority to check excess profit-making by' companies, the whole system of arbitration will collapse, because we cannot continue with a system which allows one person to charge what he likes for his commodity and which at the same time restricts the amount to be paid to another person for buying these commodities. In the old days when we were fighting hard for the establishment of an arbitration court, we were striving for a system that would give us a point of contact as between employers and employees. We imagined in those days that the employers would be humane enough to appreciate the position of the workers. We visualized a System that would enable us to settle differences by conciliation so far- as that was possible and finally to take unsettled matters before an impartial court. We <lid not imagine that there should be any rule under which penalties could be inflicted upon workers while the employers concerned remained immune. Undoubtedly, we achieved a good deal under the arbitration system, but honorable members will realize that conditions in those days were so bad that it was quite easy to achieve some improvement for the workers. There was room then for a great deal of improvement, and there is still room for improvement. I suppose the Labour party is at fault to some degree, in not having its own press these days. Time after time, we find that when there is an industrial dispute, the press publishes entirely false statements of the position as between employer and employee and often by so doing creates greater friction than if it published nothing at all. I know that many people look upon waterside workers, and in some instances coal-miners, as some strange beings who do not belong to the human race. I know both branches of workmen. They are all good citizens and all good characters. They take part in the social and sporting life of the town or area in which they live. After the recent floods at Goondiwindi, when primary producers were suffering desperate hardships, 300 waterside workers took their own canteens and food out there and worked free of charge to help those men clean up the mud and slush that had. been left by the turbulent waters. Are not such men entitled to a fair deal? Are they not men whom we can all respect? Of course, they are II am greatly concerned about this question, because Australia needs rehabilitating. We hear much talk about all the prosperity in the world, but things really are not the best. If we are to rehabilitate this country, we must have production. If we are to get that production, there must be satisfaction amongst the workers. 4251000000Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER- Order! The honorable member's time has expired. Mi.FALKINDER (Franklin) [3.1].- First of all, may I join with those who have congratulated the new members of this Parliament upon their maiden speeches? I think it is fair to say that the present standard of debate is at least as high as I have known it at 'any time during my period in this Parliament, and I believe it augers very well indeed foi- the future debate of this new Parliament. The Address-in-Reply debate gives honorable members an opportunity - perhaps an all too infrequent one - to discuss almost any subject they may wish. In the opening paragraphs of the Governor-General's Speech, reference is made to the relationship between this House and the Senate. I want to devote my remarks to the relationship between the efficacy and workability of this Parliament, and the private member. I believe that the time has come, indeed that it is more than overdue, when we need to have another look at the tendency steadily but surely to decrease the privileges and rights of private members. In his last speech in this Parliament, the former honorable member for Henty, Mr. Gullett, made a very interesting and quite brilliant contribution on this very point. Last week, the honorable member for Farrer (Mr. Fairbairn) also made a very interesting contribution on the same subject. It is clear beyond any doubt whatsoever to every honorable member that the Executive is slowly but surely overriding and swamping the rights, privileges and responsibilities of the private members. It is time we called a halt to this drift. After all, each and every member here represents something of the order of 40,000 electors. We are all here to represent them; we are not here merely to vote according to the decision of the Executive. We are here to represent our electors, to speak on their behalf and to do something effective for them. This whittling away of the powers, rights and privileges of private members is in evidence in many ways. First of all, there is the physical evidence of this dissipation of rights inasmuch as members of the Executive, and their staffs, are taking over offices in this building which, I believe, rightly belong to the members of the Parliament. This building was created for the use of the members. It was not to be used as a series of offices for Ministers with quite considerable staffs. 426KZX00LAWSON, GeorgeMr George Lawson- Some of them have very small staffs. 426KEP00FALKINDER, CharlesMr FALKINDER- That is so. lt is time that a halt was called. I can almost envisage the time when members will have no right of tenure in this building. I say this building was designed for members, but the design is disappearing. A former Clerk of this House has made some broadcasts and has written some most interesting articles on this subject. I commend them to all honorable members to read, as the case may be, or listen to, if they have the opportunity to do so. Now I turn to what is to me the most fundamentally important right of a private member. That is his right, as a representative of the electors, in relation to his vote in this Parliament. It always seemed to me, and I still believe it to be a cardinal principle of the Liberal party, that a member shall have a certain freedom in the exercise of his vote, and I would not tolerate, or remain a member of, any party that forbade its members to exercise that right. As we all know, members of the Labour party are bound to vote as that party directs. If they choose to vote contrary to the direction of the party, they run the very real risk of expulsion. In this matter, I fundamentally disagree with the Australian Labour party, because I believe we in the Liberal party have a basic right, which must be preserved. That is the right of the individual member of the party to vote as he desires. 4262V4ALP00CAMERON, ClydeMr CLYDE CAMERON- Try it ! 426KEP00FALKINDER, CharlesMr FALKINDER- I have tried it on many occasions. 426JO800BARNARD, LanceMr Barnard- What happened? 426KEP00FALKINDER, CharlesMr FALKINDER- I am still in the Parliament. I wish to mention another matter in relation to the one to which I have just referred. It is the practice consistently adopted in this Parliament by all parties, when in office, of rejecting, out of hand, all Opposition amendments. The attitude, irrespective of the political colour of the government, seems to be that there can be no good in an Opposition amendment. That is a completely nonsensical attitude. I recall that, during the years from 1946 to 1949, when I was a member of this House, and when a Labour government held office, only one Opposition amendment was accepted. It was a very minor amendment, which involved merely the changing of a word. I regret to say that, since the present Government has been in office, little change of attitude has been effected. In all common sense, an Opposition is not always wrong, nor are suggestions advancd by it in relation to a bill always wrong. It is time we had a little more latitude, freedom and understanding in relation to suggestions advanced by honorable members who are in opposition for the time being. After all, if no notice is taken of Opposition suggestions, it is merely beating the air. In the Tasmanian Parliament and many of the other State parliaments, as well as in the House of Commons of the Mother Parliament, it is the practice to allow free votes. It is quite common for members of the Tasmanian Parliament to cross the chamber and vote as they see fit. Yet, in this Parliament, believe it or not, it appears that, in certain circumstances, if a member desires to vote according to his conscience, he commits a breach of his party's confidence, although that situation should never arise. In criticism of the present Government, which I support, I submit that there is no reason why a Liberal party and Australian Country party government should reject Opposition amendments out of hand or be touchy about the manner in which a Government supporter votes, solely because the Australian Labour party takes that view in the extreme. In short, it is no defence to say that, because another person does something, we should copy him. It is true, of course, that, on many occasions an opposition advances an amendment with the intention of embarrassing a government, and not with any genuine intention of having a bill amended, lt i3 equally true that, on many occasions, an opposition is able to make sensible suggestions which ought to be incorporated in bills. I wish now to refer to the rights, responsibilities and privileges of private members of this House in relation to " Grievance Day ". As we all know, Mr. ' Acting Deputy Speaker, " Grievance Lay " affords the private member the opportunity to speak in this Parliament on behalf of individual electors, or collective groups of them, in an endeavour to have rectified any troubles they may have. I wish to point out that, during the years since World W ar II., " Grievance Day " has been called on with the following frequency : - 1943-44, three times; 1944-45, once; 1945-46, five times; 1046-48, six times; 1948-49, six times; 1960-51, once; 1951-53, five times; 1953-54, once; and 1954-55, twice. It has long been recognized, in the House of Commons and other British assemblies, that the major part of the parliamentary time must be devoted to government business. In principle, the control of this time rests with the House itself, but, in practice, the House has, by standing order, delegated this control to the Government with a saving for private members' business, and other minor reservations. As a result, the Government is given very far-reaching control over the time of the House. Even the time allotted to private members' business can, when the Government considers the need arises and when it has party support, be transferred to the Government by a vote of the House suspending the relevant standing order. In this House, the principal traditional formal opportunities for private members to raise matters are, first, by the moving of motions when general business is before the House and, secondly, by speaking to the question " That Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair " on " Grievance Day ". Until recently by sessional order, and now by Standing Order 105, precedence has been given to general business on a part of certain sitting days. Standing Order 291 provides that grievance shall be the first order of the day of government business on particular days. In the early years, one day in each sitting week was devoted to general business, and " Grievance Day " occurred every third Thursday. Later, general business was given precedence until 9 p.m. on each " Grievance Day ". In effect, the whole of each third Thursday could be given to the discussion of private members' matters, either on motion or under " grievance ". This position obtained until the 21st March, 1950, when the House adopted new Standing Orders, which provided that grievance should have precedence until 12.45 p.m. on alternate Thursdays, and that general business should -have precedence until 12.45 p.m. on other Thursdays. In other words, one morning in each week was set aside for private members' business. I have given the House the record of the facts. In recent years, it has been the consistent practice of governments to transfer some of these times to government business, on the one hand, by postponing the grievance order of the day and, on the other, by moving for the precedence of government business on general business days. Other opportunities for private members to raise matters occur during the debate on the motion for the adjournment of the House to- conclude the sitting, during the general debate on the Estimates, in Committee of Supply, during the debate on the divisions of the Estimates, in Committee of Supply, during the debate on the motion for the adoption of the Address-in-Reply to the Governor-General's Speech - the debate now in progress - and during the debate on matters of urgency in relation to a specific subject. The opportunities during the debate on the motion for the adjournment of the House to conclude the sitting, in theory, occur each sitting day, but, in practice, they are limited by the time the Government is prepared to devote to the debate. Opportunities during the general debate on the Estimates, in Committee of Supply and the debate on the divisions of the Estimates, in Committee of Supply, occur only once in each financial year. Opportunities during the debate on the motion for the adoption of the Addressin -Reply to the Governor-General'. Speech occur only once in each session. I do not wish to weary the House unduly with historical matters relative to this subject. I simply wish to say that it is more than time that greater opportunity was given to private members to ventilate the affairs, needs and wishes of their electors. Unless we get back to a situation in which the member comes to this House with an opportunity to speak on " Grievance Day ", and on the motion for the adjournment of the House, and to say something useful on behalf of his electors - we are drifting rapidly away from that situation - this Parliament will become nothing more nor less than a pale shadow of the Executive. That is no longer tolerable, and I make my protest against it and say that I will oppose it in every way I can. 428K9GKalgoorlieALP00JOHNSON, HerbertMr H V JOHNSON. - I find myself in accord with much that has been said by the honorable member for Franklin (Mr. Falkinder). I admire him for his courage in attacking the cause of the problems that are so evident to honorable members. It "becomes apparent from day to day that the privileges of the private members of the Parliament have been trespassed upon and have dwindled away. It is time that there was a general rebellion against this by private members, so that we may stand ! up for our right to do the work which the electors sent us here to do and uphold the prestige of this great National Parliament. I shall say no more about that now, I desire to address myself to the subject of the sale of the national whaling station at Carnarvon, which was established by a Labour government and which has proved to be most successful, with a capacity to save the taxpayers' money and show a return for the expenditure associated with its establishment. Over the years there has been much under-cover negotiation in connexion with this station. In the inter- I e?ts of the nation, and -particularly in the interests of the people of Western Australia, it should not be sold, but irrespective of anything that the Opposition may say, irrespective of the merits of the case, the Government unfortunately has the numbers, and it will be sold. It will not be sold to the Western Australian Government but to private enterprise, namely, the Nor- West Whaling Company Limited, which is now controlling the Point Cloates whaling station, 70 miles north of Carnarvon. This company has done very well since it was established at Point Cloates. It has paid big dividends to its shareholders, but in the Parliament yesterday the Minister for Trade (Mr. McEwen) unintentionally spilled the beans, because in the course of his remarks he said that the very modern equipment at the Carnarvon national whaling station was sufficient to cope with the quota of whales allocated to both stations on the north-west coast. He did not mention both stations, but the information given this afternoon by the honorable member for Darling Downs (Mr. Swartz), who apparently had the latest figures, shows that the quota oi the two stations was 1,000 whales. The Minister for Trade said that the modern equipment of the national whaling station was able to cater for the total quota allocated to that coast, which means that the Nor-West Whaling Company Limited would walk in, acquire this national station, close its Point Cloates station, and, as a consequence, dispense with the services of at least 115 men. Nobody can convince me that this Government does not know that already. The Nor-West Whaling Company Limited employs 115 men at Point Cloates. Of these, ten are permanent and 105 are seasonal workers, so the town of Carnarvon, which is endeavouring to increase its population, will immediately lose the benefit of the 115 toilers on this station, because there is no other industry adjacent to Carnarvon which can absorb them. As a consequence,, in keeping with this Government's policy, they will migrate to the metropolitan area. Thus, a great disservice will be done to Carnarvon and district. Time after time the Government has preached its support of a policy of decentralization in order to encourage the growth of population in the north-west, where it is so badly needed. lt has been suggested that the Western Australian Labour Government has known all about these negotiations, and that if it did not know, it ought to have known. These negotiations have never been brought from behind the scenes. They Iia ve been kept behind the iron curtain. Only because of continued questioning of the Minister did this Parliament obtain definite information within the last week that this national whaling station is to be disposed of. It is scandalous that the station should be sold to private enterprise and that the sale should result in the disposal of another undertaking on the coast which lias been such a great help to the people in that part of the country, but of course t,li at does not concern this Government. The Government has preached a policy of decentralization, but what are its actions towards that end? Where is the demonstration of faith? How can the people of this country accept those statements made from time to time by responsible Ministers of the Government? Nothing whatever has been done to justify their acceptance. As the honorable member for Franklin has said, \Ve have come to a point of frustration. Irrespective of the merits of the case which the Opposition is able to put and whether or not the interests of the country are adversely affected, the Government has the numbers to steamroller its proposals through the Parliament. The time has come when I ask whether it is worth while to stand here and discuss the affairs of the country as they have been presented to me. I know the north-west of Western Australia as well as does any other man in Australia. I present this case in all honesty and I appeal to the Government, even at this late hour, to reconsider the matter. I appeal to the Government back-benchers to come over to this side of the House and support the Opposition's amendment in order to prevent the sale of this great national asset. I have been reading His Excellency's Speech, which deals with the proposals and policy of the Government. I did not find very much to encourage me. I am concerned with the development of this country. We talk about bringing more immigrants here. I want to see them come and to see the population of this great country increased to 30,000,000 or even more. I know that there is scope for these additional people, and that a properly organized long-range plan can provide the necessary development to assist them to carry on, become good citizens and producers, and help us to improve the position in which we are to-day. In addition, that would strengthen our defences to such an extent that we should be able to rest more easily than we can to-day. But what do we find? This Government says that there is no money available for -development. The great potential wealth of the Kimberleys area in Western Australia is still unexploited. I have argued the case for the Kimberleys area since I entered this Parliament fourteen or fifteen years ago. I have put up cases to the Government time after time, but nothing has been done. I admit, of course, that the development of the area would require money. The Western Australian Government has sent deputations to Canberra which have been representative of all parties in that State. Those deputations have pleaded with the responsible Ministers here to assist Western Australia by providing the money necessary to put various developmental projects under way, so that, for example, water for irrigation purposes can be brought to fertile lands which to-day carry only a few cattle to each 100 acres. But nothing has been done. After those deputations have pleaded unsuccessfully with this Government for help, I feel that anything that I say will be of no use. There was a committee, consisting of private individuals who sacrificed their time and money to examine problems associated with the development of the north. They devoted their time to the problems and they paid their own fares to Canberra so that they could put their case to the Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies) and other Ministers. But they got nothing for their State. They suffered the same frustration that we in this Parliament have suffered. No move was made. They were given no encouragement, and there was no suggestion that any assistance would be forthcoming from the National Parliament. I want to refer to another matter that has been hanging fire for a number of years. Time after time, T have put questions to the Minister for Territories (Mr. Hasluck) and the Prime Minister about the intentions of the Government in relation to the zone allowance that was instituted in 1945 by a Labour government, with a view to providing a small measure of income tax relief for people living in isolated areas under hard and wretched conditions. The Labour Government regarded the zone allowance as the forerunner of something that would be of great value to people in the north. It was instituted in 1945, and a small increase was made in 1947, as some compensation for the increased cost of living. But, since 1947, no further action has been taken. This Government has done nothing to increase the allowance. In their replies to questions that I have asked, both the Minister for Territories and the Prime Minister have said that the matter is under consideration. At one time, I was told that it would be dealt with in the 1955 budget. But, although the 1955 budget has come and gone, these people have not got even a mention. So, under arduous conditions, they are struggling to try to make ends meet in a country that is empty. It is empty because of the lack of policy of this Government. I noticed that, in his Speech, His Excellency said - My Government's programme of work is designed as far as possible to overtake arrears and maintain post office services at a high level of efficiency. The town of Geraldton, in Western Australia, was promised a new post office in 1947. The promise was repeated in 1950, in 1953 and again last year, but, as far as I can ascertain, the people of Geraldton will have to wait for some time before they get a new post office. In the present building both the accommodation and the installations are inadequate. The people of the town are becoming disgusted with the delay. They have been told time after time by this Government that a new post office will be built, but the prospect to-day does not seem to be any more hopeful than it was ten years ago. When, as representatives of the people, we present cases to the Government, we expect that those cases will receive at least consideration by the responsible Ministers; but, time after time, when an honorable member rises in his place to make a speech, the Ministers concerned are not in the chamber. They do not hear what is said and, what is mon:, they do not care what is said. It is of no use for them to say that they read the speeches, because we know that they do not. They do not know what cases have been presented to the Parliament and. therefore, they are not in a position to judge whether there is any merit in the proposals advanced. I have been a member of this Parliament for many years, and during thai time I have fought to achieve something for the people who live in the vast constituency that I represent, but now I have reached the stage when I ask myself, " Is it worthwhile to rise in this House and make a genuine effort to do something for the people, if the Government is not interested ? ". 430JWVPerth00CHANEY, FredMr CHANEY.- Mr. Acting Deputy Speaker,I believe that, in the history of this Parliament, an amendment has been moved to the motion for the adoption of an address-in-reply on sixteen occasions. Whatever were the subjects to which the previous amendments related, I am certain that honorable members from Western Australia will be pleased that the Opposition has seen fit to move this amendment, regardless of how much they agree or disagree with it. The time is long overdue for ordinary members of the Parliament to learn about a State which is often regarded as a place of sand and desert, rather than as a State of great potential value to the future prosperity of the Commonwealth. If the debate on the amendment serves only the purpose of bringing before the members of this House and the people of the country generally the importance and the potential of Western Australia, it will have served its purpose. It is somewhat surprising that the Opposition has taken the line that, if this whaling station is to be sold it should be purchased by the Western Australian Government. The honorable member for Kalgoorlie (Mr. H. V. Johnson) has stated quite clearly that the sale has been arranged already and that he knows the buyer, but I venture to suggest that the honorable member is the only person in possession of that information. I have no idea how the honorable member could have got the information that he says -he has got. Last night, the honorable member for Melbourne Ports (Mr. Crean) read an extract from an article published in the Daily News, the evening newspaper in Western Australia. The article asked what was to happen to the whaling station at Babbage Island, which is described as a £200,000 a year asset, and proceeded to suggest that first preference should be given to the Western Australian Government to purchase the station for the people of that State. It would have been wise for the honorable member for Melbourne Ports to make another quotation from the Daily News - from an article which stated that the Premier of Western Australia presented the Surf Life Saving Association with a cheque for a couple of hundred pounds. Like many honorable members of this House, the Premier believes that a contribution to a surf life saving association is a contribution to a worthy cause, but he said that however much he would like to give more, the government just could not afford to do so. If the Western Australian Government cannot afford to give more than a couple of hundred pounds to such a worthy cause, how, in the name of fortune, could it purchase a whaling station, the value of which, on anybody's guess, must be in the region of £500,000? I believe all honorable members are convinced that Hip undertaking will be sold. Anybody wlm is not so convinced, or who thinks that it was not obvious that it would be sold, seems to have forgotten the policy speech of the present Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies) in 1949, because at that time he stated quite clearly the attitude of the present Government parties towards government-owned enterprises. The sale of this undertaking to private enterprise will be appreciated by more people in Western Australia than the honorable member for Kalgoorlie believes. The Federal Government should not be a participant in industry, but should remain the watchdog of industries to ensure that they are conducted to the best advantage of the Commonwealth as h whole. Speaking as a member of the Parliament who represents approximately 35,000 people in Western Australia, 1 should say that the first thing the Government should do, and which it probably will do, is to ensure that the undertaking is sold to a Western Australian company. The outlook of the State has changed completely in the post-war years. That would be obvious to honorable members who visited the State many years ago, or even during the war years. An awareness of the industrial potential of the State has suddenly become apparent. Whereas previously there was a tendency to look upon primary production as being our chief means of livelihood, and to regard the residents of the cities and towns as being parasites on primary production, we have now adopted a new philosophy. We recognize that the State can expand in the industrial field. Perhaps that is due largely to the many millions of pounds that have been invested in a refinery and the interest that has been displayed by the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited. Certain persons or organizations in Western Australia have recognized the potential of the State, and I think that they should be given the first opportunity to carry on the activities that have been carried out by the Australian Whaling Commission. The Opposition has painted a glowing picture of the commission's undertaking. It has stated that the annual profit has been as much as £200,000 and £222,000 ; but it has not made any attempt to go back over the years in order to give a clear picture of the operations of the organization since its establishment. If honorable members were to examine the position in past years, they would note that at one stage the overall profit was in the vicinity of only £70,000 which, if the undertaking had been owned by a private company, would have barely returned any company tax to the Government. If the Government of Western Australia were able to find the money to purchase the project, no company tax would be paid and the Commonwealth would be the loser. Not only is the question of company tax involved, but also the question of taxes on shareholders' dividends, which also would bring money back into the Commonwealth purse. I believe that it is the duty of this Government, if it sees the possibility of establishing a particular industry, to establish that industry, but not to compete with private enterprise and not to continue a situation in which Caesar appeals to Caesar. While the Government remains unfettered by such undertakings as the one in question, it is in a position to legislate for the benefit of the majority and is not tempted to legislate for the benefit of its own undertakings. If the undertaking is not to be sold to a Western Australian company, it should be provided that any other company to which it may be sold should be financed entirely by Australian capital. It should be made clear that we have no desire to bring in foreign capital and that any profits should go into the pockets of the Australian people. It is quite true that other whaling companies are operating around the coast of Australia. The honorable member for Kalgoorlie referred to the operations of Nor-West Whaling Company Limited. Many honorable members must be aware of the fact that that company makes a profit similar to that of the Australian Whaling Commission, that that profit is taxed, that it is derived from the same quota of 500 whales and that it is made on about one-quarter of the capital employed by the Australian Whaling Commission. I want to make it quite clear that I would not like to see the company which acquired the Australian Whaling Commission's undertaking take over the activities of the Nor-West Whaling Company Limited. I have in mind the statement of the honorable member for Kalgoorlie that the Minister for Trade had said in the House that the commission could handle the quotas of both organizations with its present staff. It seems to me that, if the Government does not sell the Australian Whaling Commission's undertaking, it is time to investigate the position of a staff that is probably being well paid to do only half of the amount of work that it is capable of doing. Many persons have a misconception about the Australian whaling industry. From a total catch of 1,600 or 1,700 whales four Australian organizations - at Moreton Bay in Queensland, Cheyne Beach at Albany, the Nor-West Whaling Company and the Australian Whaling Commission - produce approximately 4 per cent, of the world's whale oil supply. The figures that I have quoted differ slightly from those cited by the honorable member for Darling Downs (Mr. Swartz). The point that I am leading up to is that this undertaking about which the Opposition has painted a glowing picture is engaged in a very hazardous occupation. There is no guarantee that the quota allotted under the international agreement will not suddenly be reduced. That is another reason why the Government should get right out of the whaling industry. It is in a position to ensure that the whale stock in our area is preserved, and that over-killing does not take place. It is quite obvious that, if other countries produce 96 per cent, of the world's whale oil, those countries could exert very strong pressure on the price of oil on the world's markets to the detriment of the Australian market. Great uncertainty exists about the price of whale oil. Since World War II., the price a ton has fluctuated between approximately £55 and £120 sterling. It will be noted that about four years ago, when the profits of the Australian Whaling Commission were enormous, the balance-sheet showed a price of £125 per ton. The present price, of course, is well down. The commission has erected a £70,000 plant to treat whale meal. It is vitally important to the people of Western Australia in particular that one company should not have a monopoly of the whaling industry in that State, because, at the present time, there is very keen competition in the sale of such by-products as fertilizers. While there is competition, the price will be kept at a reasonable level. There is a danger here also, and I direct attention to it to show that the picture is not as rosy as the Opposition has tried to portray it. Whale meal costs approximately £57 a ton landed at Fremantle, but meat meal from Sydney can be landed for £30 a ton. The properties of meat meal are not very different from those of whale meal for the particular purpose for which they are used. It will be observed that any company which operates the undertaking that we are now considering will not have a clear-cut £200,000 a year profit on its investment. I suppose that, if we were to take the capital cost and do a little simple arithmetic, we would find that the percentage of profit is not very much greater, and is probably lower than that of the average Australian company. One further point must be taken into consideration. As I have stated, whaling in this area is a hazardous occupation. The station is situated in a region of cyclonic storms. Any activity up there carries a double risk, because insurance premiums are almost prohibitive. Great structural damage by a cyclonic storm could be caused without warning. Some honorable members will remember that the Point Cloates whaling station, which was operated by the Norwegians, was closed down following damage caused by such a storm. The Government has made it clear to the Opposition and to the people generally its intentions in relation to this concern, and I believe that the people of Australia were fully aware of those intentions on the occasion of recent general elections. Therefore, if a government pledges itself to a policy, it is its duty to carry that policy out. It should set itself up as the assister of and not as an active competitor with industry. The money that is received from the sale of this whaling station could well be spent in the development of the fishing industry right round the Western Australian coast. There we have a terrific fishing potential, and I think that Government assistance is needed to carry on the research started by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Western Australian waters, in an attempt to develop big fishing grounds. I consider that the Government has shown wisdom in deciding to sell the whaling station. Most people in Western Australia have known for three years about the Government's proposal to sell the station. To claim that the Western Australian Government was unaware of what was intended is stupid in the extreme. Most Ministers of the Western Australian Labour Government have spent time during their holidays at the whaling station, have gone out on chasers to see whales caught, and have spent time at the factory, where everybody knew quite well of this Government's intention to dispose of the station. However, I suppose the Western Australian Government thinks that, as it is approaching the end of its period of office of three years, and has to face the country shortly, this is a good time for it to activate the Opposition in this Parliament into protesting vigorously at the proposed sale. The present position in the Western Australian Parliament is that the House is divided almost equally between Government and Opposition, each having about 25 members. Political observers in Western Australia are forecasting that the position will remain the same after the election. One of the seats in which the Western Australian Government is vitally interested is the Gascoyne seat, the centre of which is Carnarvon, where the whaling station is situated. I cannot help feeling that all this turmoil about the proposed sale of the whaling station is closely connected with the coming general election in Western Australia, but I also feel that the people of Western Australia, knowing, as they do, the full facts of their State's potential under private enterprise, will realize that the Australian Government, by selling the station to private enterprise, would be acting in the best interests of the Western Australian people. I sincerely hope that the spotlight thrown on the north-west of Western Australia during this debate will not be dimmed, but will shine brightly in future debates, and will illuminate for honorable members the needs of a vast part of this continent, which can be developed only with Commonwealth assistance. The development of this area would give an opportunity to Australians in Western Australia to add to that development with all the strength, enterprise, courage and initiative that they have. I think that the amendment moved by the honorable member for Lalor (Mr. Pollard), which I know will be defeated, will have served a very useful purpose if the result that I have mentioned springs from this debate. 433JSUWills00BRYANT, GordonMr BRYANT. - I wish to direct the attention of the House to the remarks made by the Minister for Trade (Mr. McEwen) when he finally admitted that the Government proposed to dispose, by stealth, of the whaling station in Western Australia. I also wish to . ;rect the attention of honorable members to the preamble to the act under which lie Australian Whaling Commission was established. It reads - An Act to provide for the establishment of an Australian Whaling Commission and for i lie carrying on by the commission of whaling activities in certain waters, and of activities incidental thereto. I see no reference, in the Hansard reports of the debates on that bill, to any suggestion that this great industrial project, which is an enterprise in the true sense of the word, was to be established simply to show private enterprise that it could be carried out profitably. I suggest that it is rather novel for members on the Government side to say now that vaunted private enterprise, which, in all other respects, from what we hear from the Government side, can show us how things should be done, had to be shown how the nation's resources in the whaling industry could be employed, and had to have acts of Parliament passed, and the national wealth and the efforts of the Commonwealth Public Service used to show it how to do the job. Then, eventually, when it has been shown that there are no great risks involved in the industry, when the way has been paved, private enterprise is to be allowed to step in and take it over. I believe that this is a classical example of the extreme capitalist, materialist viewpoint and I rise to protest against this action, not only as a member of this Parliament and of the Labour party, who has a fraternal interest in enterprises controlled by the Government, but also as a citizen of this country. In other words, I am protesting, as a shareholder in this concern, against its imminent disposal by the Government. The Minister for Trade saw fit to inform all sorts of people that the whaling station was for sale. He says that .the Government's intention to dispose of the station has been public knowledge for years. He said also - and other honorable members opposite have reiterated the statement - that every thinking citizen ought to have known that the Government proposed to dispose of these national undertakings. He selected some business groups in the community and informed them of his intentions, but why did he not tell all of them? Every one of us was just as interested in the matter as were these groups. I am not too happy, as a citizen, let alone as a member of this Parliament, about the Minister taking on himself the right to choose the lucky players who are going to receive this wonderful asset, because I am told that there are restricted resources on which the whaling industry can operate. I have that on the information of honorable members on both sides. 1 claim that the Minister has no power, no moral right, and that it is not his duty, to select any particular section of the corn.munity and surrender to it control of an industry which operates on limited resources and is, therefore, monopolistic in its nature. This sale is like a gigantic lottery, but the tickets in this one cost more than 5s. each. Only people who can produce £1,000,000 or so can buy a ticket in this lottery. The whole thing is just not good enough. I believe that it is an assault on the rights of this Parliament. I believe it prejudices the way in which the country should be run. The possession of this whaling station by the Government may be termed socialism by the honorable members opposite. It is the socialist attitude that wherever there are restricted resourcesavailable those resources should be controlled by the people's government for the people. That is one of the first tenets of the Labour party's socialism. A good deal has been said on the other side of the chamber about socialistic doctrine. The honorable member for Flinders (Mr. Lindsay) referred to the remarks made by my good friend and colleague the honorable member for Yarra (Mr. Cairns), as a "socialist diatribe". I think he did the honorable member for Yarra a little less than justice. I shall say of the Labour party's socialism that it is at least empirical and pragmatic. We believe that if an industry is successful, does no harm to anybody, and is for the benefit of the community, it is a good thing. This industry comes into that category. It is a successful enterprise, is doing nobody any harm, and is producing dividends for the community. That is the first test. The second test, of course, is connected with the restricted nature of resources in which the industry operates. Are the resources operated on by the whaling industry available to everybody? It is quite clear, of course, that they are not. The industry, therefore, should be confoiled in the national interest. "When honorable members opposite speak of socialism they are inclined to use the term as though socialism were something doctrinaire and dogmatic. Our party, in the few years it has been in office in its history, has established successful enterprises. It has not set out, holusbolus, to nationalize anything, or to take things from other people. 435KWP00TURNBULL, WintonMr Turnbull- What about the banks ? 435JSU00BRYANT, GordonMr BRYANT- I point out to my friend, the honorable member for Mallee (Mr. Turnbull), that the banks are still controlled by this Parliament. Eventually, even the honorable member for Mallee has to accept the fact that the Parliament is the place from which the country should be run. He is becoming a socialist by implication in that regard. The point I should like to make to honorable members opposite is that they themselves display a remarkably doctrinaire and dogmatic attitude. The Minister for Trade himself showed such an attitude when he told us, reluctantly be it noted, that the Government was going to dispose of the industry. As the honorable member for Yarra has said, the disposal of the industry was to be effected, not because it was not a success, or because it had now been shown that it could not be run profitably, but simply because it was in the line with, his policy of antisocialism. I suggest that that is an extraordinary doctrinaire attitude to take. When have honorable members on this side of the House been heard to say that something must be carried out simply on the line of political dogma? I thought that the doctrinaire approach to these things was safely behind the iron curtain, but opinions are expressed in the House which I do not think bear examination. There is another point about which I would like to make an emphatic protest. For the second time in three weeks in this Parliament - for the second time in my brief stay here - the Government has only very reluctantly released a full statement on what it proposes to do. The first instance was the bill which was recently passed in relation to Ministers of State and their salaries. The details were brought to light only by the vigilance of the honorable member for Melbourne Ports (Mr. Crean). i doubt whether we would have heard much of the proposal to get rid of the whaling station at Carnavon had it not been for the vigilance of honorable members on this side of the House. These things support the views that have been pronounced by some honorable members opposite on the growth of the powers of the Executive. The honorable member for Franklin (Mr. Falkinder) spoke of the cavalier way in which the Parliament was being treated by the Executive. The proposed sale of the whaling station is a classical instance of it. I should like to say to those people who are complaining about the way in which we are being treated, that if they complain of Parliament being treated in that fashion, then they are adopting a position of contradiction. From their own attitude to industry, it is apparent that they consider that the Parliament, as a representative body, and the machinery which it sets up, are not enough to run an industry. This decision to sell the whaling station is a vote of no confidence in themselves. So far as I am concerned, the doctrine of " socialization " as we on this side of the House call it, and that will do for this occasion, is a doctrine of self-confidence and self-respect. The people opposite who are so keen to get rid of this asset are plainly saying that they are handicapped in operating it. We, on this side of the House, believe that the Parliament of the people should control the assets of the people; that the people who are elected here are quite as capable of running these things as anybody else. One of the advantages that we have over the situation when an industry is controlled by Parliament is that it is answerable to the people. Those who control limited resources - and this is the case with the whaling industry and the products from it - also have control, in some way, over the people of the nation. The products of the whaling industry are a part of the vital machinery of industry, and I believe that this industry should not fall into the hands of people who are not answerable to us. It is essential that the people who exercise power in the community, whether industrial power or any other sort of power, should be answerable to the people over whom they exercise it. That is another aspect of the doctrine of honorable members on this side of the House. The solution of these problems indicatedby the people opposite represents a vote of no confidence in this Parliament. Their solution is immoral, because it entails the use of the resources of the country to further the interests of private business. Who are the lucky ones that will receive this great asset? We have not yet received any official statement on the value of the asset. The honorable member for Melbourne Ports "suggested that the minimum that should be demanded for it was close on £3,000,000, and this would be giving a fair return to the industry. It is not a matter of the £200,000 which is involved. It is a rnatter of the control of the people's asset. It is a matter of the attitude that we should adopt to the resources of the community. I believe that the Government, in proposing to dispose of an undertaking, even if a good sale is in prospect, is proceeding upon lines which are indefensible. I do not believe it is a question of whether £200,000 will produce this or that. The sum of £200,000 would finance the building of many things. There is a shortage of schools in the community. ' But I believe that honorable members opposite should take this opportunity to re-aline their policy of using the resources of the community only for business ends. They should re-aline this policy with the one that they espouse when they demand the observance of the sovereignty of this Parliament and the proper treatment of private members. The logical deduction from their attitude - that we areunfit to legislate for, control and develop these things - is that the honorable members are unfit to have rooms in the place, and unfit to be here at all. Therefore, I hope that the Government will reconsider its pronounced policy. I hope that it will reconsider the facts as we have stated them. The Government, instead of getting rid of the country's assets to private concerns, should make every effort possible to bring the industrial wealth of the community back under the control of this Parliament. In the Governor-General's Speech, it was pointed out that we are unable, because of the influence of the Constitution, adequately to administer many fields of industry. It is important, therefore, to adopt one policy for this Parliament in these matters. That policy should be, " What power we have, that power we shall hold ". Therefore, I hope that those members opposite, who have so very freely, with a good deal of courage and with quite a lot of fluency, advocated greater respect for the private members, will think twice before they surrender the whaling industry of this country to private industry. 436JRBIndi00BOSTOCK, WilliamMr BOSTOCK. - I do not propose to continue this debate, which is developing into an argument between the merits ofsocialism and of private enterprise. The Government of this country has been elected as a protagonist of private enterprise, and I think that is the ultimate answer to all the discussion that we have had on the subject of the whaling industry. I wish to express some ideas on the defence of this country that have been going through my mind for some time. I should like to recall that, for some years now, we have been spending what for this country is an enormous sum of money on the defence programme. In fact, for the current year, the Estimates provide £190,000,000 for defence. A similar amount has been provided for the last few years. In that period, we have been providing each year approximately one-fifth of our national budget for our defence. This is a very significant proportion of the budget. I think that it behoves us to ensure, within our ability, that this money is being spent wisely, and that we get the best result from the expenditure and the resources which are involved. I have some doubts about it. In order to make my position clear, I think that I should review the situation in which we find ourselves in the world to-day. Australia, strategically, is developing very fast. Our population is growing. It is nearly 10,000,000 persons. Our industries are developing vigorously. Quite recently, we have discovered large deposits of uranium in this country which are being successfully processed. All these things increase enormously the strategic value of Australia in the eyes of a potential enemy. The time has passed when we could say to ourselves that Australia's limited ability to mobilize Avar resources guaranteed that we would not be an attractive prize. During the previous Avars Ave could. with some confidence, regard ourselves as immune from air attack. Our concentrations of population and industry were, fortuitously, in the south-east portion of the continent, and in those days the range of aircraft was such that to launch air attacks on our important centres an enemy would have had to establish bases on the mainland, or obtain almost complete sea and air superiority and bring his aircraft carriers within range of our cities. That situation no longer exists. Every major country in the world - in both the democracies and in the Communist one - now has aircraft capable of bombing any point of the world from their home base. If that is so, Ave must ask ourselves what is the position with regard to the threat to Australia. I think that, from every logical point of view, the most probable type of attack is air bombardment. It is the simplest, it is the most economical and it is the most effective, having regard to the development of modern air weapons. I would again draw attention to the fact that people do not seem to appreciate the enormous power of modern hydrogen bombs. T shall repeat an illustration that I have given before because I do not think that these points can be driven home too often. One hydrogen bomb, weighing 5 tons, has a greater destructive power than all the bombs that were dropped in Germany in the last war, had they been simultaneously concentrated on a single target. In addition, of course, the after-effects are enormously greater. In the light of these developments all logical reasoning seems to point to the fact thar Ave should depend primarily upon air power for our defence. It is quite true that we must still retain some " orthodox " forces to meet the cold war situation. "We sent land, air and naval forces to fulfil our obligations to the United Nations in Korea, and quite rightly so. In Malaya we have now made a contribution of orthodox forces to help the people of that country to rid themselves of Communist terrorism and come closer to the day when they can successfully undertake self-government. While it remains clear that during the cold Avar the Communist policy is to ferment these small perimeter wars we must play our part and equip ourselves with a certain number of orthodox forces of all arms of the services. I have no quarrel with that, but over and above that Ave are preparing, I believe, for a relatively enormous expenditure so that we may play our part in the unfortunate event of the outbreak of a major war in the Pacific. The best way to prepare for that eventuality would be to set up a small, hardhitting, mobile, medium bomber striking force. We must not delude ourselves. At the present time, at any rate, Ave can have no confidence in what I call " passive defence ". It is impossible, so far as I know with the facilities available, to guarantee 100 per cent, effective passive defence from the air attack. Whatever anti-aircraft defences are employed, a proportion of an attacking force will surely get through - probably quite a big proportion. Therefore, remembering the enormous destructive power of one of these atomic weapons, and the concentration ot our industry near centres of population. Ave must agree that it would be very unwise to rely on the interception of an enemy attack. The only real defence to air attack is retaliatory attack against enemy bases. While I do not suggest that Ave should neglect passive defence entirely, or forget the importance of interception, we must make our contribution in the form of a hard-hitting, retaliatory striking air force. The submarine is quite an effective platform from which to launch guided missiles. It is not unlikely that any naval attack on this country will take the form a submarine attack. To those who visualize an orthodox ground attack on Australia, I direct attention to the enormous task involved. It would, perhaps, be more to the point to say that if an enemy were capable of launching an amphibious attack on the Australian mainland on an invasion scale, it could only mean that our great allies, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, had been defeated in the Pacific war and that the whole war, as far as we were concerned, had already been lost. The contribution to the central strategic reserve of a small force of five, six or seven squadrons of medium bombers of the " V " type would mean that we would be doing something real and effective. I hope that, notwithstanding the importance of sentiment, we would be realistic enough to select an American medium bomber. I refer to a bomber which can carry hydrogen bombs and has an operating range of something like 4,000 miles. If we were to select American aircraft, we would avoid all the confusion and difficulty that we encountered in the last war when we tried to adapt American supplies, equipment and spares to the equipment with which we had been armed before the war began. We could use the American supply lines and their stores and equipment, and thus make a satisfactory contribution to the major effort. It would increase the efficiency of our effort enormously. If that very sketchy appreciation is correct I want to pose this question, " Where do the aircraft carriers, to which we are committed in the Royal Australian Navy, fit into this picture? ". I do not believe that they fit into the picture at all. I think that we are spending our defence money and efforts wrongly in that regard. The protagonists of the carrier will argue that the Navy must always have its own air cover. They will tell me that I have already said that any naval aggression against this country is likely to be carried out by submarines, and that the aircraft carrier is the best defence against submarines. I would accept that, perhaps, under certain conditions and in other parts of the world, but in our strategic and geographical situation I think it is wholly wrong, and I propose to try to examine that proposition. First of all, there will be a certain amount of surface ship traffic across the Pacific Ocean, and presumably across the Indian Ocean, but the traffic density will necessarily be very low. It will not be comparable with the traffic density of ships in the western approaches during the last war, or at the terminal focal points on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of America. It will be even less in comparison with the last war because of theadvent of air transport across great distances. Very large quantities of supplies, which previously had to be carried by ships in convoy, will in future be carried by air transport, even across the whole breadth of the Pacific, if only in order to save time. So, I do not think it is an erroneous assumption that prompts me to say that the density of ocean traffic in the Pacific in the next war will be sparse, and therefore any suggestion that we will be running merchant ship convoys across the Pacific which could or would require escort cruisers, destroyers and aircraft carriers, is so improbable that it can be ruled out of the realm of possibility. By far the most economical, efficient and safe method of running sparse surface traffic across wide ocean spaces is by evasive routing. No submarine will locate itself indefinitely in the middle of a great ocean on the offchance of accidentally running across a single ship. The incentive, the target, is not sufficiently attractive. Where the submarines will concentrate their efforts, of course, will be at the entrance to our ports, our focal areas, and on our coastwise trade. Not even the strongest protagonist of the aircraft carrier, I think, will argue seriously that in these circumstances carrier-borne aircraft are more efficient than shore-based aircraft. So, if we are to be faced with the problem, of protecting our shipping in our focal areas, within a couple of hundred milesof our shore bases,, and along our coasts, then it is perfectly clear that instead of wasting our money and effort in sendingto sea aircraft carriers which are themselves so vulnerable, we should have thejob done by shore-based aircraft, in conjunction, of course, with small antisubmarine naval craft. In fact, recent exercises in our own country have shown that our shore-based Neptune aircraft are- much more effective in locating and keeping down submarines than are the seaborne aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm. Our carriers are not combat carriers but escort carriers. They are designed and equipped for that purpose. I think [ have said enough to make people think that perhaps there is no requirement for them in the Australian theatre as escorts. What other employment is there for them? It has been suggested by some people that they make excellent platforms for the launching of guided missiles. I do not doubt it, but it is a very expensive mobile platform, and much cheaper ships can do the job just as well, if we decide to go in for that sort of thing. When I indicate some of the costs that are involved in this carrier programme perhaps people will begin to realize that they are not getting value for money. The carrier of which we are in the course of taking delivery will cost us about £20,000,000. The hull itself costs £15,500,000. It is true that by some reciprocal agreement with the Admiralty the British Government is paying half the cost of the hull, but that does not alter the fact that the hull of this one ship is costing £15,500,000. By the time it is equipped - but not with aircraft - it will cost about £20,000,000. I think that is indisputable. The aircraft component consists of two types of aircraft. The first is the Sea Venom, which cost £96,000 each. That is nearly £100,000, and certainly by the time some of the operational equipment goes into them the cost will be well over £100,000. Indeed, it will be closer to £150,000 each. The anti-submarine Gannet costs £148,000, and by the time it is equipped operationally, with radar and all the modern requirements for anti-submarine search, it will cost, I am sure, in the vicinity of £200,000. I admit that that is a guess, but I think that it is an intelligent guess. That is not all. These aircraft carriers are very vulnerable, and no naval commander will take them to sea, where there is any possibility of meeting submarines, without a screen. Therefore, because we are committed to these aircraft carriers we are also committed to a screen of destroyers. We have ordered three of the " Daring " class destroyers, which I am told by the Minister will cost us £7,300,000 each; Therefore, for the screen which is to protect this carrier we have to find capital expenditure of £22,000,000. That does not take into account the running costs, the maintenance, the crews' payments, and all the rest of it. Even that is not all. If we run an aircraft carrier we must have a shore base as well. We have established a shore base at Nowra, which up to date has cost us £3,000,000, and which is likely to cost us more. For all this big capital expenditure, which must come out of our limited resources, we get a piece of equipment which in my view, and as I have tried to show, will be of little or no use in any future Australian theatre of war. If the same money and effort were diverted from this carrier programme to producing a group of medium bombers capable of carrying atomic weapons, as a retaliatory striking air force and a contribution to the Pacific central strategic reserve, we would be making a vastly better contribution to the security and defence of Australia. To recapitulate my arguments, I believe that our defence thinking should be re-orientated roughly on these lines: Our Navy should accept the proposition that the submarine is the major menace. It should accept the proposition that we will not have convoys traversing the ocean, and that evasive routing is a more efficient and effective method. Shore-based aircraft at focal areas off our coast and on our coastwise sealanes are much more efficient than carrier-borne aircraft and, therefore, they should concentrate the whole of their efforts on large numbers of small anti-aircraft ships of the frigate class and similar types and develop co-operation with the shore-based aircraft of the Neptune or its subsequent class. The Army should be given to understand that it should train to make its necessary contribution of orthodox troops during the cold war period in such places as Korea and Malaya. Attention should then be focussed on the aircraft to produce this hard-hitting, mobile retaliatory striking force of bombers capable of carrying atomic weapons, with a range of 4,000 miles or more; the class of aircraft, preferably to be American, so as to fit in with the obvious logistic set-up that. will occur in the Pacific in the case of a major war. In addition, the Air Force should provide an anti-submarine component of the Air-Navy effort in order to control the submarine menace on our sealines along the coast and on our focal areas. If that were done, I believe that we would be in a much more secure defence position. I believe that we would be helping our allies infinitely more than we are to-day, and I do not believe that the cost would be any more than it is to-day with our carrier programme. Mr. THOMPSON(Port Adelaide) 1 4.27]. - I desire to speak on the amendment, and I think it would be well for us to realize what that amendment really is, as it has been suggested by many honorable members opposite that the amendment is put forward with a view to giving prominence to Labour's socialist philosophy. The motion for the adoption nf the Address-in-Reply is as follows: - We, the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, in Parliament assembled, desire to express our loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign, and to thank Your Excellency for the Speech which you have been pleased to address to Parliament. The honorable member for Lalor (Mr. Pollard) has moved, as an amendment, that the following words be added : - And we desire to add that, in the opinion of this House, the Government should at once terminate nil negotiations for the sale or disposal of any of the assets of the Australian Whaling Commission located at Carnarvon, Western Australia. I join issue with any honorable member opposite who suggests, as did the honorable member for Darling Downs (Mr. Swartz) that the purpose of the amendment is to give prominence to Labour's policy of socialization of industry. This is a discussion of what Labour believes to be right compared with what the Government believes to be right. The amendment does not seek to put into effect the socialization policy adopted by the conference of the Labour party in 1921. The Labour party has made it clear time and time again that it would take over an industry from private enterprise only when private enterprise was conducting that industry in a way detrimental to the people of Australia. 440KNXUAP; LP from 194400HARRISON, EricSir ERIC HARRISON- Is that the true socialist policy, or is it the Blackburn interpretation ? 440KVTPort Adelaide00THOMPSON, AlbertMr THOMPSON- It is Labour's present policy. 440KWP00TURNBULL, WintonMr Turnbull- It is the Thompson interpretation. 440KVT00THOMPSON, AlbertMr THOMPSON- It is not my interpretation. The Vice-President of the Executive Council (Sir Eric Harrison) has asked whether it is the true socialist policy. He asks whose interpretation 1 am giving. I am merely stating what was intended by the decision arrived at by the conference in 1921. Having once made a decision, the conference has a right to alter it later if it so desires. In this instance, the Government is seeking to dispose of an undertaking that was established by a previous government.. I refer to the whaling station at Carnarvon, in Western Australia. The Government claims to be entitled to do so. I am merely pointing out that the intention of the Labour conference in 1921 was that an industry would be taken over only when private enterprise was exploiting the public. Let us consider the present position. We on this side believe that certain functions can be carried on successfully by a government. 440KWP00TURNBULL, WintonMr Turnbull- Such as banking? 440KVT00THOMPSON, AlbertMr THOMPSON- I believe that we could make a good job of banking, but the people of Australia have decided against the nationalization of the banking system. Until they are prepared to agree to our doing so, we shall not put our banking policy into effect. The Leader of the Opposition (Dr. Evatt) has stated clearly that before attempting the nationalization of an industry, be it banking or anything else, the Labour party will first ask the people to decide whether they want it. In this instance, the Government does not want to go to the people. As recently as the 10th December last, we had an election, but nothing was said during the campaign about the sale of this whaling undertaking. The Minister tells us that the Government had decided some years ago to dispose of the whaling station if it could find a purchaser. That point was. not made an election issue. The people of "Western Australia were not told that the Government, if it was returned to office, would dispose of the whaling station. It is all very well for the Minister for Trade (Mr. McEwen) to say that the people knew about the proposal, that it was made known to the Western Australian Government some two or three years ago. This matter is of such importance to the people of Western Australia that mention should have been made of it if the Government intended to sell the undertaking. Let us now examine the whaling industry as a whole. It must be apparent to all that this is a matter of concern to all nations of the world. We know the feelings that were expressed when the Japanese came down to take whales from the Antarctic. It was feared that if we did not call a halt a whaling industry would not exist in the Antarctic before long. It then became an international question, as between governments, and not as between private people who were simply wanting to make as much as they could out of the whaling industry. When it became an international problem, restrictions were placed on the number of whales to be taken each year. Those restrictions were not determined by a private company. Whaling operations are limited by an international convention in which various governments have participated. When we consider that only a limited number of whales may be taken in. a specified area, we naturally ask what the Government is going to do to ensure that they are taken in a way that will not give an undue advantage to some individuals by allowing them to make a monopoly of the industry and profit from it as they like. In Australia, it was for years almost impossible to get any one to undertake whaling on a scale large enough to be effective. Some years ago I visited the whaling station at the northern end of the South Island of New Zealand. A few whales only are taken there. The Chifley Government found that the whaling industry, in Australia was being whittled away, and saw that, if something was not done, we should eventually be allowed no quota by the International Whaling Commission, because other countries would be taking the lot. In these circumstances, did private enterprise, of which honorable members opposite talk so much, come into the picture and say, " We shall establish an efficient whaling station to obtain oil and other products from whales ? " It did not. Some private concerns fooled about in a small way, but, in general, the whaling industry was going by the board. The Minister for Trade, who has been handling this matter for the Government, has stated that the Chifley Government established the station merely to ascertain whether whaling could be undertaken profitably. 441KGC00HAMILTON, LeonardMr Hamilton- Was it very easy for private companies to obtain capital, and purchase ships and other equipment, at the time of which the honorable member speaks ? 441KVT00THOMPSON, AlbertMr THOMPSON- I admit all the difficulties. 441KGC00HAMILTON, LeonardMr Hamilton- The honorable member knows very well that private enterprise was unable to enter the industry. 441KVT00THOMPSON, AlbertMr THOMPSON- I point out to the honorable member that the whales were available many years before 1939. Private concerns could have entered the industry many years ago. The fact is that they did not do so, and the Chifley Government decided to establish a whaling station and satisfy itself whether the undertaking would be profitable. If the venture had proved a failure and losses had been incurred, the honorable member for Canning (Mr. Hamilton) and his colleagues, particularly the Vice-President of the Executive Council, if they ran true to form, would now be saying that a socialist government had taken on an enterprise in which it had lost a lot of money. We have heard such statements many times from honorable members opposite, particularly those who hail from Queensland. They have told us of undertakings started in that State by Labour governments, which they claim were failures and had to be closed down. However, they do not talk about the successes. They talk only about the failures. 441KGC00HAMILTON, LeonardMr Hamilton- Tell us about the successful government enterprises in Queensland. 442KVT00THOMPSON, AlbertMr THOMPSON- I referred to the matter only in passing, and the Chair would not permit me to discuss an industry in Queensland at the moment. I repeat that, had the whaling station at Carnarvon been a failure like other undertakings in Queensland, and a drag on the taxpayers because losses were being made, and had no one been willing to purchase it, honorable members opposite would have condemned the Chifley Government for undertaking an enterprise that showed losses. Had the undertaking proved unprofitable, the Government and its supporters would have abandoned it And cut their losses. The Government and its supporters claim to believe in private enterprise, and they want to hand over to private operators any successful government enterprise, whether it be a whaling station or any other instrumentality, which is of benefit of the people. Any one who acquires the assets of the Australian Whaling Commission will get an undertaking that has been proved to be profitable. I do not know what price the Government could get for it. I am not at the moment concerned with that. However, I do know that, up to the present time, the profits earned have been absorbed almost entirely in the payment of the capital cost of the venture. It will not be many years before it is fully paid off, and profits after that time would redound to the benefit of the country. Honorable members opposite, on the one hand, condemn the proposals of experts for tax increases, and, on the other, they want to sell an undertaking that earns profits and brings in revenue that would otherwise have to be obtained by taxation. 442KWP00TURNBULL, WintonMr Turnbull- We want more enterprises like this one. 442KVT00THOMPSON, AlbertMr THOMPSON- We want a lot more. The Carnarvon whaling enterprise was not developed by the taking over of a successful private undertaking or the nationalization of an industry. The Chifley Government saw that it was necessary to establish a whaling station, and it did so. The present Government now says, in effect, that the Chifley Government was right, because the enterprise is profitable, and, therefore, it wishes to hand it over to private con cerns. That is indicative of the philosophy of Government supporters. In this instance, we have a conflict between two almost directly contrary philosophies, and we must decide which is right. As I have pointed out, honorable members opposite use the example of a failure in government enterprise as much as they can in an attempt to prove that their philosophy is right. However, when an undertaking entered into in accordance with the contrary philosophy is a huge success, we are entitled to say that our philosophy has been proved right. 442KWP00TURNBULL, WintonMr Turnbull- The principle is not right. 442KVT00THOMPSON, AlbertMr THOMPSON- The honorable member wishes to talk about principles. I remind him of the metropolitan abattoir at Adelaide, in South Australia. That enterprise is governed by acts of parliament. It is almost wholly a government show, although it is conducted by a semi government board. Do we ever hear the primary producers in South Australia saying that the abattoir should not have been established, or complaining about its work? We do not. They accept it gladly. Private enterprise would not establish killing or freezing works in theEyre Peninsula of South Australia. It was left to the government - not a Labour government, but a Liberal government - to do so in accordance with the socialistic philosophy, as honorable members opposite term it. The freezing works opened by the South Australian Government on the Eyre Peninsula has been a huge success. It has done much for the people of the peninsula, and Mr. Playford, the Liberal Premier of South Australia, is almost boastful about it. 1 agree that the works has been of immense benefit. However, if the views of honorable members opposite are correct, it should have been left to private enterprise to establish such works. 442KWP00TURNBULL, WintonMr Turnbull- In Victoria, it is left to private enterprise. 442KVT00THOMPSON, AlbertMr THOMPSON- That may be so, but I point out to the honorable member that Liberal supporters in South Australia point to this type of enterprise as an example of the fine record of the South Australian Liberal Government, which has held office for about 22 years. The Australian Labour party in South Australia does not oppose Mr. Playford and the South Australian Government on the question of the public ownership of these undertakings. It supports them. I was a member of the South Australian House of Assembly for many years, and I can say from experience that the only opponents of such enterprises in the South Australian Parliament were members of the Liberal and Country League, as it is termed. In the South Australian upper house, legislation to permit the establishment of these undertakings could not have been passed were it not for the support that Labour members gave to Ministers and, perhaps, several rank and file Liberal members, to defeat the opposition of other Liberals. Honorable members opposite claim that a Liberal government was responsible. Actually, when much of this legislation was passed, the Labour party had to assist the Government to obtain a majority in the Legislative Council. I have listened to Government supporters speaking about a socialist philosophy and how it is opposed to the Liberal philosophy, but 1. recall how much South Australia, with a Liberal Premier, has been able to do. The coal mine at Leigh Creek is a government undertaking, in competition with privately owned coal mines in New South Wales. I have heard complaints from New South Wales that coal being mined in South Australia is cutting down exports from New South Wales, which is very concerned. The Labour party was not responsible for the relevant legislation, but it was responsible for joining with Mr. Playford and the South Australian Liberal Government in giving effect to it. The philosophy of private enterprise is opposed to any government enterprise at all, yet much of the success of South Australia has been brought about by the adoption by the Playford Government of the philosophy of the Labour party and of planks that we have had in our platform for years. Mr. Playford has given effect to those policies with our support and in face of opposition from members of his own party in the Parliament. I say to honorable members that he could not have succeeded without Labour support. Mr. ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr. McLeay).- Order! The honorable gentleman's time has expired. 443009MALoweLPMinister for Primary Industry10MCMAHON, WilliamMr McMAHON. - In rising to support my colleague, the Minister for Trade (Mr. McEwen) and urging the rejection of the Opposition's proposed amendment, as an addendum to the proposed Address-in-Reply, that negotiations for the sale of the Australian Whaling Commission's establishment be suspended, I first make this comment: Although I did not listen to the speech that was made by the honorable member for Lalor (Mr. Pollard), 1 have carefully read it. After I had read it once I asked this simple question: What on earth was he complaining about, and what was the ground on which he thought the amendment should be supported by this House? Quite frankly, I was compelled, by his own arguments and his own statements, to come to the conclusion that the Opposition is not facing this problem from the point of view of realism, but that, on the contrary, it is looking at the problem from the single point of view of bitterness and frustration. I have not heard one sensible argument put by the Opposition as to why this proposed amendment should be adopted. One gathers the impression, from listening to everything said by honorable members opposite, that they are rancorous about the fact that the Government might be taking action to sell the assets of the Australian Whaling Commission, and they are not worrying about whether such a sale will benefit the Australian people or about what the philosophy behind the Government's action might bp. One might also gather the impression that the assets are to be sold and that one of the Ministers - perhaps the Vice-President of the Executive Council (Sir Eric Harrison) or I - might be pocketing the proceeds. The Vice-President of the Executive Council can always speak for himself. I shall speak for the other Ministers. Whatever happens, the assets, or the proceeds from their sale, will bc used for Commonwealth purposes in the normal fashion. If it so happened that there was a sale of the Australian Whaling Commission's establishment, why would it be made? That leads me to ask, first, what the policy of the Government is with regard to the conduct of commercial enterprises. Secondly, when the sale does take place, if it does in fact eventuate, will it he for the benefit of the Australian people? This is the. subject we should debate this afternoon rather than engage in bitterness, rancour and all sorts of woolly-headed statements designed as party-political propaganda. May I go back historically to the beginning of this problem? Honorable gentlemen opposite, as well as those on the Government side, will know that this matter was first raised in 1945. In 1948, the question arose as to whether we should have a mother whaling ship or a shore-based whaling station. The government of the day came to the conclusion that in order to develop one of Australia's primary resources, a certain aspect of fishing, it would be advisable to establish a demonstration whaling unit to ascertain whether commercial whaling was in fact practicable on the "Western Australian coast. After having looked rather carefully through the files, I find that some doubt existed, from the breeding grounds off the New Zealand coast, about the way in which the whales might move up the east or west coast of Australia. In the opinion of myself and the Government a correct decision was made, namely, that the Australian Government of the time should come into this fi rid and try to establish that, with adequate capitalization, good /management, and effective equipment, whaling in Australian waters could be made a commercial proposition. I for one should like to . compliment the honorable member for Lalor on the active part that he took during those years in establishing the commission and in ensuring that it was given the necessary capital to enable it to work successfully. No one, least of all my colleague the Minister for Trade, wishes to deprive him of any of the credit due to him for what was attempted and what was achieved by the Labour Government. But, as I have said, the Labour Government went into this venture for a purpose, to see whether it was practicable to exploit commercially the whales off the Western Australian coast. This Government came into power in 1949, and not long afterwards, in fact in March, 1952, the then Minister for Commerce and Agriculture (Mr. McEwen) stated the policy of the Government with regard to the Australian Whaling Commission. That policy is thoroughly endorsed by every honorable member who sits on the Government side. The policy can be expressed in a question. Does the Government believe in carrying on commercial or industrial undertakings of a kind which can be successfully carried on by private industry? The answer is clearly " No ". This Government does not believe that it is the province of a government to enter into the field of private enterprise and to do those things which an individual can successfully achieve, except when there are exceptional circumstances. This view is adopted for a very good purpose. There is enough work for the Government to do, in terms of the general administration of the great departments of State, and in terms of general policy decisions, without getting into the sphere of commercial and industrial undertakings. 444JAG00CREAN, FrankMr CREAN- The question is not getting in; it is getting out. 444009MA00MCMAHON, WilliamMr McMAHON- I can see no difference between getting in and getting out. Once the Government has demonstrated the success of the undertaking, let it get out, because it has enough work to do, as one day, in the dim distant future, the honorable member may have a firsthand opportunity of finding out. If he does, he will be the happiest person in the world when he realizes that he does not have too many responsibilities of a commercial kind. Otherwise, he will find pretty quickly that the administration of his department is as bad as I think it will be in any event. To return to the argument 1 have been putting: This Government believes in individual and private enterprise when it can do the job as successfully as the Government can do it. We think that in present circumstances private enterprise can do the job. Therefore, there is not one good reason why the Government should stay in this field. But my colleague the Minister for Trade, went further. He said, " Of course, we would not wish just to get out and leave the field. If we sell the assets of the commission, two conditions will have to be fulfilled ". There was a strong view that any company carrying on the work of the whaling station should be Australian-owned. I think honorable members who sit behind me will agree that, as the bulk of the whale oil produced is exported, it would be desirable that ownership of the industry should be vested here, so that the Australian community would have the benefit of the sales of oil overseas. That was the first condition. Secondly, the principle was established that, as this industry was of great benefit to the people of Australia, the station should be kept going and that whales should be caught and processed. Those two conditions have been set down as fundamental conditions to be complied with before the Commonwealth will agree to the sale of these assets. I come back to the statement made by the honorable member for Lalor that there was something clandestine or surreptitious about this transaction. I have in my possession a copy of a statement that was issued by the then Minister for Commerce and Agriculture in 1952. The statement is quite clear. It set out the Government's intentions. It set out the Government's philosophy and policy. It stated that, if the Western Australian Government cared to purchase these assets, the Commonwealth would be only too happy to receive proposals from it. So far from the transaction being clandestine or hidden, those with brains to think or with ears to listen know that, since 1952 at least, it has been common knowledge that the Commonwealth is prepared to sell, subject to the conditions that I have just stated. So, since 1952, the doors have been open to applicants. Recently, several applications have been received, and they are now being considered by the departmental officials. But the door has not been shut to the Western Australian Government. Rather belatedly, the Western Australian Government sent a letter to the Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies), asking whether it could submit an offer. In order to give the Western Australian Government a special concession, the Prime Minister said that the date for receiving offers would be extended to the middle of March. That date was set for a very good reason. The whaling season begins on the 1st April, so that if a company takes over these assets, it is desirable that it shall do so by the middle of this month. A special privilege was given to the Western Australian Government and it was given an opportunity to tender, if it wished to do so. Let me introduce a political note here. I have not been able to find out just what the true position of the Opposition is. I think most honorable members will concede that the Leader of the Opposition (Dr. Evatt) has argued that the assets should be sold, or has agreed that they should be sold, although he wants them to be sold to a particular body - that is, the Western Australian Government. He does not, in fact, object to the sale of the assets by the Commonwealth. He agrees to the sale. 4452V4ALP00CAMERON, ClydeMr CLYDE CAMERON- He does not. 445009MA00MCMAHON, WilliamMr McMAHON- I suggest that the honorable member for Hindmarsh (Mr. Clyde Cameron) look at the record. If the Leader of the Opposition does not agree to the sale, he has expressed himself in rather obscure language. Certainly the view that he does not agree could not be read into his words by any person with a normal appreciation of the English language. There was not a single argument worthy of attention in the speech of the honorable member for Lalor. Bitterness and rancour, yes, but not argument. The honorable member for Lalor urges that the negotiations be suspended and finally cancelled. So we find again the classical division between the various individuals who make up the Labour party. We find the same kind of division that existed on and before the 10th December of last year, when one group of Labour men which sat in one place and another group which sat somewhere else were arguing about where the Labour party stood in national politics. To-day, we find the honorable member for Lalor and the right honorable member for Barton (Dr. Evatt) disagreeing about the sale of the assets of the Australian Whaling Commission. I have mentioned that point in order to introduce a purely political note, and to ask honorable members opposite where they stand. Now I come to the approach of the Western Australian Government. In 1952, that Government knew that it could put in 'an offer if it wished to do so, but it hesitated, or refused to do so, until just recently, when it knew that an election would take place. Now it is treating this problem as a piece of political bait and as a political issue. There we find the answer to the question: What is the Opposition grizzling about? The Opposition is not grizzling in terms of realism or of rational policy. It is grizzling because an election is about to take place in Western Australia, and it hopes to gain a temporary advantage by raising a false issue. Now I come to the real questions that are involved. There are two questions that should be asked when we are considering this sale. The first of them relates to the policy of the Government, which I personally regard as being of great importance. I have stated it to the House before, and I shall continue to state it during the rest of the time that I am in the Commonwealth Parliament. I do not believe, nOT does the Government believe, that a government agency should take part in normal commercial operations when private individuals can do the job. The second major question is : Will this sale be for the benefit of the Australian people? I think it will, because the commercial value of the enterprise has been demonstrated and, if the assets are sold, adequate value will be received for them. The money received will be used for Commonwealth purposes. I cannot say now that the Government will hypothecate that money for a particular purpose. I have no authority to do that, and I have not put a proposal to the Government. But let me say that in terms of fisheries - one section of the activities of the new Department of Primary Industry - we have immense opportunities for development, and for making a contribution to the solution of the problem of our balance of payments. I think the facts about whaling are fairly clear. The honorable member for Port Adelaide (Mr. Thompson) did not disguise the fact that there is a limit to the number of whales that may be caught off the Australian coast. A few years ago, the annual catch was limited to 2,000, but later, in order to conserve whales, it was reduced to 1,800. It was thought that there had been a gradual diminishing of the number of whales available. The number was gradually becoming smaller, and it was thought that the reason for that was that too many - I think this is the right term - pregnant whales were being harpooned. So, a decision was made to limit the catch last year to 1,800. However, as a result of certain inquiries that have been made, it has been found that there is a whale breeding ground to the north of New Zealand, and that whales from there pass near Norfolk Island. With the object of catching some of those whales, it has been decided to grant a licence to a Norfolk Island company to catch 150 whales this year. In addition, it i3 thought that the catch on the east and west coasts can be increased by 40 whales. So the total permissible catch this year will be 1,990. The point I want to make is that the catch is limited. The largest number that can be taken under present conditions is about 2,000. Therefore, we cannot develop the industry to any great extent. I contend that it is not in connexion with whales that the Commonwealth should extend its activities. I believe that the time has come when, instead of worrying about a successful enterprise that cannot be extended, we should think in terms of other commercial enterprises which offer a wealth of opportunities. In tuna fishing, prawn fishing, cultured pearls, pearl shell fishing and in a dozen and one other fishing industries, whether connected with sedentary fish or swimming fish, there are many opportunities for development. There is ample opportunity for people of enterprise and initiative to establish profitable industries for the benefit of this country. Therefore, in considering the second question - whether this sale will help the development of the Australian community - I say there is no reason why the Government should stay in the whaling industry and that the sale could not possibly jeopardize our future prosperity. I add: Let us not stand on the past; rather let us think in terms of what we can do to make this country more profitable and to increase our opportunities to sell overseas as a means of solving our balance of payments problem. You, sir, know that that is a great problem. You know that last year we had an adverse balance on current account of £268,000,000. I think that, by using a little imagination and scientific investigation, we can expand our primary industries, particularly the fishing industry, and that such a contribution would be of benefit to the Australian people. Therefore, I answer the second question in the affirmative. The sale of this undertaking is in accord with Government policy, which was made known to the people in 1952 and again at two subsequent general elections. Secondly, it may give us - and I hope it does - an opportunity to come to grips with the real problem of the further development of Australian resources. I think that my colleague, the Minister for Trade, has said almost everything that could have been said on this matter, but I hope that I have been able to present the argument in a somewhat different manner. I agree with everything that he has said, and, on the grounds set out by him and by my other colleagues, I urge honorable members to reject the proposed amendment. Mr. CLYDECAMERON (Hindmarsh; [5.7]. - I wish to use my allotted time to deal with a great injustice that exists in the Public Service. I refer to the salaries that are paid to third division telegraphists and postal clerks employed by the Postmaster-General's Department. During question time to-day, I asked the Postmaster-General to state whether he was willing to make representations to the Public Service Board with a view to persuading it to negotiate with the unions concerned on the question of these salaries. He stated that not only would he not even bother to make such representations to the board, but also that he was not even prepared to allow his own department to discuss the matter with the union. The history of this case commenced in December, 1951, with the lodging of a claim to the Public Service Arbitrator for increased margins after the Public Service Board had refused to negotiate on any of the points contained in the claim. When the claim came before the Public Service Arbitrator, the board queried his right to determine the matter and asked that it be heard by the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration. Apparently the Arbitrator was impressed by the submissions of the board, and he decided to have the matter listed for the court's consideration. On the 4th May, 1954, fifteen months after the matter first came before the court, the Chief Judge, Sir Raymond Kelly, referred the matter back to the Arbitrator. On the 17th July, 1954, the general secretary of the union and Mr. Albert Monk, of the Australian Council of Trades Unions, waited on the Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies) in Canberra and placed before him the union's case in relation to the claim. But no results flowed from this interview. After a courteous reception and a display of the Prime Minister's ability to convince the deputation that he was greatly impressed by all they had said, they went away, foolishly believing that something would be done. But, as I have stated, nothing was done. On the 16th September, 1954, the case once again came before the Public Service Arbitrator in the form of a statutory conference. The board asked for an adjournment, using the excuse that it wanted more time to study the two and a half times formula that the court had applied in the metal trades case. The request was granted. Not until the 16th December, 1954, was the matter again considered by the Arbitrator, and on that occasion the board announced that it was prepared to make an offer to the union. The union accepted the offer on the understanding that this acceptance would not prejudice its right at a later date to press its full claim for the application of the two and a half times formula. As a result of the board's offer, which was implemented by regulation, and which became operative from the 23rd December, 1954, the maximum marginal rate for postal clerks was increased to £290 a year, and for third division telegraphists to £315 a year. Early in 1955, the union again requested the Arbitrator to apply the two and a half times formula to the marginal rates of these employees, and after a further delay he made an order in which, in general terms, he indicated that he thought the union had made out a case for the application of the formula. However, he did not issue a determination in which he specified particular rates of pay, because he adopted the view that, if the Government intended to appeal against his decision, it would be a waste of time for him to undertake the laborious task of fixing rates of pay and margins for various classifications if they were to be upset on appeal. He said, in effect, " If the Government intends to appeal against my intention to apply the formula, I shall save myself further work by merely making an order indicating that that is my intention ". The board refused to accept the Arbitrator's decision, and it appealed to the full bench of the court against his intention. On technical grounds the court did not uphold the appeal, but referred the matter back to the Arbitrator because he had not specified rates of pay. The Arbitrator then issued determination No. 23 of 1955 in which, except for postal clerks and third division telegraphists, he specified increases which were in accord with the two and a half times formula. In the case of postal clerks, he fixed a maximum margin of only £305 a year instead of £355, which would have been the maximum margin awarded if he had applied the principles followed by the full bench of the court in the metal trades case. For third division telegraphists, he fixed a margin of only £335 above the basic wage, whereas, if the principles adapted in the metal trades case had been applied, the margin would have been £405. The Public Service Board again refused to accept the umpire's decision, and, with the full connivance of this Government, it sought leave to appeal to the court against the determination. In July, 1955, the full bench of the court granted the board leave to appeal. During August of 1955', shortly after the right to appeal was granted, the board promised the union that in the event of the Overseas Telecommunications Commission reaching agreement with the Professional Radio Employees Institute on the question of marginal rates for Overseas Telecommunications Commission telegraphists, it would negotiate on margins with the postal telegraphists. This was only proper in view of the fact that both the board and the arbitrator had previously fixed the rates for Overseas Telecommunications Commission telegraphists at within £8 or £10 a year of the rates fixed for the Postmaster-General's Department telegraphists. It was only right and proper that the rates of pay of the two groups should continue to be kept together. On the 16th December, 1955, the board once again promised the union that it would re-open negotiations, and this time it said that it would do so as soon as the Full Court delivered judgment on the board's appeal. The court's judgment was given on the very next day, and I might mention incidentally at this stage that it is a strange thing that the court's decision was not given until the 17th December, in view of the fact that, prior to the announcement of the general election date as the 10th December, the court had indicated, in a public statement, that it would give its judgment on the 24th November. But, knowing that the judgment would have serious political effects, or was likely to have serious political effects on the Government, the court, by some strange coincidence, decided it would postpone its judgment on the appeal until after the general elections were over. In its judgment the court, as most of us expected, not only rejected its own metal trades award principles, but also actually further reduced the Arbitrator's rates for postal clerks and telegraphists by another £20 a year, thus depriving postal clerks of a total of £70 a year, counting the £50 a year which the Arbitrator himself had fixed below the Commonwealth formula. The court also deprived the third division telegraphists of £90 a year compared with what they should have received had they been given the full benefit of the metal trades award formula. As a matter of fact, the court's decision actually resulted in a loss of £5 a year on the amount which was fixed for postal clerks by the board itself. So that, to-day, the maximum rate for postal clerks is £5 a year less than the amount which the board itself agreed upon and fixed by regulation on the 23rd December, 1954. The court increased by a solitary £1 a year - the princely sum of 4½d. a week - the amount which the board had fixed by regulation for telegraphists. This was a type of discrimination not suffered by any other group in the Commonwealth Public Service; However, in fairness to the court, I want to say that the court did say that the rates fixed for postal clerks and third division telegraphists might not be just and proper and might need adjustment by the arbitrator. There was a clear implication by the court that it considered that the Government or the board, if it did its duty, should have negotiated with the union in respect of these two particular groups. The union's experiences with other applications to the Public Service Arbitrator satisfied it that it should do everything possible to avoid the unnecessary delay which had seemed, in the past, to go inevitably hand in hand with applications to the arbitrator. Right through, the union has made every effort to try to conciliate with the board rather than to suffer delay as a result of the tedious and prolonged process of arbitration. After the court's- judgment was made known to the union it again requested the board to resume negotiations. This time it was told that the board- could not meet the union until after Christmas. The inference to be taken from that statement was that at least after Christmas the board would meet the union. So, in January, 1956, the union again asked the board to meet it in conference, and it was then that the board indicated what had been in its mind all the way through because for the first time the board told the union clearly and distinctly that it refused point blank to negotiate on those two particular classifications. The next development was the decision of the Overseas Telecommunications Commission to increase by £40 a year the salary range of its own telegraphists, and this increase, mark you, was an increase over and above the amounts fixed by the board's regulation, and was granted without prejudice to the Professional Radio Employees Institute claim for further increases so as to get the full benefit of the metal trades award formula. Again, the Third Division Telegraphists and Postal Clerks Union requested the board to negotiate in accordance with its promise in August, 1955 that, in the event of the Overseas- Telecommunications Commission granting an. increase to the technicians employed by it, the board would consult the Third Division Telegraphists and Postal Clerks Union. The union considered that the board should honour this promise, and meet it again in conference. But the board made it clear, for the second time, that it had no intention of meeting the union, in connexion with- this matter. "While refusing even to negotiate on the claims of the telegraphists for an increase of £90 a year, or the claims of the postal clerks for an increase of £70 a year, the chairman of the Commonwealth Public Service Board, Mr. "W. E. Dunk, is at the moment himself accepting an increase of salary of £1,500 a- year, which brings his salary to £5,500, and the two members of the board are accepting an increase of £1,250 in their salaries, which have now been brought to £4,500. If those men, who are so anxious and so willing to take such enormous increases of salary, are now stating that they cannot give a paltry increase of £70 and £90 a year respectively to the two groups to which I am referring, on the ground that the country cannot afford it, surely they ought to set a practical example by paying back to the Government a portion of the increases of salaries, for instance of the extra £1,500 which they have received since the making of the regulation of the 23rd December, 1954. It costs the Postmaster-General's Department more than £1,000 to train a postal clerk and telegraphist, but this outlay is being wasted as telegraphists are refusing to remain in the jobs for which they have been trained at such expense, because of the low range of salaries paid to them. The refusal of the board to negotiate has caused widespread discontent among clerks and telegraphists, so much so that a stoppage of work is inevitable unless the union's grievances are rectified. For the first time in the history of this Commonwealth we are faced, at this moment, with the first real threat that the country's telegraphic communications will be completely held up. I wish to quote to the House, for the benefit of every member of this Parliament, the decision of the union reached at meetings throughout the Commonwealth. A Melbourne mass meeting last Tuesday demanded a resumption of negotiations, and now awaits the board's reply to decide its course of action. A mass meeting in Sydney on Monday gave the board one week in which to reply to its demand for a resumption of negotiations. A mass meeting in Perth called on the union to abandon negotiations and arbitration and asked the Australian Council of Trades Unions to lead the union in a policy of collective bargaining and direct action as laid down by the 1955 Australian Council of Trades Unions Congress. The Queensland telegraphists actually carried a resolution to hold a stop-work meeting as a protest on the margins position and the board's attitude on the 23rd December, but were advised to hold their hand. The Tasmanian men have conferred with members of the Government and have been assured by Government senators that they have consulted the Postmaster-General. All I can say is that the discussions of Liberal senators with the Postmaster-General did not produce very good results, or were not very convincing, judging by the reply that the Postmaster-General gave me at question time to-day. The South Australian men had a mass meeting, which the honorable member for Bonython (Mr. Makin) and I attended, and at which the union's case was fully explained to us. Even senior postal clerks and instructors have been denied the full benefit of the court's metal trades award principle. Summed up, the union asks for a maximum salary of £1,023 for Third Division telegraphists in lieu of the present salary of £933 and £973 in lieu of the present maximum salary of £903 for postal clerks. This group of the Commonwealth Public Service has never before had to take direct action to secure wage justice, but the board's continued refusal to meet the union in an effort to conciliate will leave these officers with no alternative but to go on strike. Even the amounts claimed by the union will not restore margins to their 1949 percentage of the basic wage. In addition to their loss in margins, Commonwealth public servants are the only government employees, with the exception of those employed by the Liberal Government of South Australia, who do not get the benefit of quarterly cost of living adjustments. On this aspect alone, each and every Commonwealth public servant is losing £39 a year on his present basic wage. Telegraphists are being paid £129 a year less than they should receive, and postal clerks £109 less. Even if they were content to accept the two-and-a-half times formula as a proper method of fixing margins and the amount which they are behind in the basic wage, they are not prepared to tolerate this injustice any longer, and the responsibility for a complete breakdown in telegraphic communications in Australia will rest fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the Public Service Board, and also on the Government if it fails to take appropriate action to insist on justice being done to this most important section of the Public Service. This is not an idle threat. These men have reached a point where they are not prepared to tolerate any longer the attitude of the Public Service Board in refusing to meet them in a decent, conciliatory spirit. The Government claims to believe in conciliation, but it has shown absolutely no desire to apply conciliation. A government which tells the workers to accept the decisions of the court, or the umpire's decision, and itself refuses to abide by the decision of the Public Service Arbitrator, is not fit to occupy the treasury bench one minute longer. 450JXIForrest00FREETH, GordonMr FREETH.- I wish to come back to the " wailing wall ", and deal with the amendment to the motion for the Address-in-Reply. At the outset, I congratulate my friend and colleague, the honorable member for Perth (Mr. Chaney), on his contribution to this debate. He has injected a great deal of sound common sense into a debate that has been marked by much woolly thinking, particularly by some honorable members opposite. The honorable member laid his finger accurately on the cause of the argument about the disposal of the Commonwealth "Whaling Commission's assets when he directed attention to the fact that a closely fought election is to take place in Western Australia on the 7th April. I hope to show, briefly, that this discussion is a shameless election stunt on the part of the Western Australian Government, with the connivance and co-operation of honorable members on the opposite side of this House. It is well known that for at least three years the Australian Government has been anxious to dispose of the Australian Whaling Commission's enterprise. The Western Australian Government may plead ignorance of that fact, but it would be astonishing if it could produce convincing proof of that ignorance. It is well known at the Australian Whaling Commission property that the Australian Government has been anxious to dispose of this concern. It is well known also that from time to time offers for the purchase of this undertaking have been received and rejected because they were inadequate. If honorable members opposite, and the Western Australian Labour Government, are so deeply and genuinely concerned about their principles of socialism and the value of the people's assets in this particular part of Australia they would have taken up the matter long before a week or two prior to the Western Australian State elections. It is well known that the Western Australian Minister for Fisheries (Mr. Kelly) spends a great deal of his time - indeed has quite, enjoyable holidays - on the Australian Whaling Commission's property. Consequently, he would be well aware of the exact situation over the past three years. Now that the matter is reaching finality, the Western Australian Government has begun to display some sort of fictitious interest in acquiring this property. As further proof that this discussion is a blatant election stunt, I refer honorable members to the statements made about the proposed offer to the people of the district to enlist their sympathy in this matter. It has been said that this is a profitable concern, and that if the State Government became the owner it would spend all the profits from it doing all sorts of things for the people of Carnarvon and of the northwest districts generally. Any Western Australian government that is aware of its responsibilities to the north-west of the State would do these things regardless of whether it owned a particular asset in that area. As an illustration, it has been suggested that if the State Government acquires this whaling station it will immediately build an all-weather, sealed surface road from Geraldton to Carnarvon. That is an amazing proposition. Only yesterday, I asked the right honorable the Treasurer (Sir Arthur Fadden) whether there had been any accumulation of federal aid road funds in the hands of the Western Australian Government. I was amazed to learn that at the 30th June last there was more than £1,000,000 unspent money, obtained from this source, in the hands of the Western Australian Government. This is the Government which now says that if it acquires this asset it will spend some money on the road from Geraldton to Carnarvon. Obviously, such a promise is an attempt to whip the feelings of the people of Carnarvon into a frenzy over this issue. When the proposition is closely examined, it is shown to be completely hollow. Suppose that the Australian Government does not sell the Whaling Commission's enterprise, or that it does sell it to the Western Australian Government? What difference, in terms of hard cash or prosperity or anything else, will it make to the people of Carnarvon if the station carries on its work as efficiently as possible? The only possible difference that it could make if the Government concerned were to operate it inefficiently and spend money extravagantly over a short term would be to place a little mort money in the pockets of the trades people of Carnarvon and the adjacent area. Over a long term it would mean the loss of a valuable asset in the district. If it were to go into the hands of private enterprise, which spent its money wisely in the Carnarvon area, apart from the tendency to operate more efficiently, over a long term it would be a much better proposition for the people of that area. All this talk about spending money to develop the area if a State government obtained control of the asset is irrelevant to the issue now before us, as is adequately emphasized by the fact that any State government, with a full recognition of its responsibilities to the north-west of Western Australia, would not make the expenditure of funds for the development of that area dependent on acquiring one asset in the locality. Honorable members opposite have based a great deal of their argument on the fact that this is an enterprise which is carried on by a government and which operates at a profit. That seems to be the basic standard by which they judge these things. It is a very interesting proposition. Surely the true standard by which to judge these ventures is whether they can operate at a profit comparable with the profit and under the conditions under which private enterprise would operate. 452JSS00BRUCE, HenryMr BRucE- How does the honorable member know ? 452JXI00FREETH, GordonMr FREETH- How do I know that private enterprise could carry on more efficiently? Let us examine a few figures. The Nor- West Whaling Company, which has operated almost contemporaneously with the Australian Whaling Commission which has the same quota of whales, and which operates under the same regulations, started off with a share capital of £150,000. The Australian Whaling Commission had a capital expenditure of £1,300,000, nearly ten times as much as the capital of the Nor-West Whaling Company. The profits of the Nor-West Whaling Company and the profits of the Australian Whaling Commission have been comparable over the years, but the Nor-West Whaling Company has paid considerable sums in taxation to the Commonwealth, as is shown in the following table : - Those amounts relate to company tax alone. In addition, it has paid to its shareholders a 20 per cent, dividend in each year of its operation, and the revenue which the Commonwealth would derive from these dividends in the hands of shareholders would be a considerable sum. Admittedly, the Australian Whaling Commission has made high profits but it has not had to pay taxation. If we were to deduct from those profits the sum which the Government would have received by way of taxation if the enterprise had been in the hands of private industry, we can see immediately that the profit to the Commonwealth and to the people of Australia would be considerably reduced. When we consider that the whole of that capital asset is tied up and cannot be used for the benefit of the people of Australia in other directions, we immediately see the wisdom of untying that money, and putting this venture into the hands of private enterprise, which would operate it on an efficient basis. The money derived from the sale of the enterprise could then be used for the functions of the Government, that is, to assist in developing other industries. There is no doubt whatever that an immense field exists for the expenditure of money in research and development by the Government in the north-we3t of Western Australia and, indeed, in the whole of Western Australia. Only recently, I had to approach the Minister in charge of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (Mr. Casey) to ask him if, by some means, he -could provide assistance for research into the sperm whaling possibilities in the southern seas. A small whaling company, the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company, has carried on at Albany, and has spent many thousands of pounds in trying to explore the possibility of developing an industry based on the sperm whale in conjunction with its normal activities in producing whale oil from humpback whales. The sperm whale is an entirely different type of mammal from the humpback whale. It produces a different type of oil, and an export market to the value of hundreds of thousands of pounds a year would be offering if the potentialities were adequately exploited. One great difficulty of the Government is that funds are limited for this purpose. The Minister for Primary Production (Mr. McMahon) made reference to the possibility of developing prawn fishing in the north-west. This is a type of fish which is at the other end of the scale, as it were, from the whale, but it exists in large quantities off the northwest coast of Western Australia, and there is a strong possibility of its being profitably exploited. The assertions by honorable members opposite that the Government, by selling the whaling station, will deprive the people of Australia of an asset are baseless. Let us take that argument to its logical conclusion. We assume that a government enterprise can operate at a profit and we do not make any comparison with the profit rates of private enterprise in similar circumstances. Then we could arrive at the amazing proposition that all industry that could operate profitably, no matter at how small a profit, ought to be in the hands of the Government. The fact that private enterprise might carry on at a larger profit, or more efficiently, would not be justification for private enterprise being allowed to carry on. I ask honorable members opposite if that is not the logical conclusion of the proposition which the honorable member for Wills (.Mr. Bryant), for example, submitted to the House. If that is so, what sort of standard of living would the people enjoy with the Government making a slight profit, temporarily, when private industry could make a much greater profit and operate more efficiently on world markets at lower cost and give an improved standard of living to the people ? Therein lies the complete answer to the woollyheaded socialist doctrines that we have heard uttered by so many honorable members opposite in the course of this debate. This enterprise, in particular, is one in which no government, even a socialist government, should be engaged because it involves a high degree of risk. Those members who like to consider themselves shareholders in the venture because it happens to be carried on by the Government, do not realize the high degree of risk that does exist in this whaling industry; and I venture to suggest that, as shareholders, they receive very little benefit from it. The honorable member for Perth (Mr. Chaney) drew attention to the fact that Australia supplies a minute percentage of the world supply of whale oil, and is very much at the mercy of world prices and of the large operators on world markets. The price of whale oil has fluctuated during the last few years from £125 a ton down to £50 a ton. From that point of view alone, it is a highly hazardous undertaking. There is an even worse factor which the honorable member for Perth did not mention, and that is the fact that the whales themselves may no longer be there. The Government, through its research organization and through its investigations and exploratory work, tries to regulate the quota of whales so that the stock may remain constant. Of course, the Government cannot read the mind of a whale. Whales are gregarious mammals which travel in herds along certain; routes. At some stage, very often, something occurs to upset their set habits, and it has been the experience, off the coast of America, that for no known reason, the whales in one season will not follow their previous migratory habits. They have disappeared, and the whole enterprise has gone overnight. The honorable member for Perth also drew attention to the great hazards resulting from climatic conditions in the northwest, such as the damage that can be wrought by cyclones in that area. The whole of the Whaling Commission's fleet could be destroyed, the whole of its buildings could be blown down, and the whole of its capital assets destroyed overnight. The honorable member for Leichhardt, who is interjecting, does not seem to agree with me, but that happened to the Norwegian station which existed in the north-west some years ago. There is the additional market risk of competition with the by-products from the whaling industry. All these things, added up, do not make it a safe and certain enterprise for a government to risk the taxpayers' money in. Surely, it is more logical to allow private enterprise to ensure against those risks and to apply the asset value of that whaling enterprise to the development of other areas in the north-west or other parts of Western Australia. There is one further point I wish to mention briefly. A very grave doubt has arisen in my mind as to the constitutional position of the Australian Government in the ownership of this whaling station. The Commonwealth Constitution gives to the Government power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to fisheries in Australian waters beyond territorial limits. If one examines that provision carefully, one will see that that is an express territorial jurisdiction. It gives to the Commonwealth power to make laws with respect to a place or places - fisheries - but not to carry on the function of actively engaging in the industry which affects those fisheries. If the matter were challenged in the High Court I have very grave doubts whether the Commonwealth Whaling Commission would be able to survive. Therefore, at this time when capital is plentiful, surely it is desirable that the Australian Government should realize on this asset to the best advantage instead of waiting, at the mercy of some unscrupulous firm, which might, at a suitable time, challenge the position. In that event the Government would possibly run the risk of losing its asset for a mere song. For those reasons I think that the Australian Government is doing a wise thing in taking this step at this stage. The very blatant election stunting in which the Government of Western Australia is engaged on this issue is something which should deceive no one in that State. For years the Western Australian Government has known of the possibility of acquiring this asset, and if it really wished to do all the good things for the north-west of Western Australia which it has professed it wished to do but which, for years, it has ignored, it should have acquired it long ago. Now, its promise to spend large sums of money in that area if it can acquire this asset is simply an attempt to whip the people of Western Australia into some sort of excitement or of fear that if this station passes into the hands of private enterprise, the people of Carnarvon will lose something. Nothing could be further from the truth if there is a government in Western Australia which is fully alive to its responsibilities to all sections of the community. Sitting suspended from 5.k8 to 8 p.m.454JWRAdelaide00CHAMBERS, CyrilMr CHAMBERS.- At the outset I would like to congratulate those of my colleagues who entered the Parliament after the last election and who have made such splendid contributions to the debates so far this session. With other honorable members, I feel that they will be a great asset to the Labour party and, I hope, in the very near future, to a Federal Labour government. 454KGC00HAMILTON, LeonardMr Hamilton- It is wishful thinking. 454JWR00CHAMBERS, CyrilMr CHAMBERS- Perhaps it is not. I felt very sorry for the Governor-General when, in opening Parliament, he had to read such an address. 454009MALP00MCMAHON, WilliamMr McMAHON- That has already been said. 454JWR00CHAMBERS, CyrilMr CHAMBERS- I say it again because, from watching the Governor-General closely as I sat in the Senate chamber, I came to the conclusion that he did not relish his task. Many of the things that he had to say will be found, almost word for word, in previous addresses, and no man of any standing would appreciate that. In his opening remarks His Excellency made special reference to the events that will take place on the 1st July, and the consequences of these for the Senate and the House of Representatives. His Excellency indicated that the Government proposed to call a conference of members from both sides of the Parliament to see whether something could be done to avert the difficulties that would confront the Parliament and the country if this situation continued. The Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies) announced after the 1954 election that such a committee would be set up. He failed to carry out the promise that he gave to the people and to the Parliament on that occasion and now sees that his failure to do so will place grave obstacles in his way after the 1st July. I am in complete accord with the proposal to call an all-party conference because I have always felt that when a government is elected by the Australian people it has a right to govern and that no other chamber should be able to upset its legislation. It is a most important issue and one that we must face. If it is agreed that a referendum should be held [ hope that the Australian people will be asked to vote also on the question of the abolition of the Senate. 454KGC00HAMILTON, LeonardMr Hamilton- The Labour party had an opportunity to do that when it was in office, but it was not game to do it. 455JWR00CHAMBERS, CyrilMr CHAMBERS- To say that my party had an opportunity to do something that it now asks the Government to do is sheer humbug. "When Labour was in office it had a war on its hands. From 1945 until it left office, it had to take in hand the work of rehabilitating the nation and returning to civilian life more than 1,000,000 Australians. I remind Government supporters that the parties to which they belong have been in power for most of the 50 odd years since federation. However, that is not of real importance. Is it broadminded to argue that something that is now needed should have been done by a previous government? I suggest that it is not. The situation to-day is completely different. Shortly there will be almost a deadlock in the Senate. Are not responsible Government supporters - if there are any who may be termed responsible - in favour of an elected government having the right to govern ? The Governor-General said - Government expenditure itself must hi: sedulously watched and, wherever possible, pruned. 1 have tried to work out just what is the cost to the Australian taxpayer of the continued existence of the other chamber, which, after all is said and done, is only a party House. Honorable members have seen, on the last night of a session, this House adjourned for half an hour while ten or twelve bills which it has discussed for weeks have been passed by the Senate. Obviously, they cannot have received any consideration. They have simply been Government measures and have been passed quickly with the aid of Government supporters in that House. "What is all this costing the Australian taxpayer? I would estimate that it is costing him at least £500,000 annually. It may be very much more, and if the Government wishes to prune expenditure, here is an opportunity for it to do so. T believe that the Australian elector would he ready and willing to abolish the Senate. 455ZL600HASLUCK, PaulMr Hasluck- Are the senators ready and willing to do so? 455JWR00CHAMBERS, CyrilMr CHAMBERS- This is not a party matter. I am speaking as one who has been a member of the House of Representatives for about fourteen years. I have always maintained that the Senate has outlived its usefulness. That being so, we should not burden the Australian taxpayer with its upkeep any longer. I would like to mention another way in which the Government could prune expenditure if it wished. I refer to the existence of a one-man party in the Senate. I am not making this a party issue. If a member of the Country party or of the Liberal party broke away from his colleagues and became the sole member of a new party in another chamber I should feel just as strongly on the matter as I do in the present instance. Is it sane that one man should be accepted by the Parliament as a party? If it meant no more than giving him a party name it might be all right, but it does not end there. If it did I would not mind even ten or twelve honorable members doing the same thing, but the recognition of a party involves the extension of certain privileges which cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds. I understand that the privileges granted to this one-man party include the use of a Commonwealth motor car, the services of a secretary and typist, a room in the Senate quarters of this building and a room in the Commonwealth Parliament offices in the State that he represents. I say in all sincerity that I am not attacking the individual who gets these things; I am attacking the system under which the Australian taxpayer is called upon to carry all these burdens because one man has been recognized as a party in this Parliament. The whole thing could become farcical. I now ask the members of the Government to tell us whether, if by any chance a Communist had been elected to the Senate at the last general election, as was quite possible, it would have accepted that one Communist as a political party in the Parliament. "Would the Government have given him all the privileges to which the Leader of a party is entitled? I ask that question quite sincerely; but 1 receive no answer from the ranks of the Government. I now ask that question again of the Minister for Territories (Mr. Hasluck), who is at present at the table. Again I receive no reply. Why will not the Government answer that question? I have heard it said that the reason for the peculiar situation that has arisen in which a particular person has been accepted as the Leader of a party and has received all the privileges of a leader, although he has no party, is that it suits the Government. Now, I have some regard for the Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies), and if by any chance the Government has taken this action to gain some petty party political advantage against the Opposition, then it is no wonder that the general situation throughout Australia is becoming desperate. Once again I ask the Government to answer my question, and I shall put the question again. If a Communist had been elected to this Parliament at the last general election held on the 10th December, would he have been acknowledged as a party, and would he have received all the privileges accorded to the leader of a party? 4564U400KILLEN, JamesMr Killen- Would he have been entitled to them? 456JWR00CHAMBERS, CyrilMr CHAMBERS- Certainly, if they are already made available to a one-man party in the Parliament. 4564U400KILLEN, JamesMr Killen- Although he may owe allegiance to a foreign power? 456JWR00CHAMBERS, CyrilMr CHAMBERS- The honorable member who interjected should know that the Communist party is a legal organization. That is not merely my belief about the Communist party. The Australian electors declared at a referendum that the Communist party is a legal organization. All that I am asking the Government is whether it would accept a single Communist as a party, and as the leader of a party, if he were elected to this Parliament. I hope that it would not. In the present great era of prosperity, when we hear on all sides that the country has never been more prosperous, my mind goes back to another period in our history. In 1926, about eight years after World War I. concluded, this country was going through a period of prosperity similar to that which the Government so often claims is widespread to-day. Yet, in 1929 and 1930 our economic situation was completely changed. I warn honorable members that the economic pattern and the actions of the Government in the economic field today, are similar to the economic pattern and governmental actions in 1926. After World War I. wheat was required all over the world, and consequently we were able to sell wheat and other primary products in all the world's markets. Moreover, we were able to get good prices for our exported primary goods. Over the last few years our economic pattern has been similar to that. This Government assumed office in 1949 and it has been in office during a period of the most bountiful seasons that we have ever had. We have produced an abundance of wheat, wool and other primary products, and prices have never been higher. All those goods have been required throughout the world up to the present time, but the situation is now slowly changing. If we had said to the people of Australia in 1926 that in 1930 more than 800,000 people out of a population of about 7,000,000 would be on the dole, the people would not have believed us. Yet 800,000 Australians, many of them wearing the badges of ex-servicemen from World War I, were looking for employment in 1930. In 1926 people thought that such a situation was not possible, but it happened. Then from 1930 almost to the outbreak of World War II. we carried an army of unemployed. For long periods many Australians were on the dole, and many were suffering from malnutrition. Yet throughout that period wheat was rotting in the stacks throughout Australia. Some honorable members might smile at that statement. Perhaps, they did not see the sufferings of the people in those days. I greatly fear that the same situation will again occur in Australia because to-day the economic pattern is similar to the pattern of those days. At present we see the Government consulting experts, just as the Government did in the 1930's. It appears that the Government is not governing the country ; it is leaving that to the experts. Surely, it is a reflection on the grand men in the public service who have served this country for many years and who are most competent officers, for this Government to call in outsiders to tell it how to run the country. Some of the advisers, whoever they may be, bankers, big businessmen- 456KZECP00ROBERTON, HughMr ROBERTON- Or dentists. 457JWR00CHAMBERS, CyrilMr CHAMBERS- Yes, dentists are very important people in the community - or dentists, or boneheads. The Minister for Social Services (Mr. Roberton) has again given us a glimpse of the stupid approach that this Government adopts towards important matters. So, the financial advisers are brought in, and one of their suggestions is that the supply of money for hire-purchase must be reduced by the financial organizations which undertake that sort of business. They must reduce the supply of money that is required for the purchase of refrigerators, washing machines, radios and other things. No one will ever convince me that a refrigerator is a luxury item, or that every housewife is not entitled to an automatic electric washing machine. I think that those appliances should be installed in a home in the same way as are cooking stoves, or water and sewerage services. But the Government, however, continues to follow its short-sighted policy, and we see the same pattern developing as we saw in former years. If we restrict these industries that produce refrigerators, washing machines and other things that are essential in the homes of to-day, and if we say, " We shall impose restrictions on finance for the purchase of these products on hire purchase agreements what will happen to the industries that produce the refrigerators and other items that are being purchased under hire purchase agreements - and purchased in that way because the workers cannot afford to pay cash for them? 457KWE00TIMSON, ThomasMr Timson- Where are these industries? Who are the firms making these articles? 457JWR00CHAMBERS, CyrilMr CHAMBERS- Are there no Australian firms making refrigerators? Are there no Australian firms, employing thousand of Australian workers, making automatic washing machines? 457KIF00HULME, AlanMr Hulme- Tell us who they are. 457JWR00CHAMBERS, CyrilMr CHAMBERS- The honorable member should know that. I shall mention only a couple of them. These are the firms that make Coldstream and Kelvinator products. It is fantastic that the members of this Government do not appear to know these firms. I do not think they know how many people it would be possible to put out of work by following the Government's policy of reducing finance for the purchase of goods on hire purchase agreements. I sincerely regret that the pattern that we saw in the recession after World War I. appears to be being woven again today. Because of the incompetence of this Government from 1949 to the present time we can now see prospects of another recession in Australia. 457KVR00SWARTZ, ReginaldMr Swartz- Nonsense! 457JWR00CHAMBERS, CyrilMr CHAMBERS- The honorable member says, " Nonsense 1 " I heard the same expression used after World War I. when any one predicted the dire consequences of government mismanagement. I warn the Australian people and this Government that, while honorable members opposite may content themselves by saying " nonsense ", the writing is on the wall. Although the Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr. Holt) said recently that very many employees are required to fill vacant jobs, there is an army of unemployed growing in this country. 457KNXUAP; LP from 194400HARRISON, EricSir ERIC HARRISON- That is rubbish! 457JWR00CHAMBERS, CyrilMr CHAMBERS- It is all very well for the right honorable gentleman to say " Rubbish ! " I invite him to look round Australia to-day and to examine some of our industries. What is to become of the miners who have been sacked on the coalfields of New South Wales? There are some hundreds of them already. When we direct attention to these things, the Vice-President of the Executive Council (Sir Eric Harrison) merely says, "Rubbish ! " There is an army of unemployed growing in this country. I hope that the day is not far distant when the Australian people will realize once and for all that the only party that can govern this country in the interests of Australia and the Australian people is the party which comprises the present Opposition, the Australian Labour party. 457L0VLilley00WIGHT, BruceMr WIGHT.- The speech just delivered by the honorable member for Adelaide (Mr. Chambers) is one that the people of Australia have been listening to during election campaigns since 1949. In that year every one who was associated with the campaign heard all the Labour candidates stumping around the country and saying, " There will be a depression if the Menzies Government is returned". In 1951, no depression had occurred, but there was another election campaign, and again the apostles of gloom in the Labour party stumped around the country and said, " There will be a depression if the Menzies Government is returned". In 1953, there was a Senate election, and again the Labour candidates said, " There will be a depression if the Menzies Government is returned ". But there was no depression. In 1954, again they stumped around the countryside and made the same prediction. We heard it again in 1955. Still, they continue with their prediction, and the people of Australia are sick and tired of hearing it, because they have complete confidence in the economic policy that is being pursued, and will continue to be pursued, by this Government, which has given this country the greatest period of prosperity it has ever known. So much for the contribution to this debate of the honorable member for Adelaide. I should like to join with the other members who paid tribute to the quality of the speeches made by new members on both sides of the House. They have been of an excellent standard, and I believe that every one of those members will be an asset to this Parliament. I was particularly interested in the speech delivered by the honorable member for Hughes (Mr. L. R. Johnson). He took, as the basis of his contribution to the debate, the subject of housing, and he repeated what we are so used to hearing, that the poor State governments have been starved by the Menzies Government for funds and so have not been able to do the job that they would like to do in the field of housing. We know that the State governments have used this as the excuse for their own ineptitude and their own failings. If anybody doubts that, I hope that to-night I shall be able to convince them that the States have failed to shoulder their own responsibilities. In order to do so, I have only to trace the course of one project which was carried out under the terms of the Commonwealth and State Housing Agreement. We know that, in 1945. a socialist government introduced socialist legislation, which was known as the Commonwealth and State Housing Agreement legislation, which led to the State governments becoming great landlords, owning the houses and demanding rental from the people based on a formula which was concocted by the Labour Premiers and the Labour Minister and Prime Minister of the day. That formula demanded a certain amount as rental, based on the capital cost of the home. The prime consideration in assessing the rent was the capital cost of the home. That is an important factor to consider. Under the terms of that agreement, the Commonwealth was required to find the money to finance the States in carrying out these housing projects. There was not enough money available on the loan market to supply the States, and so the Commonwealth, through this Menzies Government, forwent any share of the loan moneys. Not only did it do that, but it supplemented the money that it gave to the States from its own revenue. That money has not always been honestly used by the States. They have been completely irresponsible in their use of it. I make that statement, and in order to prove its accuracy, I shall deal with the Zillmere estate in Queensland. 458K9MALP00JOHNSON, LeslieMr L R JOHNSON- What, again* 458L0V00WIGHT, BruceMr WIGHT- Yes. Honorable members will recall that this matter was raised some time ago, but there have been considerable developments since then. It will be recalled that, in 1950, this Government introduced the States' Grants (Imported Houses) Bill. That legislation was supplementary to the Commonwealth and State Housing Agreement. The bill, which became an act, provided that the Australian Government was to assist the States by granting them a subsidy payment of £300 on every house that was imported and erected. I wish to read portion of section 3 of the act, which states - " Costs in relation to imported houses, means the sum of the costs incurred or to be incurred in obtaining, transporting, importing and erecting the houses. I put emphasis on the words " erecting the homes " because that is particularly relevant to what I have to say. With the introduction of that measure, the Queensland Government arranged to purchase a total of 8S6 pre-cut houses from France. Those houses were to be erected at Zillmere. In 1952, in this House, the matter of the irresponsible attitude of the Queensland Government's administration oi' this scheme was raised, and a report was obtained by officers of the Commonwealth who were sent to Queensland to carry out the investigation. The report that was submitted to this Parliament by those officers included these words - There is justifiable doubt that the Commonwealth Government is getting a satisfactory result from its advances under the CommonwealthState Housing Agreement and its subsidy payments under the States Grants (Imported Houses) Act 1950. Honorable members will recall that the Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies) made a statement on the matter in this House. Subsequently, more officers from the Commonwealth experimental building station were sent to Queensland to carry out an investigation. Again their report was submitted to the Parliament, and again we learned that there had been a most serious challenge to the responsibility of the Queensland Government in carrying out its obligations to the nation, because it was reported that there was great doubt whether the Australian Government was getting an adequate return for the money invested in this housing project. We move from there to the date on which the Queensland Minister for Housing found that he was coming under fire from this Parliament and made a statement that, because Queensland was a sovereign State, it would refuse to allow any further investigation of the Zillmere project to be carried out until the project was completed. Towards the end of 1955, a report was received in Canberra that the project was completed. It was then time for the Australian Government to send officers to Queensland to carry out their final inspection, and that was done. The inspection was carried out against this background: On the 30th June, 1952, the Queensland Government had received a subsidy payment of £300 a house on no fewer than 850 houses because it had furnished to the Australian Government a statement that those houses had been shipped to Australia. Nobody denied that they had, but the Queensland Auditor-General submitted an audit certificate stating that the houses had been shipped from France on ships which ha named. He also gave the date of arrival of those ships in Brisbane. The responsible Commonwealth Minister at that time wrote to Queensland, notwithstanding the fact that the subsidy payment had been made on 850 houses, and asked that the Queensland Auditor-General certify that the houses had been erected in Australia. No reply was received for five months. The fact is that some of those houses, if they arrived in Australia, have disappeared, and nobody knows where they are to-day. I am not referring to all the houses. I wish to correct any impression honorable members may have that I am talking about all of the 886 houses. I do not suggest that all have disappeared, but a very substantial number has disappeared, and cannot be found. On the 7th August, 1955, the Queensland Minister for Housing, in a broadcast and in a press statement, admitted himself that 812 houses of French origin were involved in this matter of subsidy payments to the States under the States Grants (Imported Houses) Act. When the allegations were made that all of those houses could not be found in Queensland, the Commonwealth officers who went to Queensland made a specific check of a great number of the houses there and the report, as is evident in th° statement made by the Minister for National Development (Senator Spooner) yesterday, showed that a substantial number of the houses built there are constructed entirely of Australian materials. Some of the houses contain 80 to 90 per cent, of Australian materials, and others have substantial proportions of Australian material. That suggests that somewhere and some time after the houses were shipped from France, a substantial number disappeared, and the Queensland Government had substituted in their place Australian houses. It then claimed from the Commonwealth the subsidy on those houses. 459KIF00HULME, AlanMr HULME- A fraud? 459L0V00WIGHT, BruceMr WIGHT- An honorable member has suggested that this was a fraud. 460KX700WARD, EdwardMr Ward- Another conspiracy. 460L0V00WIGHT, BruceMr WIGHT- The honorable member for East Sydney claims that this is a conspiracy to defraud. It could be such a conspiracy. A physical examination will show that the houses about which I am speaking are not to be found at Zillmere. When the Queensland Minister for Housing was challenged on this matter, Le replied that the houses were shipped from France and that the Auditor-General's certificate proved that they were. He further stated that an officer employed by his department in France to supervise the shipping of the houses saw that the houses were shipped, and certificates have been furnished to prove that they were shipped to Australia. But the Minister does not claim that he has the houses to-day. In fact, according to the statement made by the Minister for National Development in this Government, the Queensland Government denied that proof of the erection or possession of the houses is relevant to the payment of the subsidy. The Queensland Government is now insisting that, notwithstanding the fact that the houses have disappeared, it is entitled to the full subsidy of £300 for each house on the ground that they were shipped from France. Does that suggest that there has been responsibility in the handling of this matter? I suggest that it does not. 460KDA00DUTHIE, GilbertMr Duthie- Did the houses arrive in Queensland ? 460L0V00WIGHT, BruceMr WIGHT- That is a question that the honorable member might direct to the Queensland Minister for Housing. I would be pleased to receive an answer from him showing that the houses were, or were not, in Queensland, but it is his responsibility to say where they are. Throughout the construction of this housing project, it must be remembered that the Queensland Government notified the Australian Government on only a few occasions that it was short of materials, and asked for permits to substitute Australian building materials. I have the list showing the occasions on which that happened. This shows the dates on which approval for the substitution was given. On the 19th February, 1952, the Queensland Government asked for permission from the Commonwealth, and received it, to substitute Australian for French materials insofar as the steps, sills, plates and bearers were concerned. On the 5th December, 1952, permission was given to the Queensland Government, at its request, to substitute for French material Australian asbestos cement to the quantity of 875 sheets. This had been damaged by fire. On the 4th March, 1953, permission was given to replace the weather board on the exteriors of fourteen houses with imported asbestos cement and that approval also was given, but when an inspection was carried out, not only were those substitutes found but throughout the area, there was such an immense number of substitutes that it is impossible at this stage, without a complete and thorough examination of the project, to say exactly what materials have been substituted. An inspection that has been carried out indicates that substitution has taken place to a very substantial degree. This leads to two points. First, has the money that was provided under the terms of the States Grants (Imported Houses) Act - that is, the £300 subsidy - been paid on imported houses which have been erected in the country ? If there are only about 800 instead of 886 imported houses at Zillmere, then I cannot see that the Queensland Government is entitled to claim subsidy payment on 886 houses, as it has done. When challenged on this, the Queensland Minister and his commissioner admit that all the houses are not of French origin, that a number of them are of Australian origin, but they still claim that the Queensland Government is entitled to the subsidy on the ground that the houses were shipped from France. If they have tried to obtain a subsidy until now, when the Commonwealth inspection has revealed that the substitutes were carried out, knowing full well, as they must have, that under the act they were not entitled to it, is that honest, or is that fraud, or an attempt to defraud the Commonwealth Government of money? Is it an attempt by the Queensland Government to demand money to which it was not entitled and to conceal from the Commonwealth the fact that some of those houses have disappeared ? Let us move from there to the second point that is involved. The subsidy payments might involve a matter of only tens of thousands of pounds, but what of the houses that are missing? If there were only 40 houses missing - I know beyond doubt there are more than 40 houses missing - and the average cost of those houses is £2,500, then we can say that there is £100,000 of the taxayers' money which cannot be accounted for by the Queensland Government, the Queensland Treasurer, the Queensland Minister for Housing or the Queensland Commissioner for Housing, the people who are charged with the responsibility of handling these funds. The loss of 40 houses would mean the loss of £100,000. But it is more than that. It is, without any doubt, vast sums more than that. Forty houses at least! But I am prepared to suggest that the number involved would be almost double that figure. I suggest that, in addition to the absence of the houses - and the absence of the number suggested means the disappearance of £200,000 of the taxpayers' money - there are a great number of other items which should have been imported and installed in the houses when they were erected. Prime cost items and hardware, which were supposed to come in with the houses either did not arrive, or were never used and disappeared after they arrived - that is, if they did come to the country - because substitutions in these fields occurred in regard to some items in every house on the project. That being so, let us suggest as a minimum that the amount of taxpayers' money which cannot be accounted for by the Queensland Government might be £250,000. 461KX700WARD, EdwardMr Ward- The figure is rising. 461L0V00WIGHT, BruceMr WIGHT- Yes. What is the position? Tens of thousands of pounds have been claimed by the Queensland Government from the Commonwealth under the States Grant (Imported Houses) Act, to which the Queensland Government was not entitled, and hundreds of thousands of pounds of the taxpayers' money made available under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement has disappeared. When the Queensland Minister for Housing has been asked to answer these questions, he has deliberately avoided giving any answer. He has tried to cover up with a smoke screen of excuses and other suggestions and, whilst not denying that the houses are not there, he suggests that the Commonwealth Government still has a. responsibility to find the money because the houses were shipped. When any government is so irresponsible in the handling of the taxpayers' money that hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of materials disappear, it is fair for people to ask whether that Government has been completely honest in its administration. We do not know where the houses are. Perhaps a mistake was made, and they were never shipped from France, even though the Queensland Minister for Housing swears time and time again that they were. Perhaps they did land in Australia. If they did, then the taxpayers of Australia are entitled to know where those houses have gone. They are entitled to know whether the houses have been sold. They are entitled to know whether the houses have just disappeared, in smoke. They are entitled to ask the Minister to explain, and we, as the Commonwealth Government, have a responsibility to demand from the Queensland Government a complete answer to these questions, because the sum of money which is involved is so vast. The evidence is so substantial. In addition to the statutory declaration which is in the hands of the Leader of the Liberal party in Queensland, we have the results of the inquiries made, and the physical inspection carried out by the officers of the Commonwealth, who included an architect from the Department of National Development and an architect from the Department of Works in Queensland. Those two independent individuals who carried out this inspection furnished a report and substantiated the claims that have been made in this statutory declaration. The evidence is such that it is beyond dispute that a great number of these houses cannot be accounted for by the Queensland Government. I regard this matter as being so serious that I believe there is a responsibility on this Government, because it accepted responsibility under the terms of the Commonwealth and State Housing Agreement for finding the money and handing it to the States tq be expended. This Government kas a responsibility to demand, or take legal action to make absolutely certain that the people of this country are acquainted with what has happened to that building material. 1 believe that this Government has to take action on both counts. It has a responsibility to take steps to obtain repayment of the money which the Queensland Government has obtained and to which it is not entitled. It must also take action either by way of judicial inquiry, or some other means, .to ensure that all the facts are revealed, so that the people of Queensland may be able to judge whether they have a government which is responsible, whether they have a government which is irresponsible, or whether they have a government which is downright dishonest. These things can be determined only by a judicial inquiry, and since Queensland will be faced with a State election at a date which has not yet been announced, I suggest that there is a responsibility on the Premier of Queensland to ensure that the date of that election is not announced, and that the election is not held until such time as a satisfactory answer to all these questions has been given to the people, and the people themselves are satisfied as to the integrity of the Government concerned. Hr. GEORGE LAWSON (Brisbane) |S.48|. - I am pleased to have the opportunity of following the honorable member for Lilley (Mr. Wight). His tirade of abuse and of charges and countercharges against the Queensland Government, and against the. Queensland Minister for Housing in particular, are no more than one would expect from him, because he has admitted that the Queensland Government is facing an election. The charges made by him to-night are prompted by nothing more nor less than political motives in the hope of damaging the Queensland Labour Government. This is nothing new. We have had it from the honorable member for Lilley for a number of years. We are sick and tired of it. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to refute the charges and counter-charges he has made here to-night, although I was always in a position to do so during previous debates. The honorable member for Lilley mentioned that the Leader of the Liberal party in Queensland has already taken this matter up. Of course he has ! I inform the honorable member through you, Mr. Speaker, that the Queensland Minister for Housing has issued a writ against Mr. Morris, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in that State. 462KIF00HULME, AlanMr Hulme- What for? 462KZX00LAWSON, GeorgeMr GEORGE LAWSON- The honorable member for Petrie (Mr. Hulme) asks, "What for?" He knows what for, as he has made charges similar to those made by the honorable member for Lilley here tonight. However, I shall make no further comment on this matter at the moment, because I am quite sure that the Queensland Minister for Housing, and the Premier of Queensland will deal with those charges in their own way. I turn now to the Governor-General's Speech, and to my mind it was similar to other speeches that have been prepared bv this Government and read by His Excellency. In my opinion, the Speech contained nothing of importance bearing on the serious plight in which this Government has landed Australia's economy. Indeed, I regard it as one of the most futile opening speeches that have ever been delivered in this Parliament. At this stage, I desire to add my quota of congratulations to those which have been already extended to the new members on both sides of the House upon their speeches, not only for their excellence of construction, but also for the manner in which they were presented. I consider that, by and large, the speeches of our new members were equal, if not superior, to all other maiden speeches that I have heard delivered in this House during my lengthy Parliamentary career. Without a doubt, our new members are a valuable acquisition by the Parliament. His Excellency stated in the second paragraph of his Speech - My advisers believe that the relations between the two Houses should be reviewed . . . They will, therefore, propose the setting up of an all-party committee of both Houses to investigate the constitutional problems which may be referred to it. One of these problems is that of the Senate and its powers and the procedure to be followed in the event of a dispute between the two Houses. Is other Words, the Government intends to appoint, an all-party committee to deal with the position that exists in the Senate. It is true, as the honorable member for Adelaide (Mr. Chambers) has said, that the position in that chamber is most unsatisfactory from the Government's point of view. I am one of those persons who have always believed that the people's House is the House of Representatives, because the people decide by their election of honorable members which political party or coalition of parties shall govern the country for the ensuing three years. If the Government experiences any difficulty in having its legislation passed by the Senate during the life of this Parliament, a certain amount of blame will rest on the Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies) himself, because his efforts during the general election campaign assisted a member of the splinter party to gain election to the third Senate vacancy in Victoria. I well remember reading in the press - and I feel sure that other honorable members not only read in the press but also heard over the air - that the Prime Minister, from a number of platforms, had praised the alleged anti-Communist party; and he stated that he admired its attitude in fighting for what he termed a principle. I do not think that the right honorable gentleman had any sympathy with that party at all, but that he praised it because he knew that the AntiCommunist Labour party's second preferences would be given to Liberal and Country party candidates. The Prime Minister was reported to have stated that he was sure that the Liberal and Country parties would gain a majority in every State. Little did the right honorable gentleman think at the time that if the Liberal and Australian Country parties were returned to office, the Government would be faced with a not altogether hostile Senate, but a Senate in which members of the Anti-Communist Labour party would have great power. 463KWP00TURNBULL, WintonMr Turnbull- The Prime Minister must have had a big influence on the electors. 463KZX00LAWSON, GeorgeMr GEORGE LAWSON- He had sufficient influence to be able to persuade many electors on that score. However, T am pleased to have an opportunity to state the opinions that I have held for a long time in relation to the Senate. The framers of the Constitution endeavoured to ensure that the Senate would be a States' house, but except at the beginning, it has never been anything like a States' house or a people's house. Immediately after the first Senate election was held, that chamber became a party house, and it has remained a party house ever since. We know what has happened over a long period of years. I contend that when this people elect a government with an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives, that government should be able to pass, and give effect to, its legislation without being hampered or hindered by another place. When a deadlock occurred between this House and the Senate in 1951, I would have liked to see the Government take the matter further and do what the honorable member foi1 Adelaide has said he would have liked it to do, instead of obtaining a double dissolution. I well remember the events that occurred in this Parliament in 1929. When supporters of the Bruce Page Government, which had been in office for about six years and held a majority in both Houses, fell out and engaged in a dispute on the floor of the House, that Government was defeated by some of its own supporters, and was forced to the country on a single dissolution. Subsequently, the Scullin Government was returned to office with almost as big a majority as the present, Menzies Government enjoys. What did that Government find? It found that Australia was on the verge of bankruptcy, financially and economically. When the Scullin Government inquired into Australia's financial position a week or two after it took office, it found that the overseas trade balance was below the danger level, and that there was not suffic]ent money in the Commonwealth Treasury to pay public servants their current fortnight's salary and age and invalid pensioners their current fortnight's pension. It, introduced legislation to overcome these difficulties, but what happened ? The anti-Labour majority in the Senate rejected practically every measure that was introduced by the Scullin Government. The same sort of thing has happened since. especially since the present method of voting at Senate elections was introduced. In 1951, when Labour had a majority in the Senate and the Menzies Government had a majority in this House, certain legislation was delayed, and a double dissolution was obtained in. an attempt to remedy the position. As time goes on, matters get worse. As I stated earlier, I believe the time for something to he done is long overdue. However, in the last paragraph at page 1 of the printed copy of the .Governor-General's Speech, we find this sentence, referring to the Government - They are of opinion that should agreement he reached by the suggested committee- That is the committee that the Government proposes to appoint - the electors may be more disposed to vote for any constitutional amendment which would subsequently be submitted to the electors by referendum. I sincerely hope that no such palliative referendum will ever -be submitted to the people by this Government, because I believe the Senate is nothing more nor less than an obstructionist, futile and obsolete -House, and a financial 'burden on the community. I say that bearing in mind that I have some very 'fine colleagues in that, House. But when it comes to a question of .principle, I forget individuals. I view this matter from the viewpoint of ;the interests of the people and Australia as a whole. .Government supporters, by way of interjection, :have asked why the 'Labour Government did not abolish, or attempt to abolish, the Senate. Those questions have been very ably answered by the honorable member for Adelaide. Government supporters have asked also what was the attitude of the Australian Labour party to the abolition of the Senate. I want to tell honorable members opposite that every Labour member of the Senate has signed a pledge which clearly indicates that Labour believes in the abolition of the Senate. 464KGC00HAMILTON, LeonardMr Hamilton- But they left it at home in 1949 when they increased the size of the Senate. 464KZX00LAWSON, GeorgeMr GEORGE LAWSON- Notwithstanding the observations of the honorable member for Canning, I venture to say that, if a vote on the question were taken, every Labour member of the Senate would vote for its abolition. I personally am very keen to see it abolished. 464KGC00HAMILTON, LeonardMr Hamilton- It would have to be a secret ballot. 464KZX00LAWSON, GeorgeMr GEORGE LAWSON- I do not care what sort of ballot might be adopted. We have only to look at the example of our sister dominion of New Zealand, where a Liberal government abolished the upper house. The present Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mr. Holland, at a function in Canberra only the other day, stated that he did not regret the attitude ,he had adopted in supporting the abolition of the upper house. The Senate is no different from the erstwhile upper house in New Zealand and the upper houses in the State Parliaments. Last Thursday afternoon, the honorable member for Griffith (Mr. .Coutts) stated that I had voted in support. qf a proposal to abolish the former Queensland Legislative Council. I make no apology for my action. When I had the opportunity to voice my opinion and to vote for the abolition of a State upper house, I willingly, did so. Nothing gave me greater pleasure than my part .in voting for the abolition of a .useless upper house in Queensland. I consider that the upper house in every State is useless. 464KDB00EDMONDS, WilliamMr Edmonds- The honorable member was a member of the house that it was proposed to abolish. 464KZX00LAWSON, GeorgeMr GEORGE LAWSON- I was. I maintain that the Senate also is a useless chamber. The remarkable thing is that no .non-Labour .government in. Queensland has ever proposed, either in the course of its administration or in an election policy speech, the restoration of the Queensland Legislative Council. -The Queensland Parliament has worked admirably with a single house, and no one has ever questioned that. 4641000000SPEAKER, MrMr SPEAKER-(Hon.Archie Cameron). - Order! The honorable gentleman's. time has expired. 464JMFPhillip00ASTON, WilliamMr ASTON.- In speaking in support of the motion for the adoption of the Address-in-Reply to the Governor-General's Speech, I am honoured to be. associated with the expression of loyalty to our most gracious Sovereign .Queen Elizabeth the Second. As a new member of the House, I, like many others of the newly elected members, am deeply conscious of the trust that has been placed .in all of us and of the responsibility that is our privilege. 1 take this opportunity to thank the electors of Phillip for the confidence they have placed in me, and to assure them that I am at all times at their service as their representative. As I passed through King's Hall to take my seat in the Parliament for the first time, many great Australians, immortalized by painter or sculptor, looked down upon me. I, in turn, look to them with the thought that their revered memory is preserved in paint -and canvas, marble and bronze, and in the many deeds that have contributed so much to the great democracy in which we live - deeds that are an example to all Australians as the heirs to the nation that these men helped to build. But to us in this Parliament especially, they present an ideal of service to our country which must be . a continuing inspiration to all of us who come after them. We have had many great nation-builders in the past, and, when the history of more recent times is written, it will be seen that none is more entitled to the gratitude of all sections of the Australian people than is our present Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies). The people of Australia once again declared their faith and trust in him by the magnificent vote of confidence in the Government and in his leadership last December. The history of Australia, by comparison with that of other countries, is a brief one, but none the less interesting and inspiring. I should like to see the history of our great country :i good deal more publicized, and a greater emphasis placed upon the deeds and achievements obtained in such a short space of time, as it is a history of which we can all be proud. The Australian people have never failed to answer any call that has been made upon them, and now that we are taking an increasingly important part in world affairs, the role of the average Australian, the man in the street, is more important than ever before. The worker on a weekly wage, the man on a fixed salary, the small business man, the grocer on the corner, of the street, the small manufacturer pr producer, the young man or woman who wishes to own a home, are all in turn being harassed by the control on credit liquidity and the effect of continuing import restrictions. Their burden is an ever-increasing one. These people are deeply concerned, not only with their immediate future, but .also with their children's future and that of the nation. They are the people who will play the main part in overcoming the problems which confront any government. It is 'through them that the Government's policy will be successfully implemented. These problems, of which we are all aware, will be the more easily surmounted if the importance of every individual Australian's part is fully .recognized. If the people understand the policies of governments and why any particular legislation is needed, I believe that they will cooperate with the governments for the benefit of the nation. I urge the Government to take the people into its confidence and prior to, where possible, or at the time of enactment of legislation, explain in plain and simple language why the legislation is necessary, and the benefits to be expected from it. I believe that by so doing the Government will not only maintain the confidence of the people but also give them a greater real interest in the nation's affairs and help to develop a truly national spirit in Australia. An awakening of the cause of Australian nationalism would be of immense benefit to our country in every one of our national problems and activities. I have sufficient confidence in the Australian people to believe that they will not be found wanting in their readiness to assist the Government, and I believe that people are entitled to an explanation, and not only the implementation, of legislation. Since 1949 the Government has pursued a prudent economic policy, which has brought to our country a prosperity greater than any ever previously enjoyed here. It is the duty of governments, not only to preserve and defend this prosperity, but also, if possible, to improve it. Prosperity is not without its problems. We are confronted with labour shortages in almost every industry and with high costs and scarcity of materials in many industries. Our rapidly increasing population, our natural expansion as a young and vigorous country, the necessity to forge ahead with national projects such as the SnowyMountains scheme and the Australian Aluminium Production Commission's works at Bell Bay, and our provision for defence, have all contributed to these difficulties. But who would deny that our defences and development ;.re most necessary? Obviously, a balance between the supply of and the demand for our resources must be achieved, and the Government's intention to preserve this balance was made clear in the Speech of His Excellency the Governor-General. Our overseas funds are low. Our wheat industry is faced with a surplus and with keen competition from Canada, the United States, and the Argentine. These three countries and Australia combined hold a two-years supply of wheat for world demand. Our wool payments have fallen in comparison with those of recent years. These are matters for very grave concern. The Government's policy in the past has been directed towards conserving our overseas funds, and this policy will be continued. But, in addition, the decision to establish a Ministry of Trade and a Ministry of Primary Industry, and the plan to introduce an export credit insurance scheme, are positive steps towards rectifying our balance of payments position. We must increase production and reduce costs, and this is not to be achieved simply by calling for a greater effort on the part of either employer or employee. All sections of the community must work together for greater efficiency in management and production. I am sure that we can achieve our aims if thu Australian people work together in the. consciousness that they are taking part, as members of a team, in a national effort to maintain and increase a prosperity to be shared by all. Our arbitration system is interwoven with industrial relations, and it seems imperative as a means of promoting production and peace in industry that some, streamlining of the procedure now operating is necessary, so as to provide a speedier channel whereby employees and employers may more readily negotiate. These matters, while of the utmost importance, can and will be solved by means which are in our own hands. We can and will surmount our economic difficulties, but unless we have a vigorous and adequate defence programme the benefits so accruing could well be of no avail. Our country must not be an easy prey for those who look upon us from outside our shores with envy, or for those within the country who owe allegiance to foreign powers. In Asia there is a huge problem -a man-power potential more than sufficient to annihilate us, or races most of whose members are uneducated, who are in many cases impoverished and in indigent circumstances. These are the prerequisites for successful infiltration by communism. A programme of indoctrination and intimidation is now in force - the stirring up of racial hatreds, the anti-British campaigns by Communist agents, the dissemination of the idea that the Asian races are under-privileged by reason of European colonization. In Indonesia there is strong agitation for the right to Dutch New Guinea. In Singapore schools English is a secondary language, and the students are being taught to look upon red China, nol Malaya, as their motherland. The Mao plan envisages that by 1960 China's military, economic and industrial strength will be such that it will be able to "liberate" Indo-China, Thailand and Burma. Thereafter, the "liberation " of Indonesia is to be completed. If this is achieved, an arc of Communist-controlled countries will be formed around the Malay Peninsula. The pattern is clear, and if the Western nations, including Australia, do not combine to play their part vigorously, we could be engulfed in the all-too-rapid Communist drive toward* us. This pattern, and the nearness of those countries, is a problem which has to be faced. It is a matter that concerns every Australian. Years ago, we were taught at school that in our isolation we were safe, but with the advent of modern times and modern science, that security has gone. Those of us who have spoken to new Australians, people who have brought from many lands the culture of older nations and who will, in the future, play an ever-increasing part in our community, know full well the terrifying experiences, and the lack of principle and tolerance, that follow when authority is thrust upon a people by Communist aggression. To avoid this happening in our nation, we must prepare for all eventualities. We must make it perfectly clear that, while it is our earnest desire to live in peace, we shall not countenance intimidation from any quarter. We must reaffirm our intention to adhere to our immigration policy, which, from the very beginning, has been designed to preserve our cultural and political heritage, our democratic way of life and our high living standards. In other words, I believe that the Australian people will not tolerate any policy which will allow the infiltration into this country of people who are not prepared to preserve the high standards of civilization, now the cherished tradition of our people. During the last few years, we have heard and read a great deal about Communist aggression, and the need for defence. It has become commonplace, and the average person tends to regard such talk as a figment of the minds of politicians. The cunningly devised cold war, and the continual reiteration by Communist leaders that they want peace, have had, in some places, the desired effect of cultivating increasing complacency amongst people of the democracies. Nothing could be more disastrous. If our nation is to be more readily defended, it, is necessary to awaken in Australia a more vigorous nationalism, a more acute awareness of the threats to our democratic way of life. It could well be that a different trend of thought would then emerge in our country; an eagerness to preserve our cherished freedom from within by keeping our economic position strong, and by assisting the Government in its request for efficiency in management, greater production, and restraint in spending, together with an eagerness to defend Australia from the threat of Communist aggression, from within and also from without. We cherish our heritage, our country and our democracy. We should be willing to face more readily the responsibility of supporting further defence and economic measures if we were taken into the confidence of the Government and asked to participate in and become an integral part of any future defence scheme. Our economic position is linked inevitably with our defence problems. They go hand in hand. A call to the nation in the words of Alexander Pope may well be made: "Act well your part, there all the honour lies ". 467KXIStirling00WEBB, CharlesMr WEBB. - I take this opportunity to thank the electors of Stirling for having elected me to represent that new electoral division. While I am in this chamber, I hope to do my best in their interests and, by doing so, also to further the interests of the Australian people generally. It is because I am concerned about the interests of the people of the devision of Stirling, and of the Commonwealth generally, that I strongly oppose the decision of this Government to dispose of the assets of the Australian Whaling Commission at Carnarvon. I oppose that proposal because the whaling venture is a profitable one, and I contend that those profits could be utilized in the interests of the people, and not handed over to a private concern. As a matter of fact, it was only as a result of the probings of members of the Opposition in this House that the intention of the Government to sell this Government-owned enterprise was finally revealed. Government supporters interrjecting467KXI00WEBB, CharlesMr WEBB- It is of no use honorable members opposite saying that this is not the case. They should remember that, only this week, when a question was asked about this matter the Minister for Trade (Mr. McEwen) did not then say that the whaling venture was to be sold. Questions had to be put to him on several occasions before he finally admitted that that was so. Then, he had the audacity to say that certain interested parties had been consulted. 467KEP00FALKINDER, CharlesMr Falkinder- lt was known three years ago. 467KXI00WEBB, CharlesMr WEBB- Similar moves -may have been made three years ago. It was in 1952, or approximately three years ago, that the Minister told the Government of Western Australia that he intended to sell the venture. That was a Liberal Government, which the Minister knew would not be interested, because the political beliefs of that Government were similar to those of the present Australian Government on the subject of government enterprises. But when there is a Labour government in- office in Western Australia, the Minister does not bother to include that government amongst the interested parties. It is left out of the picture altogether. The fact is, of course, that the Labour Government, of Western Australia is interested in purchasing these assets, and when it heard the rumours that were floating round in regard to the matter, as a result of pressure that had been brought to bear on the Australian Government, mainly by honorable members on this side of the House, the Premier of Western Australia made some inquiries. The Minister for Trade admitted that it was only last week that he received a letter from the Premier of Western Australia inquiring about the matter and asking the Minister would the Australian Government give the Western Australian Government until the 31st March, so that the State Government could go into the matter with a view to securing an option to purchase. The Minister for Trade said that the Australian Government would not give the Western Australian Government until 31st March, but would give it until the 15th March - a mere sixteen days - in order to allow the Western Australian Government to go into the proposal. The position, of course, is that the Australian Government does not intend to dispose of the assets to the Western Australian Government. This Government knows already to whom it is going to dispose of the venture. It is to be disposed of to the Nor-West Whaling Company Limited. The very monopoly that the honorable member for Perth (Mr. Chaney) was concerned about, in his remarks earlier to-day, is about to take place. When that occurs, NorWest Whaling Company Limited will control the whole of the whaling operations in Western Australia. Instead of its quota of whales being 500, as it is now, ultimately it will be 1,000 whales, because it will take over the quota of the Australian Whaling Commission as well. Consequently, the profits of £200,000 per annum, which rightly belong to the people, will go into private enterprise. If the. Labour Government of Western Australia could obtain control of this venture, it would, use those profits in the interests of the people of. Australia. As a matter of. fact, the Premier of Western Australia, Mr. Hawke, has already indicated that his Government would De prepared to use those profits to do something for the people of the north-west, such as extricating the banana planters from some of their water difficulties, or sealing the road from Carnarvon to Northampton, a 230 mile stretch of road along which may be seen piles of tyres and tubes, indicating how rough, it is and what a horror stretch it is. Work of that kind would be of advantage not only to the people of the north-west, but also to the people of Western Australia generally. This matter has been ventilated fairly thoroughly in the House and I do not want to dwell on it at any length. During the remainder of my time, 1 prefer to deal with the Speech made by the Governor-General at the opening of the Parliament, a Speech prepared for His Excellency by the Government. It did- not contain very much meat into which one could get one's teeth, but certain features of it require some comment. The most important portion of it, as far as I could see, was that which dealt with the economic difficulties of Australia. True, it only glossed over them. It did not offer any remedy for our economic ills. It mentioned them and then passed over them. In order to analyse the situation that has developed in Australia during the last few months, we should look back on the events that led up to it. If ever a government should stand condemned for destroying the Australian economy in the interests of big financial institutions, this Government should stand condemned. There is no question about that. The actions of the present Government parties, not only since they have been in power, but also before they took up the reins of office in 1949, have conformed to a plain pattern. Honorable members opposite who are without bias in these matters will agree that during the war years the Australian economy was more stable than that of any other country. Australia was the envy of every other country in the world then. That was the position also during the immediate post-war years. In 1948, the National Security Regulations ceased to apply. As Commonwealth prices control depended upon those regulations, it was necessary for the government of the day to take a referendum of the people, seeking an amendment of the Constitution to enable the Commonwealth to continue to control prices. The present Government parties misled the people and urged them to record " No " votes. The people were sick of controls, as was only natural after many years of controls. They looked for something better, so the referendum was defeated. As a result, the administration of prices control reverted to the States, but, because of divided authority, the control was not so efficient as the unified control exercised by the Commonwealth. Finally, prices control became almost useless, although it retained some value. That was the first disaster that befell the Australian economy. The second disaster occurred when the Chifley Government was defeated in 1949, because from then onwards inflation in Australia began to run riot. There were lulls now and again, but, generally speaking, there was a headlong rush towards inflation. If any honorable member wants proof of that statement, let him look at the way in which prices have increased during the years that this Government has been in office. A strong criticism of the Government's administration was contained in the "World Economic Report of 1952-53, which analysed the price increases that had occurred in Europe, the United States of America and Australia. It was pointed out in the report that, between 1950 and 1953 - the first three years of office of this Government - prices in Europe and America rose by an average of 15.6 per cent., compared with an average rise in Australia over the same period of 48 per cent. I tried to get some figures to enable me "to make a similar comparison at a later period, but unfortunately I could not do so. However, I have been able to get some figures which show how prices have risen in Australia and in other English-speaking countries. They are contained in a letter from the Acting Commonwealth Statistician, dated the 24th February. The information supplied to me by the Acting Commonwealth Statistician assumes a base figure of 100 at the December quarter of 194-9. In the December quarter of 1955, the figure for Australia was 166, showing that prices here had risen by 66 per cent, during that period. By the September quarter of 1955, prices in the United States of America had increased by 14 per cent., and in Canada by 16 per cent. Those were the latest figures available in respect of these two countries. By the December quarter of 1955, prices in the United Kingdom had increased by 37 per cent., and in New Zealand by 41 per cent. Those figures show how inflation has run riot in Australia as a result of the mismanagement and maladministration of the country by this Government. For whose benefit were prices control and other controls thrown overboard? They were thrown overboard for the benefit of big business interests generally, because big business wanted to make profits which it could not make while an effective system of prices control was in operation. It did not matter to honorable gentlemen opposite that the value of margins was decreasing steadily, that basic wage increases were lagging three months behind price increases and that social services benefits were constantly deteriorating in value. Not only did the Government parties commit that act of treachery to Australia, but also they suggested to the Commonwealth Arbitration Court that the basic wage be pegged. They applauded the decision of the court by which the basic wage was pegged, although it meant that the workers would be in a worse position than previously. The quarterly adjustments made previously had lagged three months behind price increases, but the workers had received the benefit of some increases, whereas, after the decision of the court to peg the basic wage, they received no increases at all. As a result, the value of the basic wage has been steadily decreasing. It is true that in some States controlled by Labour governments automatic adjustments of the basic wage have been re-introduced, in some States by the action of the Government and in others by the action of a State industrial tribunal. Then we reached the stage when margins came up for review. What happened then? First, there was a great deal of opposition to the restoration of the value of margins. Finally, the two and a half times the 1937 margins formula was applied, hut even that did not raise the value of margins to the 1948 level. The reference to that matter in His Excellency's Speech was not as clear or as correct as it could be. His Excellency said - The industrial tribunals have granted very substantial increase in all marginal rates of pay. while competition for labour has raised pay still further. There has been a substantial increase of some margins - only of some, though - hut margins certainly have not been raised to the level to which they should be raised in order to give workers the same purchasing power as they had in 1948, under a Labour government. Who reaps the benefit of that? Big business again. Employers do not have to pay higher wages to their employees, and consequently they can make very big profits. While all this has been going on, profits have been increasing. In order to see that that is so, one has only to look at the financial journals or at the financial pages of any newspaper. When thieves fall out, we often get bits of information that we do not get at other times. Honorable members will remember that recently Waltons-Sears Limited tried to get a controlling interest in Cox Brothers (Australia) Limited. It sent a circular letter to all shareholders in Cox Brothers. Incidentally, the letter that I have in my hand was not addressed to me. The letter from Waltons-Sears Limited to the shareholders of Cox Brothers, the 15th December, 1955, contained the following passage: - The average percentage of net profit to ordinary capital after deduction of preference dividends fin- the past 0 years is 23.37%. That referred to Waltons-Sears Limited - This compares with the average percentage of 12.77% earned for the same period by Cox Brothers. Cox Brothers, not to be outdone, also sent a circular letter to their shareholders, dated the 19th December, 1955. In a paragraph headed " Brief answer to Waltons-Sears letter dated 15th December 1955 " the following statement appears : - The audited figures published by Cox Brothersshow that the net profit to ordinary capital on retailing was, in 1955, 14.3%, and in 1954, 18.6%. It is only when arguments of that kind occur between organizations that we get anything like a true picture of the profits that companies are making at present. That example, of course, is only one of many. Following the wage freeze to which I have referred, what did this Government do? It allowed prices to rise without restriction. As a matter of fact, it encouraged an increase of prices by removing subsidies from some commodities. So we find that a new method of reducing wages has been adopted. In the past, the Government was not as shrewd as it is to-day. It used to reduce wages by 5 per cent, or 10 per cent., but now it freezes wages and raises prices by 5 per cent, or 10 per cent, and achieves the same result. What effect has that policy had on the Australian economy? It has had the effect that we are being outpriced by our overseas competitors. Who has to take the blame for that state of affairs? According to the Government and the big business interests, the worker must take the blame. It is said that he is getting too much money in his pay envelope, that there is overfull employment, and that he is not working as hard as he should be working. The truth is that the Australian worker is as good as, and even better than, workers in other countries. Given adequate power, efficient management and up-to-date machinery, he can produce as much as any other worker. My authority for that statement is National Development of March, 1954, a publication issued by the Department of National Development. It contains this statement - Moreover, in recent years, productivity in Australian factories has increased substantially. The increase in output per man-year which has taken place compares favorably with the challenging standard set by the United States. I ask honorable members to note the following further statement : - In the best equipped and best managed factories, the current level of productivity of Australian workers and factories is good by «ny standard. When people are criticizing the workers, they should remember those facts, and remember that the Australian worker, if given efficient management, adequate power, and up-to-date machinery, can compete with other workers. I say to supporters of the Government and the people whom they represent: Do not blame the workers, but place the blame where it belongs. It does not belong to the Australian Labour party or to the workers. One would have thought that, following the 1952 crisis, the Government would have prepared some plan to meet future crises, but it has not any plan at all. An editorial in Muster of the 4th October, 1955, which is the official organ of the Graziers Association of New South Wales, refers to the stop-and-go economic policy of this Government and concludes with the following statement: - The Government, alerted by the events of 1952, should have had time to think and plan ahead to meet a similar situation in a more adequate fashion. The nation hae every right to expect that the repetition, in 1955, of the same state of affairs should produce suggestions to safeguard the future - plans more satisfactory than the purely expedient measures put forward up to date. It will be noted that journals which do not support the views of the Australian Labour party are critical of this Government for its mismanagement of Australia's affairs. The situation has been brought to a head by the huge surpluses that are accumulating throughout the world. The United States of America has in storage surpluses worth £A.3,000,000,000. The American Government is paying guaranteed prices to the farmers, and it is at its wit's end to know how to dispose of those surpluses. The Minister for Trade (Mr. McEwen) is critical of that country because it is disposing of its foodstuffs in a manner that does not suit him. Such large surpluses have a tendency to depress world prices, and a situation has arisen which is similar to that which the late Mr. Ben. Chifley had in mind when he said that 75 per cent. of the last depression could have been avoided by sane economic controls, lt will be remembered that he built up Australia's overseas balance to £S36,000,000. The Treasury Information Bulletin published in January shows that for the six months ended December, 1955, there was a further reduction of £5S,000,000 in our overseas balance and that it is now well b low £300,000,000. Our economy is poised like a house of cards; only one card needs to move and the structure will collapse. The unfortunate aspect of the matter is that the Government has brought forward no means of solving the problem. It is just allowing things to drift. The only method that it will adopt eventually will be the old tory method of allowing the worker to carry the burden. Some business interests are openly saying that there should be some unemployment. Of course, there is nothing new about that suggestion. That method has been usedmany times in the past, and those persons who have applied it have always reaped huge benefits. That form of economic savagery, which will eventually be introduced by this Government, is contrary to the Australian way of life and must be resisted by every right-thinking member of this House. As a matter of fact, at a by-election in 1945, the Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies) stated that there should be a pool of unemployed in order to discipline the workers. He said that quite openly. Although he has since denied that statement, it is recorded in the Wheatgrower of the 24th April, 1946, and can be read by anybody who is sufficiently interested to look at it. It was this Government that appointed the notorious Professor Hytten to the Commonwealth Bank Board. Professor Hytten said that there should be a pool of unemployed of from 6 per cent, to 8 per cent. That is the direction in which we are heading at the present time. Has the Commonwealth not reduced its works programme by 10 per cent.? Although it has not reduced its financial assistance to the States, there is no doubt that, as soon as the forthcoming State elections are over, financial assistance to the States will be reduced and they will be forced to curtail their public works programmes and to dismiss some workers. Families that have deposited a few pounds in the savings banks or who have invested money in Commonwealth bonds, as many of them have been doing, will be forced to drain off their meagre savings. We want a healthy economy based on a consumer purchasing power that only a fully employed labour force and decent wages can provide. Some men are unemployed now, and many others in employment are -not as sure of a steady job as they were a little while ago. An article in the Financial Times of the 9th February, 1956, indicates that jobs are becoming scarce. The latest figures published by the Commonwealth Statistician show that fewer houses will be built in 1956. As a result, less furniture and fewer household goods will be purchased. Consequently, unless something is done to give the community greater purchasing power, the dangerous situation with which we are now confronted may develop into a full-scale depression. The only way of avoiding a depression is to formulate a public works programme. The blueprint should be prepared now, so that when unemployment comes the slack can be taken up. Mr. ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr. Bowden).- Order! The honorable member's time has expired. 472JWIHenty00FOX, EdmundMr FOX.- Undoubtedly one of the greatest problems that exercises the minds of responsible citizens, and has done so in recent years, is juvenile delinquency. As you know, Mr. Acting Deputy Speaker, this subject was extensively traversed by the honorable member for Swan (Mr. Cleaver), but I consider the need to deal with this problem to be of such paramount importance that it cannot be too strongly emphasized. In discussing the problem with some of my colleagues, I found that their immediate reaction was that juvenile delinquency was not a matter for this Parliament, but for the governments of the States. I do not subscribe to that view, and for that reason I propose to make my speech to-night along certain lines. First, I shall endeavour to prove that this Commonwealth Parliament; - and I use the word " Parliament " advisedly, because I believe a subject of this nature should be well above mere party considerations - should accept at least some measure of responsibility in the matter of juvenile delinquency. Secondly, I shall endeavour to make a few concrete suggestions as to means whereby this Parliament could do something positive towards combating thisscourge. Some of those suggestions may be novel, some may be provocative, but I shall offer them in the hope that they may provoke some discussion, from which something concrete may emerge that will be of definite benefit to the community. A few weeks .ago I -attended a meeting convened by a municipal council, part of whose area falls with in the electorate of Henty, which I represent. Those honorable members who know Melbourne, and who know the electorate of Henty, know that the majority of homes in that electorate are modern, spacious and well kept, and, therefore, it is reasonable to assume that there would be little or no juvenile delinquency in my electorate. But that is not so. Figures produced by the police at one of the police stations in this municipality showed that in the previous two and a half months there had been 25 arrests, only, four of them being persons over the age of nineteen years. I think that honorable members will agree that those figures disclose a very shocking state of affairs. I believe that the problem of juvenile delinquency should interest this Commonwealth Parliament, for two reasons. The first is on the grounds of pure economics - pounds, shilling and pence. We have been told that the recent waterfront strike cost the wharf labourers and the shipowners more than £6,000,000 in wages and profits, and that its cost to the community cannot be accurately calculated. We are frequently reminded of our adverse trade balance and, quite rightly, of the steps that we must take to correct it. But I maintain that those matters pale into insignificance beside the colossal waste caused by vandalism and juvenile delinquency, and beside the cost of maintaining great numbers of persons in gaol. Added to these is the cost of maintaining the government departments responsible for the administration of the police forces, the courts and the gaols of this country. The number of man-hours lost <to this country by the- incarceration of. large numbers of persons in gaols far exceeds the number lost by any strike. At the end of 1949 it was costing the Australian community £10,000,000 a year to administer the departments associated with the courts, police forces and gaols. At that time, there were 4,000 persons in gaol in Australia. Those figures are the latest at my disposal, but it is reasonable to. assume, on the basis of previous years, and taking present costs into consideration, that to-day there would be nearer 5,000 persons in gaol and the cost of administering the departments concerned with the machinery of justice would be substantially higher than it was in 1949. I believe, therefore, that if this Parliament would tackle the problem with vigour and in the right way, many of those persons now in gaol would become, law-abiding taxpayers who would help to contribute to meeting- the cost occasioned, to the nation, by the scourge of juvenile delinquency. It is ridiculous- to contend we cannot afford to use a few million, pound's annually to deal with this matter. I say that we cannot afford: to do nothing about it. Recent research by childrens' courts in Victoria show that two of the major causes of juvenile delinquency are loss of, or lack of, parental control, and the shortage of adequate clubs suitable for adolescents. In many instances loss of parental control is due to the loss of one or other of the parents. When the missing parent is the father the position, is more serious. I believe that, at this particular stage of history - and- this observation applies all over the world, and not only to Australia - the loss of many of those fathers i3 due to the recent war. I do not say that the war can be blamed for all cases of lack of parental control, but it can be blamed for many of them. and if this Parliament accepts responsibility for repatriation services, the provision of war service homes, war pensions and widows pensions then, I submit, it should be equally willing to accept its moral responsibility to the children who lost their fathers in the last war.. Certainly a nation which can spend more than £1,000,000 a day on fighting a war - and I believe that if the war were still going om we would still be finding the money to fight it - can. afford s few million pounds a year to fight juvenile delinquency. This brings me to some of the suggestions for dealing with the problem that I wish to make in the hope that it will be alleviated. I believe that this Parliament should call an immediate conference, on a federal level, of all interested parties, including State governments, churches, the Boy Scout movement, the Young Men's Christian Association, and' so on. I think that some suitable agreement could be arranged through interested municipal councils, State governments and other bodies whereby the necessary number of youth centres could be provided, on the basis that the municipal councils would provide the land, the Commonwealth would- provide the buildings, and the. various State governments would provide the equipment and the cost of maintenance. I do not know what it would cost to build a suitable building for a youth club, but l think an adequate structure of that kind would cost between £10,000 and £15,000. Certainly any money which is expended by the Government in this direction would be returned many times over in social value. It would be really an investment and not an expenditure. A sum of £1,000,000 expended in this direction would build 60 or so of such clubs and youth centres, which would be designed to direct the energies of our young' people into the right channels. The very tenor of life these days is taking children away from the environment of the home. They are finding their entertainments outside the home. They are congregating in crowds on street corners and in milk bars. In cases where the milk-bar proprietors are- decent people that is, perhaps, not a very serious matter; but instances- have been brought to notice- of young people having become contaminated by coming into contact with persons of undesirable character. In every one of those packs or groups of young people on the streets there is a potential leader, and it is absolutely essential that the influence of that leader should, he for good, and not for evil, because of the effect it has on his weaker brethren. I believe that too much responsibility for combating juvenile delinquency has been placed on churches and welfare institutions. Those bodies are doing a wonderful job, but they are hamstrung by lack of finance. I have two suggestions to make whereby I think the Government could assist the churches and other organizations in tackling this problem, with great benefit to the community. Many people who are regular churchgoers feel that the maximum amount they can contribute to the collection is 2s., because there is no medium of currency between the florin and the 10s. note. Many church leaders believe that the issue of a 5s. note would be of material benefit by providing an intermediate amount of contribution between 2s. and 10s. I believe that the issue of such a note would also fulfil a very useful purpose in the community generally, and I urge the Government to consider it seriously. Another way in which the churches could be helped would be to exempt from income tax regular contributions by way of collections. I do not mean that any taxpayer should be able loosely to say that he had contributed so much to his church and was, therefore, entitled to an increased exemption. A growing number of churches are working to a fixed plan of pledges through an envelope system, and if my suggestion were adopted, I believe they would be prepared to co-operate with the Government by issuing monthly or quarterly receipts for regular contributions made in that way. Any money or benefit the churches derived from this scheme would help them fight the problem of juvenile delinquency. I do not subscribe to the colloquially termed practice of " passing the buck ". It is easy for honorable members to argue that these matters are of no concern to this Parliament, and that the responsibility rightly rests with the State Governments. The State governments are just as entitled to lay the blame at the door of the churches, and those institutions, in turn, could place it right back where it belongs, on the parents and the community. But let us, as a government, face the position as it really is, and do something about it. Statistics recently produced in Victoria show that in. children's courts during the five years upto 1953 juvenile delinquency increased, by 50 per cent. In Australia, its greatest incidence is between the ages of 16- and 22. It has been calculated that 1.6- in every thousand of our population in that age group is a criminal. I am convinced that a large percentage of them have missed the love and guidance of a father due to the war. Youth is no problem if children can be guided and' moulded, but the streets are not theproper place for them to obtain their experience. If we do not mould and guideour youth correctly they will soon befound in the courts, and ultimately in our gaols or mental institutions. Honorable members who read the press should need no proof of that fact. Fairly recently, in two of the industrial suburbsof Melbourne it was estimated that 75 per cent, of the crimes committed were by children between the ages of eight and" seventeen. One highly organized gangperpetrated a series of shop breakings and the eldest member of it was found to beeight years old. This is not a fairy story. That case was reported in the MelbourneSunNews Pictorial on the 4th March, last year. In last week's press a report appeared of two boys of twelve and thirteen years of age respectively who, in. Melbourne, stole a number of cars to thevalue of £35,000. These facts all emphasize the need foryouth clubs. If the Government does not form them, these young people will form their own and use them as places to plan crime and other acts of delinquency.. That has happened in the United States of America, and it is a fact that the police are afraid to go intothese clubs unarmed, and then only in twos or threes. This Government makes grants to the National FitnessCouncil and to one or two other organizations, but generally speaking it does little - towards helping our youth. The general public applauded the recent decision of" this Government to assist in financing homes for the aged on a £l-for-£l basis,, and it should be just as enthusiastic to dosomething similar for the youth of the community. It is equally important tolook after both ends of life. Another important factor in the matter of child delinquency is the lack or inadequacy of housing. Honorable members on this side believe in home-ownership, and are proud of what the Government is doing to help people purchase their own homes through the CommonwealthState Housing Agreement; but nothing that is done is so perfect that it cannot be bettered, and I have a suggestion to offer which I hope will at least start discussion and may lead to some practical result. Many young couples, wishing to own their own homes, are under great strain to find the necessary deposit, and when they have their homes they are able to furnish them in only a meagre way. They are placed under a further difficulty to meet the repayments over a period of -30 or 30 years. This Government pays a bonus on the birth of a child, and also provides child endowment until the child reaches the age of sixteen years. I suggest that when the first child in a family reaches the age ot one year, a sum of £100 should be credited to a housing account for the parents. When the second child reaches the age of one year, a further £150 should bp placed to the credit of that housing account. When the third child reaches ils first birthday, a sum of £250 should ho credited and for the fourth and each subsequent child, £300. The result would bc that when the fourth child had his first birthday, a sum of £800 would have beep wiped off the cost of the home. Surely that is little enough to pay for four of the very best type of immigrants it is possible to obtain, and certainly much le.ss than the cost of bringing four migrants from abroad under the present immigration scheme. Let it be clearly understood that my suggestion would only supplement the present immigration policy, and would not in any way prevent other migrants from coming to Australia. It would help to populate the country, something that is greatly needed, and would give some incentive and assistance lc, young couples to purchase their own homes. The amounts I have suggested Ave only tentative, and may be deemed insufficient and in need of revision, but if such a scheme were adopted it would lip a step in the right direction. The suggestion is not that this money be paid in cash, but that it should be credited to an account to assist in home ownership and so encourage persons to be better citizens. I wish to sum up my remarks by relating a parable. I recently heard a story about a man who fell into a hole in the road which was too deep for him to climb out of without assistance. Three men passed him. The first commiserated with him on being in the hole, the second told him what a fool he was to be in that predicament, and the third helped him out. Let us not be like the first man and hold up our hands in pious horror at juvenile delinquency. Neither let us' be like the second man, and say that the responsibility belongs to the States and the churches, and fail to recognize that we have a problem or try to absolve ourselves from the blame. Let us be like the third man and give a helping hand. Irrespective of what has happened in the past, or of whose fault it may be, let us make sure that in the future no finger can be pointed at this Parliament because of its lack of vision or charity. I am not trying to preach a sermon, but I arn pleading for the youth who are the future citizens of this country so that they may be given their just rights and privileges. This Parliament has accepted a responsibility to look after the aged. Let us extend that responsibility to the youth of the community as well, and as a nation and a parliament, give a lead to the world by recognizing our responsibility and showing that we are prepared to do something positive to make many young Australians better members of society. 4752V4HindmarshALP00CAMERON, ClydeMr CLYDE CAMERON. - I rise to support the amendment. The policy of the present Government in disposing of the assets of the people, not to the highest bidder but to those who have entree to the inner circles of the Liberal party- Mr. ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr. Bowden)- Order! The honorable member has exhausted his privilege by speaking to both the motion and the amendment. Debate (on motion by Mr. Buchanan) adjourned. 476 miscellaneous 476 KZE CP 0 0 ROBERTON, Hugh Mr ROBERTON - I rise to a personal explanation. 476 10000 0 0 Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER - Does the Minister claim that he has been misrepresented? 476 KZE 0 0 ROBERTON, Hugh Mr ROBERTON - Yes. I must express my very sincere regret that the responsibility has fallen to me to draw the attention of the House to a series of articles which appeared to-day in a great many of the newspapers throughout the Commonwealth. They all cast reflections on me, which is comparatively unimportant. They all cast reflections on my secretary, which to me, is a very grievous thing. They also cast reflections on my stenographer which, in my humble opinion, is unpardonable under the circumstances. But, in addition to all that, they cast very serious reflections on the members of this House and members of the Government. May I be permitted to quote from the Melbourne Argus of to-day's date, 1st March? An article on page 6 is headed, " ' Get out ', M.P. tells typist (who invaded his office) ", and reads as follows : - Canberra Wednesday: A Labour M.H.E. on Monday- On Monday, mark you - told a Minister's typist to get out of his office. The trouble began when Mr. Lawson (Labour, Queensland) arrived at Parliament House to find his name missing from the door to his room. Inside, at his desk, was a typist on the staff of Mr. Roberton, Social Services Minister. After evicting the girl, Mr. Lawson promptly replaced his name on the door. " The private secretaries are to blame ", said Mr. Lawson to-day. " They want to be like their Minister, and have a room to themselves, with a separate one for their typist. I even hear that some or them were heard congratulating each other on getting a room for their typists, and putting it over the Pollies."- Whoever the " Pollies " might be. The article continued - Mr. Lawson has told Mr. Cameron, who is custodian of the House that he intends to "stay put". "If they want to put me out, they will have to do it forcibly - and they'll fmd that very difficult", he said. "They'll evict me, but only over my dead body ". There are very laudable sentiments expressed in the article, but all the information contained in the article that reflects on me, all the information that reflects on my secretary, and all 'the information that reflects on my stenographer, is entirely and absolutely untrue. I have never had anything to do with the honorable member for Brisbane (Mr. George Lawson). I met him, first of all in 1931, when he came into this House. To the best of my knowledge and belief, I have had five conversations with him. They have all been most amiable and I must confess that the more amiable of them was when he was accompanied by his wife. I do not know anything about the honorable member's room. I do not know where it is. I have never made any overtures towards it, nor can I be blamed in any way. On Monday, I was 300 miles north-west of this place. On Monday my secretary was 200 miles north-east of this place.; my stenographer was 200 miles north-east of this place. And yet this paper says that they were in the room of the honorable member for Brisbane and that he evicted them. My secretary does not know the honorable member and does not know his room. My stenographer has never seen the gentleman. He, in turn, has never seen my stenographer, although it would be to the everlasting good of his soul if he had. We have never been associated with this in any shape or form. When I became a Minister, for my sins, I said that I would take not part in any mad scramble for rooms; nor have I taken any part in any mad scramble for rooms. I am accommodated in the most humble premises in the House and there I am content to stay. When my room is engaged, and other people are waiting to see me in the corridor, there is a gentleman's lavatory adjacent and they can wait there. But so far as the honorable member for Brisbane is concerned, I do not know anything about his room. My secretary knows nothing about his room; and my stenographer knows nothing about his room. The most grievous thing of all about affairs of this kind is the fact that they are not confined to one newspaper. This has been published, I am informed, throughout the length and breadth of the Commonwealth and it calumniates the Parliament and the members of the Parliament because of its untruth. If there were a vestige of truth in it, then I would not be rising to a personal explanation. I have been informed, to-day, that in a newspaper which is euphoniously called Eddie Graham's newspaper, a daily newspaper published in the important city of Wagga Wagga in the Riverina, there were banner headlines on this alleged eviction of me, my secretary and my stenographer from the room of the honorable member for Brisbane. Every word of that is untrue, in fact and in particular. It is a very grievous thing that a Minister or a member should have to rise in his place in the National Parliament of our country and defend innocent people against scurrilous attacks of this kind that can only do incalculable harm to the Parliament. 477 adjournment Commonwealth Shipping Line - WATERFRONT Employment. Motion .(by Sir Eric Harbison) proposed - That the House do now adjourn. 477 KDA Wilmot 0 0 DUTHIE, Gilbert Mr DUTHIE .- I wish to raise a very important matter which actually becomes more important when we consider what has happened to-day. The sad end of the Australian Whaling Commission highlights the short future that is facing the Commonwealth shipping fleet. The rigidity of this Government's attitude towards the people's assets and the determination of this Government to ride roughshod over the peoples' wishes is demonstrated by its decision with regard to the sale of the whaling station, and I am convinced that the ships are next in line for the sentence of death. The Opposition has fought the sell-out of these Commonwealth ships ever since this Government came to office, and we shall continue to fight it until it is no longer worth fighting. There are now 43 Commonwealth-owned vessels and for years the Prime Minister (Mr. Menzies) and Ministers have sidestepped all efforts on our part to get some definite information from them as to the future of these ships. Now we find that a complete sellout is to be avoided through what I would call a very sordid compromise. It is intended to form a shipping corporation in which 51 per cent, of the shares will be owned by the Commonwealth and 49 per cent, of the shares will be owned by private enterprise. Just in case honorable members might think I am " off the ball " I desire to quote from the most cast-iron conservative journal in Australia to-day, The Harbour. It comes into my office every month, unwelcome, unheralded and mostly remains unopened, despite the fact that I have written to its management and said, "Do not send your rag to my office any more ". The Harbour is run by the big shipping corporations of this country. I quote from the issue of the 1st February, 1956, under the heading " Commonwealth Shipping Line Transfer ". 477 miscellaneous It is said in well-informed shipping circles that the Commonwealth and privately-owned coastal shipping companies have agreed in principle to the sale of 49 per cent, interest in 'the Commonwealth Line to private interests, the Commonwealth to retain 51 per cent. Further down, the article states - The companies with which the Commonwealth is negotiating are 5 or 6 of the major Australian coastal shipping lines. The proposal is that a hoard of 7 directors should conduct the affairs of the company - the Commonwealth to appoint three, the private companies three, with an independent Chairman. Those statements were published in The Harbour. In a question which I asked in the House to-day, I mentioned that in 1949 the Prime Minister, in a policy speech, made this definite statement to the Australian people. Referring to socialist enterprises, or government-owned enterprises, he said - I state quite categorically what we shall do about them. We shall review the recent shipping legislation with a view to (a) maintaining Australian shipbuilding and repairing, by subsidy if necessary; (6) encouraging the improvement of existing mercantile fleets . .; (c) requiring the new government shipping line to justify its existence nationally or competitively; and (<Z) encouraging, by subsidy, if necessary, more adequate shipping facilities 'for distant States, particularly Tasmania, 'which has no alternative major instrument of interstate goods traffic. All sorts of rumours have been circulating in the intervening years until we on this side of the House have come to the conclusion that it will be only a matter of weeks before this Government, again after secret negotiations, will suddenly make a public pronouncement that a corporation has been formed to take over the Commonwealth ships. That is the way in which this sort of thing is done every time by this Government, usually when the Parliament is not sitting. Honorable members first learn about these things from reports in the press. Just as was done in the case of the whaling industry, the transaction in connexion with the Commonwealth ships will be decided while the Parliament is in recess, and we shall merely be required to listen to the Minister's explanation of what has been done. That has been happening all the time in connexion with the sell-outs of government bodies by this Government. The Colonial Oil Refineries Limited went that way, and so did Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Limited. The whaling station at Carnarvon will be disposed of in similar circumstances; and the next thing will be the Commonwealth shipping line, in spite of the fact that the Australian people do not want these ships to be sold. In Tasmania, there is a farmers' organization with about 8,000 members called the Tasmanian Farmers Federation. I desire to quote a few extracts from the leading article of the federation's weekly paper of the 19th January, 1956. It is headed " Commonwealth ships ", and it reads - It U also disturbing for the reason that the sale of this large interest in a vital national asset is to he made to a private interstate chipping monopoly which, if reports are true, is itself controlled by overseas shipping interests. The article continued - The question Tasmanians are asking is why is this extreme step being taken '! The Commonwealth line is operating profitably and successfully. Its ships have more than once helped Tasmanian orchardists and farmers out of a difficult situation, caused by the inability of private shipping interests to provide the service required. The inescapable fact is that if there is to be a monopoly controlling interstate shipping Tasmania would be far better off if the monopoly were Government-owned and representations at political levels carried weight in the defining of policy. The federation suggests that instead of selling these ships and forming a corporation, the Government should establish a Commonwealth shipping line in its own right which could compete with private ships. That is what the Australian Labour party has fought for for years. Just as Trans-Australia Airlines has been run successfully as a commission, so could ships be run by a commission under government control. That would be preferable to selling them to private enterprise or to handing them over to a corporation. Honorable members can imagine what will happen when the ships are run by a corporation. The shipping companies will, in my opinion, demand who shall be the chairman of the new set-up. They may hold only 49 per cent, of the shares, but they will have 80 per cent, of the say as to how the ships will be operated. I remind honorable members that as the result of the disposal of Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Limited and Colonial Oil Refineries Limited, the Government is now right outside the field of electronics and petrol, two vital aspects of national defence. If the Government sells its ships to private enterprise, it will deprive it.=elf of shipping, which is also a vital part of defence. The honorable member for Bass (Mr. Barnard) and I represent Tasmania in this Parliament. 478 KNX UAP; LP from 1944 0 0 HARRISON, Eric Sir ERIC HARRISON - Not all of it. 478 KDA 0 0 DUTHIE, Gilbert Mr DUTHIE - Not ail of it. Three honorable members on the Government side of the House also ave united with us in our absolute refusal to accept this Government's explanation for any interference with the present set-up of the Commonwealth shipping line. I should like to ask a few questions which the Government must answer to our satisfaction. Who will actually run this corporation? The Government may hold 51 per cent, of the shares, but the shipping interests will have 80 per cent. of the say. Who will the manager be? The private shipping interests will have the biggest say as to who he shall be. What does 51 per cent, of the shares involve? What ships will the Government claim as its 51 per cent, of the assets? Who will allocate the vessels if the Australian Shipping Board is disbanded ? Will the private companies handle the ships entirely as part of their own fleet? Is it not obvious that this new arrangement will write finis to even the small competition now existing between government charter vessels and private ships ? What guarantee will Tasmania have that more vessels of the E and D class will be allocated here? 479 10000 0 0 SPEAKER, Mr Mr SPEAKER -(Hon. Archie Cameron). - Order! The honorable gentleman's time has expired. 479 009MC Higgins LP Minister for Labour and National Service and Minister for Immigration 0 0 HOLT, Harold Mr HAROLD HOLT . - I take this opportunity to bring to the notice of the House some developments in relation to the waterfront, with which J feel honorable members should be acquainted. There have been suggestions in recent days, particularly as a result of stoppages which have been occurring at a number of ports in the Commonwealth, that the Government should obtain from the Stevedoring Industry Inquiry Committee a report so far as the committee has gone in its investigations. I desire to advise the House that some few week? ago, in a letter of the 8 th February, at the time when the Government was considering measures which it might be required to adopt in the event of the then waterfront dispute continuing, I wrote to the chairman of the committee and pointed out that it was by no means certain that the dispute could be regarded as coming to an end, or that the Government might not still have to bring down special legislation. I added, however, that putting aside that possibility I, as Minister, desired to be in a position to begin, without further delay, an examination of a number of broad issues relating to the industry which may become the subject of recommendations by me to the Cabinet for legislative action. I pointed out that this would involve matters which I knew had already been investigated by the committee. I asked that, against that background, the committee should let me have, within the next fortnight or so, its findings on the subject matters which it had already investigated, together with such additional material as it believed necessary to explain its findings. 479 KVT 0 0 THOMPSON, Albert Mr Thompson - That is, a fortnight from the 8th February? 479 009MC LP 0 0 HOLT, Harold Mr HAROLD HOLT - I said a forti,t. y w, trying to bustle them unduly. The letter wa? sent on the 8th February. I can now advise the House that I hare received an interim report and have been told that the committee will deal more fully in a later report with matters 'which are referred to. Some of these are only touched upon in this document and the later report will contain specific references to evidence that has been given and to facts that have been found. These form the basis for the conclusions given in this interim document. I have sent it to the printer and asked that it be printed as quickly as possible. I shall, of course, bring it to the notice of my colleagues in Cabinet as soon as I can. As soon as the report is printed I will table it and have it circulated amongst honorable members. It runs to some 50 foolscap pages and covers, broadly, the matters referred to in paragraphs (a) and (6) of section 11 (1) of the 1954 act, which honorable members will recall. Those two paragraphs deal with the functioning of the stevedoring industry, the factors affecting the efficiency of stevedoring operations, the arrangements for the regulation and control of stevedoring operations and of persons employed in the industry, the settlement of disputes and the maintenance of discipline in the industry. I am quite certain, as a result of the examination that I have been able to make of the interim report, that it will be a most valuable contribution to our knowledge of this turbulent and troubled section of industry, and that it will assist our examination of measures which the Government may later be called upon to present to Parliament. The second aspect to which I wish to refer is that late to-day I received a report from the chairman of the Stevedoring Industry Board on a number of stoppages which have occurred since the date on which a general resumption of waterfront work was to have taken place. It appears that even in the relatively short time since the 15th February, when the resumption was to have taken place, there have been stoppages in nine ports of the Commonwealth. The facts suggest to me only one conclusion - that we are now witnessing a deliberate programme of irritation tactics and rolling strikes, pur suant to a policy apparently adopted by {be federation at the time of resumption. I base that statement on what is alleged to have been said by one of the federal councillors in addressing a. meeting in Melbourne. Mr. E. Bull was reported as having said: - Everything we can do to embarrass the shipowners and the Government without damage to ourselves, we will do. In the light of that statement, subsequent events fit into a pattern such, as I have described. I want to point out to those in this House who have some interest in waterfront affairs either in their own electorates or as a result of contact with some of the prominent figures in this industry, that apparently there lingers in this union the mistaken idea that a stoppage at one of the ports does nothing more - apart, from causing some financial injury to the watersiders and. their families - than inflict a blow upon the shipowners and the stevedoring companies. I would have thought that common sense would by now have indicated to them that whatever damage may be done to the shipowners and the stevedoring companies. - and it may not be as much as is sometimes believed, because experience has shown that they are able by adjusting freight rates to cover these losses - the real blow is struck at their fellow citizens, and in particular their fellow unionists. Not one Australian household escapes the damaging effects of these interruptions to the shipping and commerce of this country. I believe that we, as a parliament, will have to consider what is presented in this report and decide upon suitable action. When we do that we shall have to keep in mind not only the interests of the federation, the shipowners and the stevedoring companies, but also the state of the Australian economy and the burden that is placed upon it by a blatantly inefficient waterfront operation such as we have witnessed in the last few years. The honorable member for Wilmot (Mr. Duthie) had something to say tonight about the importance of shipping to Tasmania. Of course it is important to Tasmania. It is important to every State of the Commonwealth, but particularly to the island State of Tasmania. I have heard him speak on this subject more than once, but I have never heard him address himself to what I believe to be the most damaging thing that, has happened to Tasmania for years. I refer to the incidence of industrial trouble in that State. When I last looked at the figures of time lost through industrial disputes in the principal ports of Tasmania, I found that although that State had a Labour Government which was urging a more efficient shipping performance, the time lost there was double the Australian average. Even since the last general strike stoppages have been staged at both Hobart and Launceston. At the latter port there were stoppages on the 15th, 16th, 17th. 18th and 19th of February. 480 10000 0 0 SPEAKER, Mr Mr SPEAKER - Order ! The Minister's time has expired. 480 BV8 Melbourne 0 0 CALWELL, Arthur Mr CALWELL - The Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr. Harold Holt) has brought to the notice of the House the question of peace on the waterfront. It is a most important question and one that is vital to the well-being of all Australians. I should have imagined that the Government would at least have had the courtesy to advise me or some one on the Opposition side of its intention, and would have supplied us with a copy of the notes from which the Minister has quoted. The Minister ought not to ask us, on the adjournment of the House, to accept his statement and immediately to put our point of view on the happening. 480 009MC LP 0 0 HOLT, Harold Mr HAROLD HOLT - There will be plenty of opportunities for the honorable member to put his point of view on this subject. 480 BV8 0 0 CALWELL, Arthur Mr CALWELL - That is so, but what has happened to-night is typical of this Government's actions. It makes unheralded statements to the House and treats the Opposition as if it had no l'ights in Parliament at all. When the time comes we will certainly state our point of view on this subject. 480 009MC LP 0 0 HOLT, Harold Mr HAROLD HOLT - The honorable member is exercising his rights now. 480 BV8 0 0 CALWELL, Arthur Mr CALWELL - That is so, but surely I was entitled to be given a copy of the report that the Minister says he has sent to the Government Printer. I have a suspicion that the press of this country has already been supplied with a precis of what the committee has recommended. If that is so, every honorable member of this House should also have a precis. 481 009MC LP 0 0 HOLT, Harold Mr HAROLD HOLT - The honorable member's suspicion is ill-founded. 481 BV8 0 0 CALWELL, Arthur Mr CALWELL - Has the press been given any statement about the contents of the document? 481 009MC LP 0 0 HOLT, Harold Mr HAROLD HOLT - Ho. 481 BV8 0 0 CALWELL, Arthur Mr CALWELL - Will the Minister be elaborating to the press on what he has said to-night between now and next Tuesday ? 481 009MC LP 0 0 HOLT, Harold Mr HAROLD HOLT - Kb. 481 BV8 0 0 CALWELL, Arthur Mr CALWELL - It is obvious that honorable members are not being treated properly. The report should have been submitted to the Government months ago because the committee has been meeting for several years. This inquiry into the activities of the Australian Stevedoring Commission has already cost the country more than the Petrov commission has cost. In spite of that fact, it is not even one-tenth of the way through its deliberations if all the witnesses that the unions and shipowners desire to call are to be heard by that particular body. There has been great dilatoriness on the part of the committee of inquiry. I am sure that the Minister will not disagree with that remark. In a laggard sort of way this body has moved to the point where it has now presented what it has been pleased to call an interim report. That interim report, the Minister says, contains important recommendations which may become the basis of legislation at a later date. While the Minister was speaking I obtained the impression that running through his statement was a threat to the waterside workers, and to anybody who happens to sympathize with them. In addition to that, he has explicitly, as well as implicitly, thrown the whole responsibility for trouble on the waterfront on to the Waterside Workers Federation. By his own action in calling a conference of shipowners and waterside workers' representatives and representatives of the Australian Council of Trades Unions in this Parliament House a short time ago, he, according to the press, told the shipowners of what he thought was their share of responsibility for what had happened on the waterfront. Workers do not go on strike for the fun of it. Every waterside worker lost at least £132 in the recent strike. I suggest that the waterside workers had a just cause and a good case. They had been in and out of arbitration courts and conferences for a couple of years, but had received no satisfaction. Moreover, since work has been resumed on the waterfront neither the shipowners, nor the court, nor any other party has brought the matter into court so that the men could get the marginal increase which everybody expects them to get - the amount to be decided, of course, by the court, but without any alteration in the conditions under which they have been working. The parties were prepared to have the matter discussed by the court at a certain time, but now that the men have gone back to work the Government says that it is satisfied now that work has been, resumed, and is completely indifferent to the claims of the waterside workers. That will not get peace in the industry. 481 009MC LP 0 0 HOLT, Harold Mr HAROLD HOLT - The court has been sitting regularly in this matter. Mr. -CALWELL. - It has not yet produced any result, and the waterside workers themselves have not been encouraged to go to the court with any claim. After all, it is their claim that should be considered, and not the counterclaim of the shipowners. Every member of the Opposition wants peace on the waterfront, but we can have peace there only if we have it with justice. Nothing is properly settled unless it is rightly settled. The Government can say what it likes about Communist control on the waterfront and the activities of certain people in promoting lightning strikes and the rest, but the great body of the waterfront workers are not Communists and would not strike or engage .in activities about which the Minister has complained unless they felt a deep sense of injustice. Thousands of men have left the waterfront since the strike began, and they will not go back, because the conditions prevailing there are not as good as the conditions in other industries. Decasualization is an objective yet to be achieved; and it was a Labour government that set up the Australian Stevedoring Industry Commission to help improve conditions on the waterfront. If this Government did half as much as the Chifley Government did to promote peace, there would be real peace on the waterfront. It is up to the Government, instead of issuing threats and telling the waterside workers what it intends to do with them at a later stage, to take positive action so that further trouble on the waterfront will be avoided. The Minister has not said that he has consulted the leaders of the Australian Council of Trades Unions, yet they have played a significant and important part over the years in promoting that industrial peace to which he so rightly refers, but for which he wishes to claim all the credit for himself. 482 KX7 East Sydney 0 0 WARD, Edward Mr WARD .- Mr. Speaker- Motion (by Sir Eric Harrison) put - That the question be now put. The House divided. (Mr. Speaker - Hon. Archie Cameron.) 49 20 Majority . . . . 29 AYES NOES Question so resolved in the affirmative. Original question resolved in the affirmative. 482 22:52:00 House adjourned at 10.52 p.m. 482 ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS The following answers to questions were circulated: - Dairying. 483 483 JVA 0 0 MORGAN, Charles Mr Morgan n asked the Postmaster-General, upon notice - Is any action proposed to alleviate the acute shortage of telephone and postal facilities in the Chester Hill and Villawood districts? 483 KCA CP 0 0 DAVIDSON, Charles Mr Davidson - The answer to the honorable member's question is as follows : - Additional telephone and postal facilities are proposed for Chester Hill and Villawood district. A new exchange will be established at Sefton by the end of .1950 to serve the Chester Hill" district and cable works are in hand to relieve the Villawood district. Some waiting applicants in the shopping area will be given service within the next few months and other high priority applicants by August, 1950, while cable for remaining applicants will be provided progressively. All postal facilities normally provided under official conditions are available at the existing non-official post office at Chester Hill with letter and telegram delivery services operating throughout the area and posting receptacles have been provided at convenient points. In view of the development which has taken place in recent years a departmental site has been secured and the erection of an official post office will proceed at the earliest date possible with due regard to the priority of other urgent building requirements. A post office operating under official conditions is provided at Villawood and all the usual facilities are available. There has been considerable business and residential expansion in the vicinity of the Villawood railway station and consideration is now being given to the establishment of a non-official post office in that locality. It is proposed subsequently to provide an official post office to serve this particular area and a site for the purpose has already been secured. 483 483 KX7 0 0 WARD, Edward Mr Ward d asked the Minister representing the Minister for Shipping and Transport, upon notice - Will he state whether it is intended to adopt a recent recommendation of the Australian Transport Advisory Council for the imposition of an additional tax on petrol and diesel fuel? What amount has been collected since the petrol tax was first imposed and what amount has been returned to the States for road maintenance and construction purposes? 483 KWH LP 1 0 TOWNLEY, Athol Mr Townley - The Minister for Shipping and Transport has furnished the following answers : - The Government has not yet commenced consideration of the recommendation of the Australian Transport Advisory Council. When a decision is taken a reply will be made in the first instance to the Australian Transport Advisory Council. Petrol tax in common with other taxes on commodities has been used for general revenue purposes for many years, ft was not until 1920 that any portion of the petrol tax proceeds was set aside for road purposes. Since 1920 the following amounts have been collected and distributed - Period 1926-55 - Collections f 351, 000,000, Distributions £161,000.000. In addition to the above distributions, an amount of £4,300,000 has been allocated since 1947-48 to strategic roads and roads of access to Commonwealth properties. On two occasions since first assuming office, the present Government has increased the allocations from petrol tax for roads. As a result, the proportion of total collections allocated for road3 from Customs and Excise on petrol has increased from about 45 per cent, in 1949-50 to 73 per cent, at the present time.