MINISTER TAKEN TO TASK

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 136, 20 March 1948, Page 6

MINISTER TAKEN TO TASK

Mr Semple’s Remarks on Queensland

PROTEST BY AUSTRALIAN WATERSIDERS (P.A.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Stirred by cabled accounts of the description given this week by the Hon. R. Semple of industrial turmoil in Queensland, the council of the Australian Waterside Workers’ Federation, at present in session in Sydney, has challenged the Minister to substantiate his charges.

The Australian Watersiders* Executive instructed the secretary, Mr T. Healy, to telephone the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Union requesting it to make public the resentment felt by Australian unionists over what they regarded as a highlycoloured version of the state of affairs.

Mr I-lealy telephoned the head office of the union in Wellington, but bis call was finally put through to Auckland, where the national secretary of the union, Mr T. Hill, was conferring yesterday afternoon with the president (Mr 11. Barnes) over the settlement of waterfront trouble at that port. It was indicated by Mr Healy that the Minister’s views received a remarkable amount of publicity in Australian newspapers, and that what Mr Semple had said had almost overshadowed the industrial situation. However, it was not the intention of the Australian Waterside Workers’ Federation to comment, on the action oi: a visiting Minister in discussing the internal affairs of a sister Dominion; what did concern unionists was what they regarded as a distorted view of the actions of the Queensland trade unions. In particular, said Mr Healy, they resented the Minister’s statement that a “hash gang” was operating in Queensland. They objected also to his account of the sufferings of the Australian people because the Communists had gained a stranglehold through the unions on some of the key industries and essential services, and to his statement that “every method bar shooting” was being used to intimitate workers who argued against the strike leaders.

These charges, said Mr Healy, were emphatically denied, and New Zealanders deserved to be told that the strike action, was in accordance with the will of the workers. Moreover, oppressive legislation was opposed. Mr Healy said that officials of the Australian Waterside Workers’ Federation reached their decisions democratically. This applied to several thousand Queensland members of the organisation who were concerned in the present trouble.