COST IN AUSTRALIA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 39, 16 February 1943, Page 3

COST IN AUSTRALIA

£65,000,000 On Construction In One Year

Rec. 12.30 CANBERRA, this day. The Australian War Cabinet has approved in principle that all refugees and enemy aliens made available by the manpower authority should be called up immediately by the Allied Works Council. Reviewing the achievements of. the Allied Works Council, the Minister for the Interior, Senator Collings, said that in the first year of its existence the council had placed under construction, works valued at £65,000,000. The expenditure had been consistent at the rate of £1,000,000 a week.

Among the works undertaken by the council were: For the navy, graving docks and oil storage facilities, boom and anti-submarine defences, stores and barracks. For the army, strategic roads, railways, bridges and hospitals. For the air force, aerodromes and installations and training schools. For the Munitions arid Aircraft Production Departments, factories a in which aircraft and every type of munitions are being manufactured, and railways. A network of .5000 miles oi strategic roads, equivalent of a Highway from Melbourne to Tokyo, haa been carved across the continent, and hundreds of aerodromes had been constructed. One P r <?.jsct cost £6,000,000, and two others £4,000,000 To-day the council has completed 750 major undertakings and has 1200 more on its books, maddition to 5000 minor projects, each eosting less than £5000. More: than 53,000 men were at work under th_ con trol of the council.