WORKERS' DISPUTES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 57, 8 March 1944, Page 4

WORKERS' DISPUTES

ANSWER TO CRITICISM (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. Statements concerning industrial unrest made by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Holland, in his Address-in-Reply speech, were criticised by Mr. Anderton, (Government, Eden) in the House of Representatives yesterday. He said that nothing disturbed the public mind so much as industrial troubles, but he invited the Opposition to point out to an Allied country that had less trouble than New Zealand. The Opposition was out to make political capital at the expense of the Government. Such a statement inflamed industrial unrest.

Mr. Doidge (National, Tauranga) Where is the Minister of Labour?

Mr. Anderton said the member for Tauranga was drawing attention to the absence his place in the House of the Minister. That was a cheap form of criticism. No Minister absented himself from the chamber unless for a good reason. The speeches of Opposition members had conveyed the idea to the public that primary production had suffered owing to the Government attitude to the war, Mr. Anderton continued. It had been said that labour had been taken from farms. He reminded the House that in 1941 Mr. Doidge had suggested helping Britain, in addition to sending fighting men overseas, by sending a contingent of coal miners from New Zealand to work in the British coal fields. When that statement was made all members of the Opposition had shouted "Hear, hear."