Australian Elections.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20828, 11 April 1933, Page 8

Australian Elections.

Cablegrams printed yesterday gave the results of two State elections in Australia. South Australia returned a Libera]-Country party coalition with a handsome majority and a calamitous defeat for Labour. Western Australia, on the other hand, turned a Nationalist Government out of office and invited a Labour administration to enter. It is a paradox for neighbouring States, but Australian politics are like that. It makes them more interesting, but it also makes them more exasperating and unpredictable. In South Australia, despite that a multitude of parties entered the lists, the issue was clear cut. The Liberal-Country party group placed before the electors the policy of adherence to the Premiers' Plan on which the Commonwealth Government and later the New South Wales Government swept to victory at their last elections. Labour, divided against itself into three warring groups, certainly went into the contest badly handicapped, but it is more than doubtful whether, even if it had been a united party, it could have withstood the storm. The new Government's victory was so decisive that it is clear that the South Australians were bent upon a change of administration. South Australia enjoys the reputation (despite occasional industrial disturbances) of having the most sober and independent population in the Commonwealth—a hard-headed, farseeing people, who have contributed a number of wise legislative enactments to the Australian statute book. On this occasion they had the option of being governed by a Labour administration with no chance of reasonable cohesion and moreover, pledged to various fantastic financial policies, or by a coalition united for one purpose—to put the finances of the State on a stable basis, co-ordinat-ing with the general rehabilitation plan adopted by the Commonwealth. The South Australian citizens made a downright answer. In the sister State of Western Australia the issues were confused and clouded by the secession referendum. The electorate for a long time past has been in a state of almost hysterical emotion induced by a vigorous press campaign for secession from the Commonwealth. All the State's ills have been attributed to the tariff domination of the eastern States, the incidence of a world depression apparently being forgotten. Curiously, it was the Nationalists, then in power but now defeated by Labour, who led the secession movement. They have succeeded in having a vote cast for secession, but the distress which made the cause of secession popular told as heavily against the Government. One and the same reaction in the electorate carried the referendum and broke its sponsors. The secession vote, as an authority has indicated, has no legal force; it is, in fact, never likely to be operative. It may, however, cause serious dislocation of Australian financial plans unless something is immediately done to check its influence. The convention suggested by the Prime Minister, Mr Lyons, should have that effect, and as well, clear up and adjust the grievances of the more sparsely populated States. South Australia and Tasmania will doubtless welcome the opportunity to share in that adjustment.