Waterfront Commission

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25934, 14 October 1949, Page 6

Waterfront Commission

The Minister of Labour (Mr McLagan) gave a matter-of-fact explanation in the House -of Representatives this week of alterations made by him in the annual report of the Waterfront Industry Commission. The reasons he gave for the alterations are less easily approved than his frankness. Mr McLagan is reported to have said that “it “ was entirely wrong [for the com- “ mission] to talk about abuse of " the spelling system in a report " which no longer represented the 4< position to-day". That may or may not be true. The report did not deal with the position “ to-day ’’ but with the position in the 12 months ending on March 31. If the commission thought there was “ considerable abuse" of the spelling system in that period—and apparently it did—it was entitled to say so. The Minister might properly have suggested that it should refer to an improvement since the close of the year under review: or he might have taken upon himself to interpret the report to Parliament in the light of changed circumstances. Either course would have been wiser than the one he took. The commission has been exposed by the Minister to the charge that it cannot make up its own mind, or that it cannot choose its own words, or that it is too ready to change its mind and its words at the Minister's suggestion. Mr McLagan has weakened his own position and strengthened that of the Waterside Workers’ Union, which has persistently claimed that the Waterfront Industry Commission is not as independent as its constitution implies. It is time the Government set the independence of the commission beyond all doubt by making it a statutory body instead of a tribunal which exists, under war emergency regulations, at the pleasure of the Government.