REFERENDUM IN AUSTRALIA

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26529, 18 September 1951, Page 6

REFERENDUM IN AUSTRALIA

POLITICAL PARTIES

BUSY

SYDNEY, September 17. Only five days are left before the referendum on Communism is taken in Australia and political parties are in the midst of a torrid campaign. The Prime Minister (Mr Menzies) is asking the people of Australia to alter the Constitution to enable him to implement the Communist Party Dissolution Act, thus terminating the legal existence of the Communist Party in Australia. In Sydney during the week-end more than 100 • meetings were addressed on the issue. In the Domain yesterday 3000 persons listened to the Leader of the Opposition, Dr. H. V. Evatt, Mr A. A. Calwell, two other Federal Labour members and the New South Wales Premier (Mr J. McGirr) put Labour’s case for the negative, while 2000 more surrounded the Liberal members. Messrs J. O. Cramer and F. M. Osborne, who were presenting the affirmative case. Other political meetings in the Domain swelled the total crowd to nearly 10.000.

Some ministers are speaking from their pulpits against the referendum. Tn the Domain yesterday, a visiting London Methodist evangelist, Dr. Donald Soper, advocated a negative vote, and last night some members of the congregation of an Anglican church walked out when Canon E. H. Davidson defended in a sermon his advocacy of a negative vote.