FEDERAL VOTE FOR DEFENCE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27010, 9 April 1953, Page 9

FEDERAL VOTE FOR DEFENCE

SYDNEY, April 8. A careful review by an appropriate committee or tribunal of the principle and application of Australia’s £200,000,000 defence vote was urgently required, the Leader of the Federal Opposition (Dr. H. V. Evatt) said In a speech in Sydney last night. Dr. Evatt was opening his campaign for the Senate elections on May 9, when half the members of the Senate will go to the polls. “Our economy would be greatly increased if some part of the finance of special development projects throughout Australia were regarded as defence expenditure,” he said. It was Labour’s view that Australia’s prosperity depended: (1) On the safeguarding and protection of secondary industry, from which the bulk of employment was derived; and (2) land and agricultural policies designed to secure the maximum utilisation of the land for food production. For those purposes Australia must provide modern communications, transport irrigation, and power. The Labour Party regarded a properly planned migration policy as vital to effective defence and a sound economy. It believed that basic civil rights should be guaranteed by the Constitution as they were in the United States today.