AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27074, 24 June 1953, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

“ Federal Government Faces Defeat ”

VIEWS OF OPPOSITION SENIOR WHIP

(New Zealand Press Association) GREYMOUTH, June 23. The opinion that the MenziesFadden Federal Government faces certain defeat in the general elections for the Commonwealth House of Representatives early next year was ex- , pressed in Greymouth this evening by Mr F. M. Daly, member of the Federal House for Grayndler in the Sydney area and Senior Opposition Whip at Canberra. Mr Daly is paying a short visit to New Zealand. “The Senate elections showed a strong swing away from the LiberalCountry Party Government,” said, Mr Daly. The total vote had given the Labour Party a convincing majority throughout Australia, and on a similar vote for the House of Representatives the Government would have been defeated. , “The only State to give the Government a majority was Queensland,” said <Mr Daly, “and there, in a vote of more* than 1,000,000, the MenziesFadden parties won the third of the five seats with only 14,000 votes to spare. That surely was a photofinish.” Mr Daly’s seat embraces a heavy industrial area in which 1000 industries, including some of the principal secondary industries in Australia, are concentrated. At the last Federal elections he had a majority of almost 20,000 in a vote of 36,000, and he has held the seat since 1943, when he was, at 30. one of the ydungest members of the Federal Parliament. Listing the factors which m his opinion had operated strongly against the Menzies Government, Mr Daly said that the major reason for their reverse was the growing unemployment in Australia, except in Queensland, where the State Government had used reserves of money to keep full employment. , . . , x “Today there are in the vicinity of 50.000 receiving unemployment assistance in Australia,” said Mr Daly, “but this figure is by no means an exact one owing to the operation of the means test, particularly in cases where a man is unemployed and his wife is working. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that there may be 100.000 out of work in the Commonwealth.” The second factor mentioned by Mr Daly was what he termed the “crippling credit and changing financial policy” of the Federal Government. This had had the effect of ending full employment as practised under the Chifley Labour Government, and on every occasion when there had been Federal or State by-elections in recent months the people had voted more strongly against the Government. ' '