AUSTRALIAN LABOUR FACES FURTHER LOSS

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28269, 6 May 1957, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN LABOUR FACES FURTHER LOSS

(Rec. 10.10 p.m.) MELBOURNE, May 4. The once-dominant Australian Labour Party, now riven and torn by internal fueding, has been presented with the prospect of further loss of stature and vigour as the Opposition party in the Australian Parliament.

In the recent split in the Queensland State Labour Party, some political observers see a sign of at least two more threeyear terms to the Liberal-Country Parties now led by the Prime Minister (Mr Menzies) in Canberra. If newly-formed Labour groups put up candidates in Queensland against official Labour candidates for the Federal House of Representatives, the five seats now held by official Labour men may be lost. Immediately the Queensland split loomed, there were calculations on what would happen in that State in a Federal election due late next year. Examination of the riiargins by which the Labour men work their present seats led to the conclusion that a split Labour vote could well mean a total loss of Queensland seats to Labour. Effect of Split The broad immediate effect of the split is that the Premier (Mi Vincent Gair), expelled because he would not introduce legislation for three weeks’ annual leave for State award workers, has lost the backing of the Australian Labour Party. Supported by enough followers and an independent, who was once a labour man, he can continue to govern—at least while Parliament is in recess.

Mr Gair agreed in principle with the Queensland central executive of his party—a non-Par-liamentary body responsible only to Labour Party members and the union movement—but said Queensland could not afford compulsory three weeks’ annual leave.

Labour in the Federal sphere is acutely aware that in a recent New South Wales by-election, the Democratic Labour Party (a splinter group) took 1 21 per-cent, of the Labour vote.

Figures from the Federal election of 1955 indicate that a much lower defection could deprive official Labour of seats in Queensland.

Mr Gair is not expected to leave the State for the Federal scene nor is his bedrock political allegiance changed by recent happenings. He did not leave the party; he was expelled by. an executive. Observers recall *that

although he bitterly and publicly criticised the Federal Labour Leader (Dr. H. V. Evatt) at the initial party split in Tasmania over the growth of industrial groups within the party, Mr Gair remained loyal to the party and accepted its decisions. Strategy of Mr Gair It may be the strategy of Mr Gair to ride out the current storm, keep the split as narrow as possible and become acceptable for a return to the party. It would seem from the executive action that it regarded strict obedience to its commands as of greater importance than over-all unity. Between now and the next Federal elections there may be time for pressures that were not applicable in the momentum of the recent showdown and that party unity will assume its former importance in the control of the party machine.