Australian Letter New Australians Fight Strong Workers’ Union

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28976, 18 August 1959, Page 9

Australian Letter New Australians Fight Strong Workers’ Union

(Australian Correspondent. W.Z.P.A.)

SYDNEY, August 16. A New Australian body this week told one of the oldest unions in New South Wales that it was not afraid of it. The New Citizens Council, composed mainly of migrants, instructed all migrant workers in this State and in Queensland to boycott the Australian Workers Union. The council said the A.W.U., under its present control, was “anti-worker, anti-migrant, tyrannical, inhuman and oppressive.”

It instructed migrants not to pay any contributions to the A.W.U. The council promised to find new jobs for anyone the A.W.U. victimised. The council which is a registered union under the Trade Union Act, alleges that an A.W.U. organiser at an engineering plant had a Polish worker dismissed because he could not afford to pay £3 union fees at once. The Pole had offered to pay half one day and the remainder the next day. He had been out of work for months because of a broken leg and had a wife and three children to keep. According to the New Citizens Council, the A.W.U. organiser refused to let the Pole split his payment and had him sacked. The New Citizens’ Council, in condemning the A.W.U. for the sacking, appealed to “all fair minded Australians to support the boycott on the A.W.U. to preserve their human rights.” It also asked the Federal Parliament to inquire into the affairs of the Australian Workers Union. # # #

The New South Wales Government is expected to stand firm against what some Labour Members of the Legislative Assembly called “blackmail tactics” by oil companies.

Six major oil companies have told the Government that they will consider abandoning big development projects planned for this State if service stations are licensed. These projects include the construction of a £2O million refinery. Arising out of the enormous number of petrol service stations being built in N.S.W. and complaints that proprietors were feeling the pinch the Government announced it would introduce legislation to license service stations.

The oil companies then gave an undertaking to limit the building of service stations to 60 a year and to rehouse anybody displaced by such building.

The Minister for Labour and Industry (Mr J. J. Maloney) went ahead with the proposed legislation but before submitting a final draft to Cabinet he sent an outline of his proposals to the oil companies for examination. The six major oil companies in counter-proposals said they might have to drop plans to invest in N.S.W. in refineries and distribution facilities and concentrate on developments in other States where no “restrictive” legislation was contemplated. While the Parliamentary Labour Caucus will urge the Government to resist the oil companies’ ultimatum, some Labour members want an urgent public inquiry into the activities of all oil companies.

A group favouring the inquiry said it should be held before the proposed legislation to license service stations is brought down. A number of State Labour members said they resented attempts by the oil companies to imtimidate the Government.

Sydney newspapers are on the side of the oil companies. They claim the illogical part of the situation is that the Government’s licensing proposals are not only undesirable but unnecessary. While agreeing that until recently the oil companies petrol station building programme had got out of hand editorial writers say the companies have now resolved the situation by voluntarily restricting the number of stations to be built in the future.

The bill being prepared by Mr Maloney aims to ban the building of service stations on sites where they are not needed; regulate the relationship between wholesalers and retailers; control trading hours; and prevent if necessary the demolition of habitable homes

to make way for service stations. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Askin) has warned the Government that the licensing of petrol stations would “open the way for graft and corruption.” »S * * The New South Wales Teachers’ Federation has appealed to the Minister for Education (Mr R. J. Heffron) to abolish segregated aboriginal public schools. The federation believes the operation of special public schools for aboriginal children to be a violation of the declaration of Human Rights. The Education Department conducts 21 all-aboriginal schools in areas having a substantial aboriginal population. A spokesman for the teachers’ federation said proposals to integrate schools in the past had brought some objections from white parents, but in all previous cases of school integration little difficulty had been experienced. :S $ “Brawl at Soccer” has been a fairly regular headline in Sydney newspapers this winter. Stories have told of wild brawls on the field between spectators and players. The Australian Capital Territory Soccer Association this week cancelled the remaining games of this season because of “brawls and incidents” at its soccer matches in Canberra in recent weeks. An advertisement in the “Canberra Times” said the games had been cancelled “with extreme reluctance” but because of “incidents involving both players and spectators.” Rowdy demonstrations marked recent games in Canberra, and two New Australians were arrested and charged with offensive behaviour. In Sydney, there have been "scenes” in which spectators have brawled with players in matches in which New Australians have predominated. Soccer has been gaining fast in favour in New South Wales in the last year or two, but incidents of the type lately seen in Sydney and Canberra will not win adherents to this code. In Newcastle, a Dutch player was disqualified for life for punching the referee. While attendances at soccer games in Sydney have been increasing, gate takings at Rugby League matches have shown an alarming drop. Nearly 100,000 fewer attended this year’s club games than last year, and gate takings were down by £12,000. « « • The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly (Mr R. S. Maher) wants Parliament House in Sydney to “look like Parliament not like a mausoleum.” “It is no use clinging to the habits of a century ago,” said Mr Maher. He added that he wanted to clear the “mustiness and penicillin off the twentieth century.” As part of the planned face-lift for the century-old building Mr Maher has consigned a gallery of faded, bewhiskered former speakers from his room to another part of the building. He has ordered removed from his room massive antique furniture and “wall-covering shelves of dusty tomes and Parliamentary records.” “I am trying to get out of the dream world of the 1850’5,” said Mr Maher, explaining his spring cleaning.