Australian Newsletter Labour Party Consolidated By N.S. W. Electoral Change

Press, Volume C, Issue 29520, 23 May 1961, Page 18

Australian Newsletter Labour Party Consolidated By N.S. W. Electoral Change

(Special Correspondent N Z.P.A.)

SYDNEY, May 19. The Labour Party, which has been in power in New South Wales for the last 20 years, seems to have become even more firmly entrenched with the recently-an-nounced changes in the State's electoral boundaries.

As a result of the. re-dis-tribution, political observers say the Australian Labour Party could increase its Parliamentary representation by possibly three seats. The electoral changes have been planned by an Electoral Districts Commission, appointed by the Heffron Labour Government, several months ago.

They are the first to have been made since 1957 and resulted from increases m the State’s population and a large-scale population movement since that year. Under the re-distribution, seven of the present electorates are being abolished and a similar number of new seats have been formed to replace them. On the 1959 election figures Labour, next year, could win three of the new seats and possibly two others, in addition to two Liberal seats. This would give the party seven seats for the loss in the re-distribution of four. The Liberal-Country Party Opposition, on the other hand, lost five seats and seems likely to recover only three—all new ones.

This would give Mr Heffron and his Government 52 seats and the Opposition 42 a majority of 10 to Labour. The Government, at present has 49 seats compared with the Opposition’s 45. giving it a rather slender majority of four. Commenting on the re-dis-tribution, the Leader of the State Opposition (Mr R. W Askin) said “the new boundaries make our task of defeating the Labour Government harder.” The Leader of the Country Party (Mr C. B. Cutler) said the re-distribution amounted to further centralisation of political power around industrial areas. When the Electoral Districts Commission began its operations, five outer suburban electorates had enrolments greater than the maximum permitted, and three other areas were approaching that figure. Altogether the commission altered the boundaries of 40 of the 48 city electorates, and 36 of the 46 country seats.

The Electoral Act allows 20 per cent, above or below the electoral quotas. The figures are obtained by dividing the enrolments for city and country areas by 48 and 46 respectively. The quotas used by the commission this time were 25.371 in the Sydney area, and 19.323 in the country. (t * ijt Land Fraud Nearly four years ago 223 home-seekers in Sydney lost £97.780 in what became known as the Yagoona land scandal defraud A group of Yagoona companies. headed by T George and Company Pty.. Ltd. i defrauded the victims of ! money paid as deposits on blocks of land The firms sold the same blocks to hundreds of people. Most of the “purchasers” paid £550 deposit. Eventually. seven principals of the firm received gaol sentences ranging from 18 months to seven years and a half for fraud. Now. it has been announced by Mr J C. Garrity, accountant for the official liquidator (Mr J. R. Partridge) that the 223 home-seekers concerned have just received a final dividend of Is 9d in the £ . Added to an initial divi- ! dend of 3s in the £ last April, plus Is in the £ which he expects to distribute next

November, the new dividend will give creditors a total of only 5s 9d in the £. Mr Garrity revealed that total payments would cover about £28.112 of the £97.780 the creditors had claimed. “The rest of the money has just disappeared,” he told the recipients of the dividend. Later, Mr Partridge said al! efforts made by the authorities, so far, had failed to uncover the missing £70.000 Decimal Coinage The Federal Government has been taken to task by Sydney's "Daily Mirror." one of the city's two evening newspapers, for the delay in announcing its plans (“if any”) for introduction of decimal currency.

The paper says: “It is months now since the Government received the report of the Decimal Currency Committee. which recommended a change-over by February. 1963. “The committee said the longer the change-over was delayed the greater its cost would be. “In the last fortnight three separate businessmen's associations have attacked the Government's delay. The Government’s only reply has been that it does not intend to be hasty or premature. “At least it might well tell us what mature and unhurried steps it is taking in the matter." Ht H* $ Change-Over Costs Meanwhile, the chief accountant of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney (Mr F C. Pike) in a Junior Chamber of Commerce address. in Sydney, has estimated that present changeover costs would be between £3om and £32m. But in 10 years it would be £som, he told the chamber

Mr Pike said the advantages of decimal currency greatly outweighted its disadvantages.

They would apply more to school students and those doing monetary calculations

than to banks or commercial organisations. The latter, however, would benefit by a time saving of about 10 per cent.

He added that a Decimal Currency Committee survey had shown that Australians were overwhelmingly in favour of the news system. ?s gs gs Bible In Outback Inhabitants of Australia’s remote areas, who include cattle drivers, pearl divers, lighthouse - keepers, aborigines and prospectors, will each receive soon a copy of the new English Bible. The issue, worth £3500, is to be distributed by the Australian Inland Mission. The Superintendent of the Mission (the Rev. F. McKay) said this week that the Bibles were a goodwill gesture to people normally beyond the reach of. the church. Costs of a dismissed traffic case in Rockhampton court, Queensland, recently, u’ere awarded against a policeman who had charged a truck driver with traffic offences. The constable, John Francis Close, was ordered to pay £sB—£2l legal costs. £37 witnesses’ expenses and 14s subpoena expenses in default of one months’ gaol. The charged man, John Stephen Proud, aged 22, a truck driver, had pleaded not guilty to two charges of having driven without consideration for others. Legal costs have accrued since the case first came before the court. :•# Ss Bitten By Snake An 18-month-old baby, Gary John Seiwood, had to be rushed to Orange Base Hospital, in Western New South Wales, a few days ago, for emergency anti-snake-bite injections. He was playing in the back garden of his home in Orange when he was bitten by a brown snake, in spite of prevailing winter weather. Gary was given special anti-venom serum at the hospital. He made a satisfactory recovery.