Queensland unhappy

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33141, 3 February 1973, Page 15

Queensland unhappy

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copi/rtphty BRISBANE, Feb. 2. The Queenland state Government will take an appeal as high as the Privy Council against proposed Federal legislation to control exports of minerals. One of the Whitlam Government’s other proposals is the abolition of the Privy Council as a final court of appeal. Queensland is a major exporter of coal to Japan. On Wednesday, the Federal Minerals and Energy Minister (Mr Connor) announced the decision to regulate Australian mineral sales, both

their export and their prices, to ensure that the process was in the best national inter- j est and that the best world, prices were being obtained. However, the Queensland [Cabinet met yesterday and, ‘according to the Premier (Mr •Bjelke-Petersen): “We agreed I we should make every stand [possible to oppose the Comimonwealth in its socialistic [intrusion into state affairs.” A senior official in the Queensland Government said the state would first appeal to the Australian High Court and then to the Privy Council on certain aspects of the Federal Government’s proposed legislation. I “The “Sydney Morning Herald" said in an editorial [today that the announcement l had the dramatic impact Aus-

tralia had come to associate with the Labour Party’s style lof governing and was unlikely to meet with any fundamental objection. “Control action by the previous Government in other areas —iron ore, uranium, wood chips—provides precedents. There has been con[cern lest our resources, rich but finite, should be depleted without the national benefits we have a right to expect in the form of just financial returns,” it said. i “The real test of the derailed policy that emerges will be its practical administration. The previous Goviernment’s experience in setting iron ore prices too high l and having Brazil undercut them will have to be I watched."