Election blow for Whitlam

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33512, 18 April 1974, Page 12

Election blow for Whitlam

(N.Z.P .A. -Reuter—Copyright)

CANBERRA, April 17. An Australian Labour Party strategy to unsettle the federal Opposition Leader (Mr Billy Snedden) in the campaign leading up to (Jenera! Elections on May 18, was upset tonight.

Mr Robert Hawke, the powerful and popular head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Federal President of the Labour Party, said that he would not stand against Mr Snedden in the Opposition Leader’s seat in suburban Melbourne.

The Minister of Labour (Mr Clyde Cameron), who with the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) had been instrumental in urging Mr Hawke to stand, said later that he regretted the union leader’s decision.

Mr Hawke told reporters in Sydney tonight that he had declined the invitation to stand against Mr Snedden because of pressure of work and for family reasons. He was “keeping his options open,” but it was unlikely that he would stand for any other seat in the election, he said,

Before Mr Hawke made his announcement, he spent most of the day with Mr Whitlam, discussing Labour’s election policies.

Labour’s show of solidarity today contrasted with increasing disarray among the Opposition parties, which brought on the election by forcing a double dissolution of Parliament two weeks ago.

After a decision by the Federal Executive of the Liberal Party to freeze out the Democratic Labour Party by leaving D.L.P. candidates oft tickets for the Senate poll, a split widened between the Liberal and Country Parties in Victoria.

The Victorian State Executive of the Liberal Party today decided to go ahead with

a plan to put up candidates against Country Party condidates in traditional Countrv Party rural seats. The executive rejected a call from Mr Snedden for full co-operation with the Country Party. In a 10-minute address fo the nation on radio and television yesterday, Mr Whitlam described the Opposition coalition as a “coalition of hate.’’ “They are united in only one thing, hatred — there is no other word for it — hatred for the Whitlam Government and indeed hatred and contempt for the people who elected us,” he said. The Country Party leader, Mr Douglas Anthony, commented later: “They (the Opposition paries) love Australia and they hate what the Whitlam Government is doing to Australia.”