THE PRESS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1977. Australian elections

Press, 28 October 1977, Page 12

THE PRESS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1977. Australian elections

The reason given by the Australian Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) for calling an early election of the House of Representatives and half the Senate is far from convincing. He argues that business confidence is needed not just for months but for years ahead so that Australia’s economic recover}’ may be ensured. Mr Fraser has had a 55-seat majority in the Lower House and an adequate majority in the Senate. In any election he must be expected to lose some seats. So what will the election prove?

It is doubtful if Mr Fraser wants to prove anything. What cannot be doubted is that he wants to extend the life of his Government He reasons that he has more chance of keeping control of both Houses now than if he delayed the election. Unemployment may worsen and be compounded by the 100,000 or so school-leavers soon to flood the labour market. While Mr Fraser sees the possibility of two elections next year—the half Senate election has to be held before June, and the House of Representatives election would be due at the end of next year—as being unwanted by the voters, those same voters failed to give the required majority this year to amend the Constitution so that elections for the Senate and House of Representatives were held at the same time. What Mr Fraser fears is a protest vote against the Liberal-Country Party coalition in the Senate which might lose him control of the Senate, placing him in the same position as the former Labour Government Two other factors probably made up his mind. One is his conviction that the Labour Party will not win while Mr Gough Whitlam is its leader; the other is that the finances of

the Labour Party have not recovered from the elections in 1972, 1974, and 1975.

The Liberal-Country Party coalition may be expected to campaign on a theme of opposing union unrest. Some fierce industrial legislation is now being considered; some parts of it have already passed into law. The coalition may also fight the election on the question of uranium exports, on which the Labour Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions are both divided. For its part, the Labour Party is likely to campaign on the problems of the unemployed and may concentrate on getting rid of Mr Fraser. The campaign is likely to be vigorous. Mr Fraser has been attacking Mr Whitlam’s chosen heir, Mr Bill Hayden, bitterly and Mr Whitlam, having recovered some of the gusto he had lost over the last couple of years (and having re-engaged his former speech-writer) may give some spirited performances. The changes to the electoral boundaries may favour Labour a little; so should the lowering of the differences between the numbers of voters in each electorate from 20 per cent to 10 per cent. The establishment of the Australian Democrats by the disillusioned Liberal, Mr Don Chipp, may have a slight influence on the result, but mainly in the way voters for the Australian Democrats give their second preferences under Australia’s voting system. A pointer to how the election will go will come from the earlier Queensland state election. At the moment Mr Hayden holds the only Queensland seat for Labour. A shift towards Labour in the state election will indicate something about the result on December 10 for the unnecessary Federal elections.