PLATFORM LIBEL

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 188, 7 May 1931, Page 9

PLATFORM LIBEL

Lang Party’s Measure Hotly Opposed

HALTER ON FREEDOM

By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright (Rec. May 6, 10 p.m.)

Sydney, May 6.

Introducing the Law Reform Bill in the Legislative Assembly, Mr. A. A. Lysaght, Attorney-General, said that under the Bill barristers would be free to discard their wigs and gowns.

Another important provision would make all defamatory statements in the Press or on the platform a criminal offence. “I intend to protect every public man from blackguardly and slanderous statements’in the Press and upon the platform,” he said. Mr. T. R. Bavin, Leader of the Opposition, declared that this provision would be like a double-edged sword.

Ho would not be intimidated, and added that anybody who indulged in criticism for the public good would risk imprisonment. The whole idea was absurd and impracticable, indeed laughable.

If the Labour Party stood for this, they should/for ever cease prating about their love of freedom of speech. The debate was adjourned.

LABOUR’S ATTACK

Reason for Bank Closing Sydney, May 6. There was an uproar in the Legislative Assembly, when, while Mr. J. T. Lang was giving information ip .reply to a question regarding the Savings Bank, Mr. Davies, Minister of Education, interjected: “Stevens ought to be in gaol for what he has done regarding the Savings Bank.” . Mr. Lang declared that the closing of the bank was the fruit of Nationalist propaganda in December, 1929.

Mr. B. S. Stevens, who is the deputyLeader of the Opposition, with Mr. T. B. Bavin, was charged recently by Labour members with making statements on the hustings damaging to the credit of the State.

UNITED PARTIES K

Plans for Election Campaign Melbourne, May 6. A conference of seven Victorian polltical organisations Opposed to the I 1 ederal Labour Government agreed to accept the leadership of Mr. J. A. Lyons in the coming Federal election campaign, and pledged itself to unity. of political action. ' ... It was decided that the movement should be called- the United Australia Movement.. Delegates unanimously accepted Mr. Lyons as leader and a council was formed to co-ordinate the activities of organisations associated. ’Mr. Lyons made a strong appeal to the parties represented to sink their differences in the common effort to solve Australia’s difficulties. It was imperative that the Federal Ministry should be removed from office, because he honestly believed that a change of Government was fundamental, if progress was to be made in the settlement of the Commonwealth’s troubles.

Although his political career has been a long one, Mr. J. A. Lyons, 51 years of age, has had comparatively little experience as a Federal politician and Minister. Before entering Tasmanian politics he was d school teacher, and he first gained a seat in the Tasmanian Parliament in 1909 as a Labour member. After having acted as Treasurer and Minister of Education in the Earle Ministry from 1914 to 1916 he was appointed Leader of the Opposition, and when Labour again assumed office in 1923 Mr. Lyons was Premier, Treasurer and Minister of Railways. After Labour was defeated by the ’McPhee Nationalist Ministry he again sat as Leader of the Opposition. Then Mr. Lyons turned toward Canberra and won a place in the Scullin Ministry after defeating the sitting Nationalist, member. ’ He held the portfolios of Postmaster-General and Minister of Railways until Mr. Scullin’s decision to reinstate Mr. E. G. Theodore as Federal Treasurer, which caused him to resign from the Cabinet. Up till the present he has been among the independent Labourites, and as head of the new party he is ranged against the Scullin inflationists on the one hand and the Beasley repudiationists (Lang sympathisers) on the other.