MONOPOLY CLAIMED

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 264, 4 August 1944, Page 4

MONOPOLY CLAIMED

Post-War Manufacture Of Cars In Australia MR. CURTIN INQUIRING Telegraph. —Prose A&sd. —Copyright.l (Special Australian Correspondent.) (Received August 3, 7 p.m.) SYDNEY, August 3. Motor-cars and artificial silk are among goods which the Federal Government intends shall be manufactured in Australia after the war. If private enterprise does not provide the necessary factories, the Government will establish them either as Commonwealth enterprises or Jointly with private firms. These plans will be contingent on the passage of the Wider Powers Referendum on August IJ. The Government also intends to convert to full peacetime production a number of other industries developed in Australia during the war. These include the manufacture of binoculars, optical glass, precision instruments, chemicals anti plastics. The principle outlined by the Prime Minister, Mr. Curtin, ' permitting private firms to operate these projects will be followed.” „ According to the Sydney Telegraph, the future of the Australian, motor-car industry depends on a question of law which has arisen between the Commonwealth and Mr. W. J. Smith, managing director of Australian Consolidated Industries. It has been reported that both British and American firms are interested in manufacturing motor-cars in Australia on a competitive basis, but even these proposals will depend on the outcome of a claim reported to be made by Mr. Smith that he was given a monopoly of car manufacture in Australia by the Menzies Government. The matter is said to be under investigation by Mr. Curtin. Agreement Not Signed. Though an Act of Parliament in 1940 authorized an agreement between the Commonwealth Government and Australian Consolidated Industries for the manufacture of motor-cars, no agreement has ever been signed. This was stated by officials in Canberra today. Government legal experts decline to give an opinion on the point. Before the Act was passed, Mr. Menzies, who was then Prime Minister, said that the measure was "Not to ratify an agreement made in due form, but to authorize ths making of a contract in the terms set out. The main provisions of the Act were: (1) Australian Consolidated Industries must form a company with a nominal capital of £1,009,000. and an initial subscribed capital of £250,000. (2) A target of 20,000 vehicles a year of popular low-priced American clasp was to be aimed at. (3) A bounty would be paid to the company to enable price concessions to the public. Motor officials in Melbourne say that an Australian-designed and manufaetur ed motor-car will be ready for the road within a year after the war. They sug_ gest that the makers will be General Motors-Holdens. Sixty new chemicals have been manufactured in Australia since the war, and these will be produced in peacetime. A vast expansion of the plastics industry is regarded as certain. The Australian shipbuilding industry will also be maintained. , , ~ Replying to a statement by the presi-. dent of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, Sir Marcus Clark, that Govern-ment-operated factories should provide their share of taxation, Mr. Curtin, emphasized that, all Government business projects would be subject to normal business charges. Mr. Curtin’s statement of the Government’s plans for its part in post-war industry has been generally welcomed by the business community.