NATIONAL INSURANCE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 111, 7 November 1923, Page 5

NATIONAL INSURANCE

AUSTRALIAN PROPOSALS

ROYAL COMMISSION.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY, Ist November. The establishment of a system of na-> tional insurance^against sickness and unemployment is rapidly entering the realm of practical politics in. Austiaiia. In the Federal, and, in some, cases, the otate spheres, evidence is for! Wining that the necessity for something being done in this direction is recognised. The Federal Government has set up a Royal Commission to inquire into the matter, and at the commencement of its investigations it received ovideuee from the Secretary to the Treasury that the Commonwealth had reached the "danger point in the matter of taxation, yet the pensions roll—invalid and old a"c—was rapidly increasing, apparently due" to the iact that the prejudice on the ground that the receipt of such assistance sayoured of charity was being quickly overcome as well as to increasing popuJf tjon He recommended that any national insurance scheme should embrace the pension scheme, thus placing it on a financial basis under which actuarially determined contributions from all sections interested would meet the prospective culls upon the -furfds established This of course, would only appply to future per-sienevs, as those already eligible obviously could not'come under the contnbutpry sohenie. At the same time we Imve m New South Wales a remarkable speech by the Attorney-General, Mr Jiavin indicating hi s conviction in favour or an unemployment insurance scheme. So far he has merely dealt with the matter in,the. abstract, without nitnnahng.wUrther.he will move for the establishment of a State scheme, or whether he regards it as tfWter of essentially Federal concern. He has put it forward as the only solution of the unemployment trouble. His view is that modern industrial conditions necessarily bnEnf a per"aane ] nt thouSh fluctuating body of unemployed. Quite apart fronl tho unenip oyables, there must be a reserve of labour which increases and dl creases, in sympathy with the"barometo of trade. A period of activity in one branch of industry eynchronles w°th slackness i n another. Various measures suggest themselve for reducing the mass of this necessary reserve to theVniinum, but the fact reniams, he contends, that whatever is done such a reserve ■•will always exist under the present capitalistic system, and, this being sO , b e regards its maintenance as a charge upon industry? He regards the establishment of an irrsuranee system which will protect' th" s body of men from starvation, giving them the assurance of bridging periods of inevitable unemployment, as one of the most promising methods of allayin- -prevailing unrest amongst workers, and at tfce same time he emphasises the superiority o a scheme under which employees, and employers contribute, both economically and in the preservation o self-respect .and the feeling of security, to any system of State doles, air bavin » speech coming from a member of a Nationalist Ministry and a man who has already incorporated in a draft measure the boldest reforms in the art" rat.on system yet framed, has attracted He^ld" terest- + ,T ) he Sydney -"Morning ing-the subject is worth discing