WAR CABINET

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 17, 19 July 1940, Page 8

WAR CABINET

AUSTRALIAN MOVES

PREMIER AND MR. CURTIN

SYDNEY, July 18. The Prime Minister, Mr. R. G. Menzies, replying to the offer by the Opposition" leader, Mr. J. Curtin, for an arrangement similar to the New Zealand War Cabinet, denied that Mr. Curtin's arrangement was similar to the plan adopted in New Zealand. Mr. Menzies p/ided: "As I understand it, the New, Zealand council is an executive body or War Cabinet. Mr. Curtin's proposal was not fof a War Cabinet at all but for an Advisory Council. The two things are fundamentally different." Mr. Menzies hinted that he was at present in communication with Mr. Curtin in order to try to achieve a compromise with the Opposition. While the Federal Labour Party will decline to sink its identity in a National Government and in Parliament, it is generally conceded in Canberra that the Opposition would be prepared to participate in an all-Party War Council similar to that of New Zealand, whose example is expected to have a profound effect on the discussions at the Parliamentary Labour Party's meeting in Canberra next month. It is further claimed that adoption of the New Zealand form of war Government would leave the political position of the Leader of tlie Opposition, Mr. Curtin, unaffected and with complete freedom of action and the right to criticise the Menzies-Cameron Coalition Ministry. Opposition members of the War Council would share the responsibility for "its decisions but they also would retain their existing rights as Opposition members.