FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 22, 25 July 1940, Page 10

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

CRITICS IN SYDNEY CENTRALISING OF ACTIVITIES m MELBOURNE SYDNEY, July 24. ' Another Press controversy has begun with the Federal Ministry as the target again. The Sydney metropolitan Press, backed by prominent business men and politicians, is severely critical of the growing tendency to centralise Federal Government activities in Melbourne instead of Canberra, which was built at great, expense for the purpose. The latest complaint is against the proposal to make Melbourne the headquarters of the overseas news broadcasting services, the pretext being that the transfer of these services from Sydney would expedite the rebuttal of false enemy propaganda. Critics of the Government's policy of "coddling" Melbourne disclaim any desire to foster inter-State jealousy and point out that considerable inconvenience and loss of time are already experienced by Sydney folk having to make contact with Melbourne for advice and information on the affairs of defence, navy, aviation, munitions, post and telegraph, and the multitudinous boards which deal with wool and other produce. - The keynote of the criticism is that centralisation in Melbourne has the effect of slowing down the common effort for national safety. The Attorney-General, Mr. W. M. Hughes, whose home is at Lindfleld, New South Wales, and who has entered the controversy, declared with characteristic pungency: "Ministers come to Sydney for a day or so, walk about the town as though they were foreigners in a strange land trying to talk our language and looking as though they like it, and then fly back to their burrows in Melbourne as quickly as a plane can carry them."