DEFEAT ON BUDGET

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 83, 4 October 1941, Page 10

DEFEAT ON BUDGET

TWO MEMBERS CHANGE SIDES

SUCCESS FOR LABOUR

.|By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright.) CANBERRA, October 3. Mr. A. W. Fadden's United Australia Party-United Country Party Government was defeated today by 36 votes to 33 in the division on Labour's censure motion in the de- • bate on the Budget in the House of Representatives. The two Victorian Independent members, Mr. A. Wilson (Wimmera) and Mr. Coles {Melbourne), who held the balance of power in the House, voted with Labour. Mr. A W. Coles, who resigned from the United Australia Party ■when Mr. Menzies resigned and Mr. Fadden became Prime Minister, told the House that his decision had been taken to end unstable tcontrol of the war effort. Mr. Wilson, said that if Labour could form a Government he would support it. • The Leader of the Opposition, Mr. J. Curtin, said subsequently that he regarded the vote as a clear indica- . tion that a Labour Government was ■ wanted. He was prepared to form a Government. "WAGE-EARNER'S BUDGET." In his speech in the Budget debate in the House of Representatives last night, the Prime Minister, Mr. Fadden, said it could not be denied that the Budget was a wage-earner's Budget if it was compared with that of New Zealand. "The 1940 New Zealand Budget included a National Security tax of Is in the pound on all incomes, without exemption," he said. "Let us compare that National • 'Security tax with our own scheme. ■ "If we had a tax of a shilling in j the pound on all incomes we would get £28,000,000 from the lower incomes. The £10,000,000 raised in New Zealand by the National Security tax was not a loan; it was a straight-out tax. :". , . "The Federal Government has instituted a compulsory loan to alleviate as much as possible the burden .of taxation,". Mr. Fadden said. "We recognise that to get the money for this war from taxation might be disastrous." - The Deputy Leader of the Opposii tion, Mr. F. M Forde, replying to Mr. Fadden, said that the Prime Minister, in comparing Federal taxation with that of New Zealand, had.not given Australian taxation but had quoted Federal.tax rates only. Federal and State taxes together would far exceed that of New Zealand. Mr. Forde charged the Government .with not making sufficient use of the Commonwealth Bank for war work <. find reproductive work. He condemned compulsory loans and said that these . had been jettisoned by New Zealand.