MILITIA BILL IN SENATE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 39, 16 February 1943, Page 5

MILITIA BILL IN SENATE

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(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) (Rec. 12.50 p.m.) SYDNEY, Feb. 16. Australia's Militia Bill, which is now before the Senate, is practically certain to be placed on the Statute Book. One Opposition Senator has announced that he will oppose any amendment to the Bill, thus reducing the Opposition's Senate majority of 19 to 17. Other Opposition Senators may take a. similar stand.

"I hope and believe that conscription will become the foundation upon which our defence organisation will be built, and I accept the Mifitia Bill as a substantial advance towards that objective," declared the supporting Senator, Mr. Crawford of Queensland.

"Senator Crawford's decision is regarded as the beginning of the end of the serious conscription controversy," writes the political correspondent of the "Sydney Morning Herald" today.

Directly concerned with the area of service for which militia men shall be liable, but in no way affecting the Militia Bill, the leader of the Senate Opposition, Mr. McLeay, has introduced an amendment to the National Security Act which is aimed at the removal of the proviso in the Act preventing the overseas use of the militia. This amendment may possibly be carried in the Senate, but it would then come before the House of Representatives as a private member's Bill, so that it could be put at the bottom of the agenda paper indefinitely. It is likely that such a Bill would not be considered during the life of the present Parliament.