WIDER POWERS VOTE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 149, 26 June 1944, Page 5

WIDER POWERS VOTE

CAMPAIGN IN AUSTRALIA

(Special P.A. Correspondent.) SYDNEY, June 25. With the date for the CommonwSlh's wider powers referendum ei-ht weeks away, a campaign of increasing bitterness is .being waged. The proposed changes in the Auslialian Constitution are being . stirongly opposed as well as strongly atlvo tmHitinnallv least in favour oi centralised Government. The Opposition Parties' leaders, Mr." R. GMenz.es of the United Australia Party, and Mr. AW Fadden, of the Country Party, have both talked of "sinister motives behind the referendum. A motion by Mr. Fadden at the Queensland conference of the Country Party, described it as the hist step" in an attempt to effect a change in Australia to a form of society which was aptly described by Mi. Churchill as one-in which nobody counts for anything except the politician and official, and where enteiprise gains no reward and thrift no Prin ilpSertl", Dr. Evatt attacked the arbitrary "right to fire," which he declared was a characteristic of the social system against which Laboui must fight and win. He claimed that "powerful interests" were spending a lot of money to defeat the referendum because they, wanted a reserve of unemployed after the war so that the workers' standards could be kept down. HUGE EMPLOYMENT PROBLEM. "New jobs must be found for half Australia's working population aiter the war," said Dr. Evatt. The normal working population of Australia is about 3.000,000, but in the last five years there have been 900,000 enlistments in all branches of the Services while another 600,000 have been transferred to essential war jobs." The placing of these 1,500,000 people in permanent peacetime employment was given by Dr. Evatt as a main reason why the Federal Government is seeking increased powers. An organisation known as the Australian Constitutional League, with headquarters in Sydney, has been formed to urge the rejection of the proposals. It has expressed alarm at "increasing interference with the rights of the individual." . A parallel view has been stated by the "Sydney Morning Herald," which, editorially points to "the extent to which emergency powers vested m the Commonwealth have been abused, and adds: "In the light of such revelations it is no longer sufficient for the Government to show that the | Commonwealth is theoretically entitled to greatly enlarged powers. Its case in the abstract may be watertight. What it has now to prove is that all the powers sought are absolutely necessary on practical grounds, and, second, that no semblance of the existing system of bureaucratic regimentation and centralisation will be perpetuated by means of them." The 10,000 citizens of the Federal capital at Canberra will not have a vote in the wider powers ballot on August 19. They will, on that day, hold their own "refereridum" with ballot papers asking the question, "Do you want a Federal member for Canberra?" Sponsors are more confident of a "Yes" answer in this referendum than are the champions of increased post-war powers for the Federal Government., .' \ ';.-■/■ ,