AIR-LINE CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 125, 23 November 1944, Page 8

AIR-LINE CONTROL

STORM OF PROTEST

AUSTRALIAN DECISION

(Special P.A. Correspondent i Rec. 2 p.m. SYDNEY, November 23. The Commonwealth Government's decision to take over all interstate air lines and operate them permanently fe provoking a storm of protest. A Bill to implement the plan will probably be introduced at the next session of Parliament, in the New Year. The operating air lines have already announced their determination to challenge the Government's constitutional authority in the High Court.

The plan to take over Australia's internal air lines was formulated at a Cabinet meeting on November 10, after consultations with the Prime Minister (Mr. Curtin), but the decision was Kept secret not only from the Opposition but from the rank and file members of the Labour caucus.

After yesterday's announcement by the Acting Prime Minister (Mr. Forde), the Minister for Aircraft Production (Senator Cameron) said the Government also planned to produce its own transport aircraft to operate the nationalised air lines. However, details of the proposed Australian-made air liners had not yet been considered, because the aircraft industry would be concentrated for some time on the production of war planes. A Government spokesman has announced that efforts are being made to secure the services of the managing director of Qantas Airways, Mr. Hudson Fysh, as chief of the new statutory authority which will control Australia s internal air lines. Mr. Fysh is abroad at present, and the Government has not received any indication as to whether he will accept the position. In a referendum held eight years ago, the Federal Government failed to secure control of aviation, but subsequently all the States individually gave the Commonwealth certain aviation powers. Government legal authorities are understood to have advised that if one of the States withdrew the powers it granted to the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth could cut that State off from all interstate aviation. Some independent legal authorities hold the view that this year's referendum vote against the Government control of industry may place the air control plaa outside the Constitution.

The air line companies rest their case on five main claims—efficiency, initiative, safety, adherence to time-tables, and low fares and freight rates. It is claimed that the air-mail rate in Australia is the lowest in the world, and that the passenger fares average 3.2 d a mile, compared with 5Jd a mile in the United States.

One Australian company, it is stated, had applied to the Government for a licence to operate a land-plane service across the Tasman from Sydney to Auckland for a fare of £17. The fare charged by Tasman Empire Airways, a Government-controlled company, whose capital is shared by the Governments of Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, is £30. "SOCIALISTIC BOMBSHELL." In a leading article headed "A Socialistic Bombshell," the "Sydney Morning Herald" says that the proposed action, even if it is within the legal competence of the Government, is clearly contrary to the spirit of the recent referendum vote. The paper says that the "sadly backward" condition of the Australian railways presents a poor advertisement for socialistic control, while recollections of the Commonwealth's venture into the ownership and operation of ships after the last, war will inspire anything but confidence in a Government which proposes such a course in the transport field.