AUSTRALIAN DEBATE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 122, 25 May 1945, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN DEBATE

SOLDIER PREFERENCE (Special P.A. Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 24. Stormy ■ scenes developed in the Federal House of Representatives during this week's debate on the Reestablishment and Employment BUI. At oile stage the gag was applied three times in 25 minutes, amid uproar from the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr. R J Menzies, then accused the Government of introducing party rancour into what it claimed was a non-party measure. _ The Minister of Post-war Reconstruction, Mr. J. J. Dedman, who is in charge of the Bill, charged the Opposition with stonewalling and playing to the gallery of returned soldiers and officials. In a Bill of 130 clauses only seven clauses have yet been considered in the committee stages. The House now faces the prospect of a series of sittings until 2 a.m. to dispose of the. measure as speedily as possible. But the influential Victorian Independent member, Mr. Coles, believes that because of the Government "pigheadedness" the debate may continue for weeks. Earlier in the week the Government announced 34 amendments to the Bill. Critics regard this as a public revelation that the Bill is far from being the "servicemen's charter" that it should be. One important amendment eliminated doubts about when soldier preference would begin to operate. Its starting point has been defined as "at the end "of all wars in which the King is engaged," which will mean the end of the Japanese war —if global hostilities then cease. HOPE OF FULL EMPLOYMENT. Labour spokesmen made it clear that the Government did not regard the hotly-debated issue of preference as the most important means of re-estab-lishing returned men and women, Mr. Dedman said the Government had accepted the view that preference could play its part and had provided for it in the Bill. It was significant, however, that no other country in the Eng-lish-speaking world had thought sufficient of the importance of preference to include it in any rehabilitation legislation. Every provision of the Bill would be completely useless to the returned soldier unless Australia achieved full postwar employment. No less than this was the responsibility of the Government, and it was a challenge to the survival of the democratic system. The presidents of all the State branches of the Returned Soldiers' League, headed by the Federal president, Sir Gilbert Dyett, are in Canberra, watching the progress of the Bill which one soldier delegate described as a "shocking measure, ,which should be withdrawn and redrafted." One main complaint of returned soldiers against the Bill is that under its provisions so many non-service persons share in preference that its value to servicemen is destroyed.