STORMY FUTURE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 146, 22 June 1945, Page 5

STORMY FUTURE

AUSTRALIAN LABOUR

LOSS OF MR. CURTIN LIKELY (Special P.A. Correspondent.) SYDNEY, June 21. With the next Federal polls due in 15 months, Australia's Labour Government is already suffering severe electoral headaches arising from an embarrassingly wide variety of causes. These include the probable effects upon the voters of the world's highest taxation; a housing shortage estimated at more than 300,000 dwellings; and continued industrial strife and internal dissension within the Labour movement, provoked largely by the demands *of Communist-influenced militants. In addition, the Labour Party, faces the dismaying possibility that, because of his continued ill-health, it may be without the election leadership of the Prime Minister, Mr. Curtin. The strongest reaction to the defeat of Germany so far felt in Australian domestic politics has concerned the current record high level of taxation. A significant feature of the mounting irritability under heavy taxation is its prevalence among income groups in which Labour Governments traditionally find their greatest voting strength. This was reflected in trenchant criticism of the current tax rates at last week's Congress of the Australian Council of Trades Unions, which decided to press for relief. RISE IN INCOME TAX. The income tax for a single man earning £750 which was £71 for the financial year 1938-39, is now £243. The income tax for a married man with a wife and two children and receiving a similar salary has risen from £55 to £166. The relief promised by the Treasurer, Mr. J. B. Chifley, is a remote prospect and more concrete promises will be necessary if large numbers of votes are not to be lost by the Labour Government at the 1946 elections. Housing vies with high taxation as the Government's prime election headache—and today Commonwealth officials admit that the timber and shipping shortages are sounding the death knell of the Government's hope of building 24,000 houses by the end of 1946. Efforts to place orders overseas for timber and household fittings have been without success. The Minister of Trade and Customs, Senator R. V. Keane, also admitted that it was unlikely that the Government will be able to achieve its target of 50,000 new homes in the first postwar year. MR. CURTIN'S AILMENT. In spite of many criticisms, Australians of all classes remain devoted to Mr. Curtin, who gave this country "such positive leadership in the dark days of 1942. The indications are that Mr. Curtin will not make a complete recovery from his present prolonged indisposition. But Labour is hoping that he will be able to go to the polls, at least as the nominal head of the party to whom his leadership means so much. If Mr. Curtin's ill health forces him to resign, the Treasurer, Mr. Chifley, is expected to become the party leader in preference to the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. F. M. Forde. With high taxation, the housing shortage, the industrial nationalisation trends, industrial unrest, and the unsatisfactory position of the ex-service-men rehabilitation, the Opposition will have a wide choice of sticks with which to belabour the Government at the polls. Labour's defence will rest largely upon its record of gearing Australia for total war, upon its social security proposals, and last, but not least, upon the failure so far of the Opposition parties, old and " new, to declare policies of positive aims which might be expected to appeal to the main body of electors.