VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT

Evening Star, Issue 23501, 15 February 1940, Page 13

VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT

GRANTING OF DISSOLUTION SWIFT ELECTION CAMPAIGN Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright MELBOURNE, February 14. The dissolution of the State Parliament, granted by the Governor at the request of the Premier, is unique in Victorian political history in that the Government was not threatened on the floor of Parliament, where it had a working majority with the support of the Labour Party, and was never endangered. Only four, at most, of the members of the parliamentary Country Party are supporters of the coterie in the party’s Central Council, which demanded the right to dominate the Ministry’s actions. .With an election on March 16. the campaign will be swift. The Premier, Mr A. A. Dnnstan, will give his policyspeech at Bendigo on February 26. Mr Dunstan said to-day that his war policy would be the full suport of the Commonwealth Government’s efforts. Though Mr Dunstan has not yet said so, the main issue will be the Government’s right to resist control by organisations outside Parliament. Mr Dunstan has been in office for nearly five years. A large section of the Central Council of the Country Party is strongly behind Mr Dunstan, and. "deplores the breach caused by persons within the party ranks. Labour is unlikely to oppose any 7 sitting Country Party members. The United Australia Party regards the election as entirely unnecessary. The leader, Sir Stanley Argyle, said the use of the parliamentary machine to settle an internal faction squabble was unpardonable.