JOBLESS AUSTRALIANS

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 January 1930, Page 11

JOBLESS AUSTRALIANS

MR J. O’BRIEN INTERVIEWED.

Unemployment in Australia is much worse than it is in New Zealand, ac-' cording to Mr J. O’Brien, M.P., "who has just spent a holiday touring Victoria and New South Wales (says the Auckland Sun of Tuesday). “I found a great deal of unemployment in the country towns,” said Mr O’Brien, ■who returned by the Marama. “Even though it was harvest time there was no work for the men. Ihey seem to have been replaced by the combined harvester and stripper. “Men were tramping the country looking for work. It was the same in Sydney and Melbourne, and there were indications that the- position would become worse as the winter advanced.”

Compared with Australia, Mr O’Brien thought New Zealand had a better chance of easing the unemployed position during the winter. “Politically, the situation in Australia is rotten,” commented the Labour M.P. “The Labour Party is making a great bid for power, but the other parties do not give the Labour parties which are in power a chance to do their work. One of the chief troubles is that parties have gone in and out of power too quickly.” Mr O’Brien considers that Australia is overgoverned, and he heard a good deal of complaint about taxation. Despite this, however, taxation had been increased. State and Federal legislation and taxation overlapped, and this meant a great deal of extra expense to the Commonwealth. Despite all her present handicaps, Mr O’Brien is of the opinion that the country will recover. She has wonderful resources and will come through' her present period of depression.

Irrigation had done wonders for North Victoria, where thousands of acres of barren country were now producing largo quantities of fruit and vegetables. In Cohuna, however, the fresh water had brought, all the salt to the top of the ground and the whole country had to be drained. There was so much salt that when the land was drained into a nearly fresh-water river it turned the river brackish and killed the fish.

The Murray River had been almost exhausted by the irrigation schemes, and so much water had been drawn from that big stream that two-thirds of the way up from the sea it had turned green.

Speaking of the difficulties under which some of the farmers worked, Mr O’Brien said that one day he was on a railway station in the irrigation area when the tomato growers arrived with 60,000 cases of tomatoes to be sent to the Melbourne market. Just before the train left they were informed by telegram that as it was raining in Melbourne the tomatoes would not be wanted as the market was already glutted. The whole 60,000 cases had to be disposed of at 2s 6d a case, and Mr O’Brien says he will never forget the look of despair on the faces of the growers, many of them struggling ex-servicemen.