AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 April 1943, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

OPPOSITION “REVOLT”

NEW GROUP’S PROGRAMME

MELBOURNE, April 3. The aims of the .new National Service Group of the United Australia Party have been explained in a lengthy 10-point manifesto. The group was formed on Thursday, when 17 members of the party broke away after expressing dissatisfaction with their leadership. These members will remain within the framework of the Untied Australia Party, but will not attend party meetings. The group’s aims are:— Full co-operation with the United Nations. ; , One Australian Army, to be used anywhere in the world. Concentration of total financial resources on the war (the manifesto advocates heavier rationing, price control, taxation, and the introduction of compulsory loans, leaving civilians just enough of their incomes for frugal provision). Taxation of every adult person except servicemen and pensioners. No more talk of social services during war, but this is not to stop planning for post-war reconstruction. ' A review of the basis of overtime payments, since “soldiers do not get treble pay for holidays, when they risk their futures and their lives.’ The abandonment of the “suicidal policy of wiping out” the middle class. The preservation of Australian industries and their private initiative. The maintenance of a proper balance between production and distribution and the fighting services to avoid “starving” essential production or the transport of manpower. A national service spirit. The spokesman of the group s ai d its aim was to unite the United Australia Party, not to weaken it. The group had been formed because its members were dissatisfied with the ■way the party had conducted its fight against the Government. The move was not one by Mr. Menzies to gam control of the party. The group still recognised Mr. Hughes as the party leader, and Mr. Fadden as the joint Opposition leader.

POPULATION NEEDED ""SYDNEY, April 5. Australia must increase its population to survive. That this faqt is thoroughly realised by the great majority of Australians is strikingly indicated by a recent public opinion survey. No less than ninety-three per cent, of those questioned declared the Commonwealth must have great increase in white population in order to be safe from invasion by Asiatic races. That ninety-three per cent were split almost exactly into two halves, —those who advocated ’ more Australian babies, and those who wished to encourage immigration as well as larger Australian families. Two-thirds of those favouring immigration wanted only English-speaking people to enter their country, but there was considerable support for permitting entry to hardy white Nordic races and to Russians. The continuation of a “White Australia” policy was unanimously favoured. Bigger Australian families were advocated by seventy per cent, of those Questioned, forty per cent, favouring four children as the average family. Twenty-two per cent, voted for three children, and twenty per cent, considered there should be at least five children in an average family. Improved economic conditions with security of employment and goveernment financial assistance were widely advocated to encourage larger families. Baby bonuses, Government housing schemes, (with mortgage reduction for each child), were among the schemes suggested. During the past ten years, Australia’s birthrate lias been below twenty per thousand of population. Eighty years ago it was Jorty-two per thousand. However, the 'birthrate has risen steadily since the depression years, when it reached the record low level of sixteen decimal four. At nineteen decimal five for the first nine months of 1942, the latest figures available, it is still below the rate for 1929-30.

WATERSIDE STRIKE

SYDNEY, April 5. By a majority of two hundred, a mass meeting of nearly four thousand Sydney waterside Avorkers decided to persist in the refusal to work under the gang system. Pleas by union leaders and other State branches for a resumption of Avork were disregarded. The original decision in favour of striking, made at a mass meeting of trvo thousand Avatersiders on March 28, was almost unanimous. The gang system, already in operation in other States, was introduced in Sydney a AVgek ago by the Stevedoring Industry Commission. Since then, the watersiders have refused to work and ships have been worked by the army. Under the gang system, the men are picked up in gangs of about twenty. Gangs may be moved from one joo to another as needed, thus eliminating delays in handling cargoes. Under the old system, individual men Avere picked for particular jobs. Meanwhile, about three thousand soldiers have been unloading ships and despatching supplies for the battle zones. The union leaders who advised the men to return to work described the strike as “rotten.” They fear serious extensions of the strike may occur. “Four thousand able-bodied men cannot be permitted to lounge idly about the waterfront while this country is crying out for manpoAver — \vnile many other thousands of citi- ' zens are being taken from their homes and avocations to work in construction camps,” says the Sydney “Herald” editorially to-day, urging immediate Government intervention in the “senseless, wrongful” strike. The paper declares that other wartime tasks must be found for workers who have refused to accept the conditions agreed to by iheir own executive. “Indulgence and appeasement only encourage industrial turbulence, the unruly elements apparently being blind or indifferent to the fact that the growth of wartime strikes must be ruinous to the Labour Ministry. Mr. Curtin is calling upon all people for sacrifices. He and his Government must see to it that no privileged section escapes the obligation to Avork or fight, Avhile soldiers are required to fight and work as well.”