AUSTRALIAN ELECTIONS

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 August 1943, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN ELECTIONS

“FLOOD OF PROPAGANDA.”

■_ SYDNEY, August 18. “Never before has the individual elector suffered such a flood of propaganda.” says the Sydney “Daily Telegraph,” commenting on the closing days of campaigning for the Australian Federal Elections, to be held on Saturday. From to-day. no election broadcasts were permitted, but in the last three clays eight radio stations in Sydney’- alone have broadcast 76 talks of from five minutes to an hour in length. In addition, hundreds of brief announcements have been macle. “Hardly anybody went to election meetings,” adds the ‘Daily Telegraph.” “So the candidates pursued the elector to his fireside.’ Both on the air and through newspaper advertising columns the campaign has been waged with almost savage intensity for the last lour weeks. Political commentators widely complain that the campaign has provided “more red herrings than real issues.” The “Daily Telegraph says: “Discussions ranging from the Brisbane Line to responsibility for the export of pig-iron to Japan have revealed some more or less authentic history, but have touched not one of the pressing issues Australia has to face. From the moment Mr. Curtin claimed that Labour had saved Australia from the Japanese, our future and all the great problems surrounding it have been lost in. a game of ‘You did—you didn’t.’ ” “Our leaders will have to get out of this habit of mutual belitilernent if Australia is not to be weakened internally and depreciated abroad.” declares‘the “Sydney Morning Herald.” It adds that the election campaign has provided no evidence. ol any strong shift of public opinion such as would be likely to change the character of Parliament. The “Melbourne Herald, on the evidence of a public opinion poll, considers civilian support to be evenly divided between Labour and the joint Opposition parties. This leads it io assume that the armed services vote, averaging about 10,000 in each of the 74 electorates, is likely to decide many marginal seats. „ ’ Mr. Curtin has been one of the few election figures to refrain from abuse of his opponents. This is generally acknowledged to be Mr. Curtin s and Labour’s greatest strength.