AUSTRALIAN AFFAIRS

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 July 1945, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN AFFAIRS

' —J — ' SYDNEY PLANE CRASH TWELVE LIVES LOST (Recd. 12.10 p.m.) SYDNEY, July 20. Twelve lives were lost when an R.A.F. Transport Command plane crashed soon after taking off from Mascot aerodrome last night. The crew of six and six passengers were killed instantly. The crash was the worst air disaster which has occurred in Sydney. , The machine after striking a clump of trees crashed into a concrete bridge over Cook’s River. A terrific explosion shook the neighbourhood. Residents, two miles away, said that houses trembled and doors and windows rattled. Some eye-witnesses said the plane exploded in the air but, generally it is thought the explosion occurred when the craft struck the tree tops, which were cut off. There were no Australians aboard. Eleven of the bodies were recovered last night, some of them almost unrecognisable. The twelfth victim’s body lies under the water in Cook’s River. The cause of the accident is unknown. Immediately the plane crashed it burst into flames, and the wreckage burned for several hours. Heroic efforts were made by a civilian and three firemen who were among the first to arrive to bring the bodies to the bank of the river into which they had been thrown. One man dragged three bodies from the wreckage before he collapsed stunned by an exploding flare. About five thousand walked or travelled in cars to the scene of the crash last night. AIRWAYS CONTROL CANBERRA, July 20. The Government’s airlines legislation is a Bill for straightout nationalisation, said the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Menzies) in an interview. It will be interesting to see how the Government can reconcile this Bill with the express promise given by the late Mr. Curtin during the last election that the Government would not nationalise any industry during the war. The Bi’ll was being introduced during a war,' while attention of thousands of citizens was fully occupied by urgent problems of national safety. “This legislation is purely post-war in character and represents an indecent attempt to give effect to a portion of Labour’s domestic policy in the course of a Parliament which was elected by the people for the sole purpose of hastening the defeat of Germany and Japan.” REMOVING RESTRICTIONS. CANBERRA, July 20. Many wartime controls will be removed if the reports before the Federal Government are implemented. Two reports have been submitted to the Government —one by the chairman of the Regulations Advisory Committee, (Mr. A. Fraser) and one by the Cabinet sub-committee under the chairmanship of the Minister of Postwar Reconstruction (Mr. Dedman). The Government is considering the reports and may shortly bring in the first major relaxation of controls since the war began. Mr. Fraser’s report recommends that Australia should follow the lead given by Britain after V.E. Day. If that advice is accepted, many restrictions on manufacture and sale of clothing and goods, transport, petrol restrictions and restrictions on repair of goods, will be abolished, and also many personal liberties and forms of trial restricted by regulation will be restored. CAMP ESCAPEES. (Rec. 12.45 p.m.) k BRISBANE, July 20. Yet another break has been made ■from Grovely detention barracks. Eight soldiers escaped from Grovely, after one of them hacked a hole in ■the barbed-wire fence at the back of the barracks. A cordon of guards was put around the area and four men were recaptured after a few minutes. The other four are still at large. DOCTORS’ OVERCHARGE. PERTH, July 19. Two Kalgoorlie doctors have been fined £240 by the Medical Register Committee for unnecessary attendances and excessive fees charged, under the Workers’ Compensation Act. They are Dr. M. Gorman and Dr. V. P Neville. The committee following complaints by the State insurance office, made an investigation into the attendance upon and fees charged for two injured workers. Two charges were levelled jointly against two doctors. On each of these charges they were each" fined £3O. There were three other charges on which Dr. Neville was fined a further £l2O. These charges included 37 attendances in 37 days on a worker who was suffering from a strained back, 22 attendances in 23 days in a similar case, and 35 attendances in 36 days on a worker suffering from dislocation of the first metacarpal joint of the hand. All of the accounts rendered by the doctors in connection with the cases will automatically be reduced. 7,000,000 SHEEP LOST. SYDNEY, July 18. The losses of sheep in New South Wales during the drought are estimated by the Government Statistician (Mr S. R. Carver) to have been well over 7,000,000. The figure up to March 31 was 7,370,000, and as the drought in most districts continued long after that the total must have been considerably increased. In addition at least 4.000.000 died from other causes, and nearly 9,000,000 were slaughtered. It is estimated that the sheep population is about 46,000,000, as against 56,000.000 a year earlier.