RED HECKLERS: CALWELL SAYS THEY ARE “SCUM”

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 August 1949, Page 6

RED HECKLERS: CALWELL SAYS THEY ARE “SCUM”

SYDNEY, This Day (Rec 9 a.m.).— “The best place for these people (indicating Communist interjectors) is a concentration camp, and if it is left to me, in a concentration camp they will go,” said the Minister of Immigration (Mr A. A. Calwell) in an address to 10,000 persons in the Sydney Domain. Communists and Communist sympathisers made an unsuccessful attempt to break up the rally by cutting the amplifier cable and continually howling down the speakers. The main body of about 100 interjectors packed round the, rostrum and kept up a continual howl of interjections, but gradually the speakers won. The meeting passed a resolution affirming its confidence in the handling of the strike by the State and Federal Governments. . Described as ‘‘Scum” Mr Calwell, referring to the. Communist interjectors, shouted: “Look nt them—the 1 scum of the greatest city in Australia—they don’t believe in democracy. They take no notice of anybody but the ‘nitwits’ of Marx House, even the ‘nitwits’ who are not yet in gaol, but who soon will be. This is a fight between the Labour movement and the Labour Government on one hand and Communist ‘ratbags’ on the other. It is a fight in which the Government must win. We will use all the resources of the country against them. We will use the Army, on them, the Navy on them, and the Air Force on them. The miners have caused so much misery that people don’t care whether the miners’ leaders in gaol stay there for six months or six years. “Communist action in inducing the coal strike was the greatest act of political ‘skull duggery’ ever perpetrated on the people of Australia, and it will smash the Communist Party. We will smash the strike first and deal with the Communists afterwards.” Advice To Miners Mr Calwell predicted that the miners would be back at .work on the northern field today week. “My advice to them is to join the Australian Workers’ Union and to hand over this tyranny which has been in operation since the Miners’ Federation took the part of standover men .They are industrial outlaws and-political lepers. “We will oppose the Communists wherever they lift their ugly heads or raise their bloody fists. They have a little education; they can count up to ten. You should have seen the people they sent up to cut the amplifier wires—the poorest gang of cutthroats ever seen in Australia.”