MILITANT UNIONISTS IN AUSTRALIA ARE “APPREHENSIVE”

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 March 1950, Page 3

MILITANT UNIONISTS IN AUSTRALIA ARE “APPREHENSIVE”

SYDNEY, March 30.—Militant ; union leaders are incensed and ap- : prehensive following the disclosure by the Prime Minister (Mr Menzies) that a temporary settlement of the Brisbane waterfront dispute will not mean the automatic revocation of the proclamation of the Crimes Act. Federal Government Ministers have made it clear that they believe the Brisbane trouble is only a small phase of a politically-inspired attempt to create chaos in trade and industry. The militant union leaders are most concerned about the section of the act which lays down that anyone participating in or encouraging a strike or lock-out is liable to imprisonment of up to a year or, if he was not born in Australia, to immediate deportation. Under the Labour Government the militants lost many of their key men by imprisonment for contempt of the Arbitration yCourt, and the chief Australian Communist, L. L. Sharkey, is still serving a gaol term for sedition.

The Crimes Act sub-section rendering non-Australian offenders liable to deportation is an even more lethal weapon in ths hands of the Government.

The general secretary of the Waterside Workers’ Federation (Mr J. Healy), who was prominent during the heat of the Brisbane dispute in uttering threats against the Government, and who, in one statement, said: “Mi’ Menzies can rest assured that his anti-Communist ravings will not delude the 25,000 members of the Waterside Workers’ Federation, who are probably more Australian than he is,” is only one of a number of known militants who can be removed from the Australian scene by the simple application of the Crimes Act. Several other union leaders are in a similar position.