M.P. UNDER FIRE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22318, 1 May 1947, Page 5

M.P. UNDER FIRE

ALLEGED LIBEL IN HOUSE COMMUNISM CHARGES (10 am ) CANBERRA, May 1. A charge that Mr. Abbott (Country Party) had made libellous, untrue and damaging statements about decent citizens who were “entirely opposed to communism’’ was made in the House of Representatives by Mr. Mulcahy (Labour). He asked the Prime Minister Mr J. B. Chifiey, if a private citizen could be protected from statements made under Parliamentary privilege. In moving the adjournment motion in the House of Representatives last week, Mr Abbottt named 21 members of the deregistered Katoomba branch of the Labour Party as active Communists. Mr. Chifiey said that private citizens had no redress. He regarded it as a reflection on democracy that statements should be made under Parliamentary privilege which might ruin the career of of a private citizen. Many people so named, including a doctor and a novelist, have written to the Sydney papers repudiating the charges. The Daily Telegraph comments: Unless Mr. Abbott is prepared to accept the challenge to repeat the charges outside the House, his statements will lose all authority to intelligent and unbiassed observers.”