Unions Bitter Attack On Minister

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22822, 17 December 1948, Page 5

Unions Bitter Attack On Minister

CANBERRA, Dec. 16

The acting-Attorney-General, Senator N. E. McKenna, was bitterly criticised by delegates to the Canberra Trades and Labour Council.

The delegates accused him of being responsible for the Cabinet decision to abolish the Australian Capital Territory Industrial Board which controls wages and industrial conditions in the territory. He was accused of being "contemptuous of the Labour movement, blundering tactless and vindictive.” Mr. A. E. Gardiner, of the Australian Workers’ Union, urged the striking of a levy of £1 on all unionists in the capital territory to raise a fund of £SOOO ‘to fight Senator McKenna on election day in his own dunghill in Tasmania.”

The secretary of the council, Mr. Blumenthal, said that Dr. H. V. Evatt, the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Johnson and the Minister of Housing, Mr. Lemmon, had all at various times given promises that the board would not be abolished.

The council adopted a recommendation to use every means of conciliation and arbitration in the issue and to ask Cabinet to hold its hand until the return of Dr. Evatt.