LABOUR GROUPS CHANGING STAND ON ANTI-RED BILL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23366, 23 September 1950, Page 7

LABOUR GROUPS CHANGING STAND ON ANTI-RED BILL

SYDNEY, Sept. 22,

Labour organisations throughout Australia are reconsidering their attitude towards the Communist Party Dissolution Bill in the light of the international situation.

Last night the executive of the Tasmanian branch of the Australian Labour Party decided to recommend that the Federal Labour Party should accept the bill as amended by the Government.

The decision reflects the opposition of Tasmanian Labour to the holding of a general election with the bill as the main point of difference. The Tasmanian executive does not approve the clause in the bill which places upon an accused person the onus of proving his innocence, but believes that Labour would be bound to lose an election fought on the Issue. In Melbourne, the Trades Hall Council last night ruled in favour of Labour withdrawing its opposition to the bill. It flatly rejected a recommendation by the inter-State executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to continue opposing the bill. The voting was 71 to 56.

Mr. D. Lovegrove, secretary of the Victorian Labour Party, accused the Labour Council of “industrial cowardice and political bankruptcy.” In Sydney the president of the Labour Council of New South Wales, Mr. C. Anderson, said the trade union movement was hopelessly divided over the anti-Communist measure and that Communist wreckers were trying to split the movement wide open. A noisy meeting rejected by 93 votes to 54 a Left-wing attempt to delete from a report by the inter-State executive the decision supporting United Nations’ interference in Korea.