WAR ELECTION

Grey River Argus, 28 June 1943, Page 5

WAR ELECTION

ON BRISBANE LINE VERY LIVELY CAMPAIGN Australia’s New Ditty (Special to N.Z. Press Assn.) (Rec. 8.25.) SYDNEY, June 27. The forthcoming Federal polling is expected to be held on a date late in August. Parliament is 'expected to dissolve at the end of the week. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr. Evatt, has been recalled from London to 1 support the Government. He is expected 'back here within three weeks. By that time the Commonwealth will‘be in the throes of perhaps the bitterest and most interesting and important election campaign in .its history. The outcome of a Royal Commission of Enquiry centring .around the statements by the suspended Minister of Labour, Hon. Mr. Ward, that he has been “most reliably informed” that a vital documents was missing from War Cabinet flies, may prove an important election factor. Whatever the Royal Commission’s finding, however, of the “Brisbane Line” issue the wider question of Australian defence will dominate the elections. One correspondent writes: “The Brisbane Line is not long enough to take all of the dirty washing that will be hung on it in tne next few weeks.” This is a certain feature Of the electioneering. The fact is deplored by all Australian newspapers. _The “Sydney Telegraph” (non-La-bour) says of the Brisbane Line: “At. best the squabble is academic. At worst, it is dishonest and mischievous.”

By constant repetition, however, the “nebulous intangilbe Brisbane Line” has become a catchcry all over Australia.

This is a palpable electioneering issue. Many expect Labour to capitalise on it. It is well explained in a socalled vote-snaring chorus, sung to the appropriate tune of “The Siegfried Line” as follows:—

“We’re going to hang Bob Menzies On the Brisbane Line,

With Fadden and Percy Spender, too; i Hanging is really far too good for them

After what they planned to do; They wanted to give North Queensland to the Jap, And sell you to our foes; So help us to hang them

On the Brisbane Line . For they’re So and Soes!” The Sydney “Sun’s” political correspondent to-day makes the following comment: “Until the public emotions clarify, it would be a bold prophet who would forecast the outcome of the election. All are agreed that .it is likely! to be as close, as bitter, and as fluctuating in week-to-week-fortune as any in Australia’s history. 1 ' In the Federal Elections, about the ‘Brisbane Line’ and the personal question of Ministerial integrity, there stand many broader isLabour’s defence record and its post-war Social Security plans will perhaps be the most solid planks _ in the Government’s platform, which will rest securely on the Australian appreciation of the sincerity and honesty of purpose of the Prime Minister, Mr. Curtin. His personal prestige is Labour’s greatest election asset. . The Opposition, however, will surfer no lack of election ammunition. Strikes and absenteeism; alleged Government subservience to .trade unions that increasingly are under the influence of the Communists; rejection of a National Government, inflationary finance; failure to provide one army; bureaucratic control; alleged food bungling, are all items that will contribute to the Opposition Parties’ indictment of the Curtin Government. . , ,_ Among great and imponderable factors which are likely to decide the outcome at the polls will be the soldiers’ vote, the effect of the war, the industrial population drift, ana the “coupon vote,” that is the reaction of public to wartime restrictions on food, clothing, and amusement.