A NEW LABOUR PLATFORM.

Hastings Standard, Issue 20, 19 May 1896, Page 3

A NEW LABOUR PLATFORM.

Melbourne, May 18. The Labour Party has adopted a new platform, which is the outcome of the conference between the Trades Hall Council and the high-sounding United Labour and Liberal Party of Victoria. It is claimed for this new programme that it will make the party the strongest and most effective body in Australasia. Its constitutional plank, of course, embraces one man one vote, with registration as the sole qualification for Parliamentary elections. It provides for the enfranchisement of seamen and others pursuing migratory callings, and also for the referendum. Its taxation creed is a progressive tax on town and land values without exemption, a cumulative tax on all incomes of over £2OO, and a tax on absentees. The platform embraces social reforms, and provides for the establishment of a State bank, an eight-hours' a minimum wage in all Government and municipal work, the establishment of a department of labour with a responsible Minister, courts of conciliation and arbitration, the prohibition of Asiatics as workmen under contract. The Government's duties are to provide work for its own unemployed and provide the destitute with maintenence. and the perfection of the Protective policy. Federation is to be consummated by the Convention drawing up a constitution, and submitting it to the Referendum. A sure snag in this elaborate scheme is the endeavour to bind the fiscal faith of the party.