LABOUR’S SKY SCHEMES

Kaikoura Star, Volume LVI, Issue 93, 26 November 1936, Page 4

LABOUR’S SKY SCHEMES

Looking well ahead is a virtue of the New South Wales executive of the Australian Labour Party. In conformity with the principle of making transport a Government monopoly, the executive considers itself bound to oppose the Commonwealth Government’s proposal to secure the Federal control of aviation, through a referendum, on constitutional amendment. At present, flic executive states, air transport in Australia. is privately owned; and to put the aviation of all States under Federal control would tend to confirm private ownership. State ownership of transport facilities is a fundamental principle, in Lab our’s platform, and it. is a principle that has been endorsed by the whole of Australia since the commencement of railway transport in Australia. This principle was recognised by the people of the whole of the Commonwealth at the time of Federation. In this State (New South Wales), the Government has invested in lhe railways £145,000,000. most: of it borrowed money. The combined services give employment to 40,000 workers, and being a State monopoly, the guiding principle behind its management is public service, not dividends. Even with the outlay of 145 millions ( most borrowed) the Government monopoly of transport fails to include huge fleets of motor vehicles, but the executive says there is no need to worry about these. “The Labour movement recognised that motor competition was only a passing phase, and that lhe r<ial menace would come from the :i ' r - So, to make (he Government transport monopoly as wide as it should be, on earth ami in the air. the New South Wales executive opposes the G.>\einmont’s amendment I’ederalising aviation. When the <o i of all other transport added to the I 15 millions South 'Wales alone, the combined capit:il account of th,- < > IH imi monopoly will lie eolossal. But the exei u l.i\'e, it it own lhe air. may become content. To all appearances, “(he skv i > the limit.’’