LABOUR ATTITUDE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 19 June 1941, Page 5

LABOUR ATTITUDE

AUSTRALIA’S WAR EFFORT AGREEMENT ON SEVERAL POINTS (Rec. 12.45 p.m.) Canberra, This Day. 1 The official views of the Federal Labour Party on the plans for an i unlimited war effort were announced lin the House of Representatives by |Mr Curtin. He expressed agreement j with the decision to further ration petrol, extend the trade union advisory panel, appoint a Minister of Supply, and an assistant Minister of Aircraft Production; but criticised the part of Mr Menzies’s speech dealing with labour. Existing industrial machinery should have been elaborated before the Government decided to prohibit strikes, said Mr Curtin. If the Government’s powers were used capriciously the position would become worse. The Government should collaborate with Labour rather than try to put Labour into a straight jacket. He asked the Government to establish immediately a standing committee of both Houses to report constantly upon the social security of workers and the people entitled to some instalments of the social order as opportunity offered. Mr Menzies announced that the methods by which industry would be switched from civil to war production would be so designed as to cause the least possible handicap to employees. The Government had no intention of forcing the displacement of great bodies of men for whom work would not be available in war industries.