FEDERAL ELECTION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 30 June 1943, Page 5

FEDERAL ELECTION

CAMPAIGN TO BEGIN SOON DEFENCE MATTERS Sydney, June 29. The members of Australia’s Federal Parliament will begin their election campaigns as soon as Parliament is dissolved, probably on Thursday. The party leaders have worked out the itineraries. The Prime Minister, Mr Curtin, whose personal prestige may prove the greatest single factor at the polls, will open his campaign in Sydney. He is unlikely to visit his own electorate. Fremantle, till the final fortnight. Though campaigning has not yet begun, recriminations on defence matters have already come from both Government and Opposition members. “This preliminary shadow sparring indicates that the ‘Brisbane Line’ is going to lose somebody the elections,” says the Sydney "Telegraph” editorially. “Let us hope the loser will not be the elector.” Also remarking on the grave danger of the election being fought on false issues, the “Sydney Morning Herald” to-day editorially urges Mr Curtin to “steer the election clear of the mud in which some of his followers are preparing to wallow.” N.Z. CITED AS EXAMPLE Critics of t.he Curtin Government’s defence polity consistently quote New Zealand for her readiness to dispatch her armed forces overseas and for her less vocal pleas for assistance during the most trying months of the Pacific war. Some newspaper commentators are now expressing the early view that Labour is likely to emerge from the polls with a small majority in the House of Representatives—but so much refrains at issue that such prognostications are clearly premature. Only the present represented Federal parties, the Labour, the United Austra•n a „ nd the United Country Parties, will have any great importance at the polls. The Communist Party will supP° rt Curtin Government. None of the other some 30 embryonic Federal parties is likely to achieve any promin-

Most political writers endeavour to impress on the Australian people that perhaps the greatest election issue is flow the parties propose to deal with Australia s difficulties in the immediate post-war years. The result of the pcllmg may well determine the shape of Australian post-war society. Mr Curtin has appealed for an “austerity eleciJJJ* with all the parties in con°L the gf ea test funds in their history the polls are likely to be expensively as well as bitterly contested Une of the measures to be brought bef ° r .e Parliament before it dissolves is a am to provide for reciprocity between Australia and New Zealand in the payment of invalid and old age pensions. It is certain of approval.—P.A. Special Australian Correspondent.