NEW POLITICAL PARTY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 26 November 1943, Page 3

NEW POLITICAL PARTY

COLLAPSE OF NEGOTIATIONS Sydney, Nov. 25. Negotiations for the formation in New South Wales of a new Liberal Democratic Party have collapsed. It had been intended that the new party should become a Commonwealth-wide coalition of all non-Labour interests. As the beginning the new party representing a merger of the United Australia, Liberal Democratic and Commonwealth parties intended to contest next year’s New South Wales State elections. New South Wales at present has a Labour Government. Supporters of the original Liberal Democrats walked out from the conference after a heated debate on the United Australia Party demand that its paid party staff be temporarily retained. United Australia and Commonwealth party delegates have agreed to merge and form a new organisation to be called the Democratic Party. Liberal Democrats will continue as a separate organisation. Most political commentators blame the United Australia Party which provides the bulk of the opposition in New South Wales State as well as in the Federal Parliament for failure of the negotiations. “No student of the malaise which has afflicted the U.A.P., will feel any surprise at this collapse says the “Sydney Morning Herald” in an editorial. “Obviously if a genuine new start were to be made the question of control of the new party organisation involved the relinquishment of certain vested interests. Delegates of the Liberal Democratic Party could hardly be expected to accept a plan which would virtually have installed the discredited U.A.P. machine as an organising medium for the new party. The breakdown of the conference, disappointing to all who hoped it would lead to the birth of a much needed virile progressive political movement, confirms the belief that the building of a new party must begin from the ground up and not from the top down.” —P.A. Special Australian Correspondent.