FEDERAL PARLIAMENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 8 February 1944, Page 2

FEDERAL PARLIAMENT

COMING SESSION AT CANBERRA IMPORTANT LEGISLATION PENDING Sydney, Feb. 7. Important legislation will be debated when the second sitting of the seventeenth Australian Federal Parliament opens on Wednesday The Curtin Government is expected to introduce the Bill authorising a referendum to give the Commonwealth greater post-war powers. Making a start with its comprehensive social service plan, the Government will bring down legislation for the provision of a free medicine scheme and of unemployment and sickness benefits

Parliament may also discuss the Anzac Pact, which was signed last month by representatives of the Australian and the New Zealand Governments

The session is expected to last about a month The referendum for increased post-war Commonwealth powers is likely to be held about July, and it involves momentous issues for Australia. The Commonwealth Government asks tor the transfer for five years after the cessation of hostilities of 14 powers now held by the States. The transfer of these powers was unanimously approved by a constitutional convention of the State Premiers at Canberra in November, 1942 However, only New South Wales and Queensland honoured their Premiers’ pledges to grant the powers, and the defalcation of the other State Parliaments notv makes the referendum necessary The powers sought cover: Reinstatement of members of the fighting services; employment and unemployment; organised marketing: uniform company legislation; trusts, combines and monopolies; profiteering and prices production; control of overseas exchange and investment; air transport; uniformity of railway gauges; national works; national health; family allowances ;and aborigines CAMPAIGN COMMENCED Opinion on the likely success of such a referendum is evenly divided, but it is felt that if Mr Curtin limits the authorising Commonwealth Powers Bill to the terms agreed to by the constitutional convention, those opposing the extension of Federal powers will have much of the ground cut from under their feet. The Government campaign urging support for increased Commonwealth powers is already under way The Minister of Munitions, Mr Makin, in a statement to-day, said that the powers were required to allow the Commonwealth Government to enter into industry after the war “on a strictly commercial basis” in order to safeguard the £100.000,000 of public money now invested in munitions plants. The Minister of Agriculture, Mr Scully said that unless the Commonwealth received the new constitutional powers primary industry would return to the ‘deplorably bad” pre-war conditions and the primary producers would lose the advantages gained from the 'wartime ‘planned rural economy ” The provision of free pharmacy services to be authorised by pending legislation will cost nearly £2.000.000 a year, which is to be met out of the recently-established National Welfare Fund All persons will be entitled to take a doctor’s prescription to a chemist to be made up free of cost. The plan to provide unemployment and sickness benefit? for all allow? for a weekly payment of £2 10s to an unemployed man with a wife and one child, and an extra 5s a week for each additional child ANZAC PACT If the Australian-New Zealand agreement. which was signed in Canberra an 21st January, is debated in the Federal Parliament, it will not be disputed by the Opposition Its broad principles have already been approved by the Leader of the Opposition. Mr Menzies It is generally conceded that the Opposition has little chance of disturbing any of the cession’s legislation, but matters on which criticisms are likely to be voiced include (1) industrial unrest. (2) manpower, specially though not exclusively in relation to food, and (3)

“pay-as-you-eam” taxation. A Parliamentary committee which has been investigating pav-as-you-earn taxation is expected to present its report shortly but whatever its recommendations political observers in Canberra are seep tical of the Commonwealth Government’s early acceptance of this widelyadvocated principle.— P A Special Australian Cor»‘f»?Dondent