INFLUENCED BY MURDER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 17 April 1944, Page 3

INFLUENCED BY MURDER

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS STORY OF A MISSED TRAIN Sydney, March 28. , A murder on a train in Queensland in 1936 has influenced the passage of several important and controversial Bills through the Federal Parliament at Canberra in the last two years. Some of the Acts involved were the Militia Bill, the Women’s Employment Board Bill, and the Social Services Bill, but it was only last week, when the Constitution Alteration (Powers) Bill survived a stormy session in the Senate, that the murder influence was revealed.

The Bills concerned became law only because of the absence from the Senate every Friday of ageing Senator Thomas Crawford, Independent United Australia Party. His absence gave the Government a majority of one in the Senate. No matter how vital the measure before the House, Senator Crawford never missed catching Thursday’s 4.15 pm. train from Canberra on his long journey north. No one could drag from him the reason for his early departure, but it suited the Government, which was prepared to benefit from this strange idiocyncracy of an Opposition member and ask no questions.* Not so Senator Crawford’s fellow Oppositionists. They were furious and tried every kind of pleading and cajolery to get him to wait until the House adjourned on Friday. When he refused he was ostracised, but this meant nothing to the tall, reserved, and lonely Queenslander. Last week came the Powers Bill by which the Federal Government sought to take over by referendum 14 State powers for five years after the war to implement its reconstruction plan. On a third reading Q f a constitutional Bill every Senator must attend, so that an absolute majority may be recorded. When the division bells rang at 6.5 p.m. last Thursday 34 Senators were quickly in their places. They glued their eyes on the door. Then in walked Senator Crawford, with Senator Arthur (Independent Labour) at his elbow. With a glare of defiance at the Opposition members, Senator Crayvford strode to the Government benches, and the Bill was passed, 19—17. For the first time in years Senator Crawford had missed his train. At last he felt called on to dispel the mystery that had surrounded his early departure from Canberra. He said: “In 1936 my friend Costello, secretary of the Sugar Growers’ Association in Queensland, was murdered in a sleeping compartment near Brisbane by a foreigner. At a public meeting a few weeks later I was told I would suffer the same fate as Costello, and that is not nice, is it? I got a terrible shock a little later, when I travelled by train to Melbourne in the same compartment as Costello’s murderer. I did not know it was the murderer until after we reached Melbourne. He was dressed as a woman. But he could not have recognised me. I thought the “woman” was quite nicelooking, but he must have been a bad wretch. A girl at the boarding hduge near Flinders Street Station discovered it was a foreigner dressed as a woman and told the police. By this time I was on a ship going to England. But I was lucky to get away. I do not know how the case went against the murderer but they do not hang in Queensland. “Since then I have not travelled in a sleeping compartment in New South Wales, unless I could get a lower berth. It is easy to get a lower berth on Thursday, but not on Friday, when traffic is so much heavier.”