COUNCIL REFORM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21952, 13 May 1933, Page 13

COUNCIL REFORM

NEW SOUTH WALES PROPOSAL VOTING ON THE REFERENDUM. SYDNEY, May 12. (Received May 12, at 11.30 p.m.) The electors of New South Wales will to-morrow be called upon to vote upon a referendum for reform of the Legislative Council, for which there has been intense campaigning by the Stevens Government and considerable opposition by the Labour Party, led by Mr Lang. The Reform Bill provides that the Legislative Council of the future shall consist of 60 members, each holding office for 12 years, one-fourth to be retired at the end of each three years. They are to be elected by members of the Parliament for the time being on the basis of proportional representation. Thus the old order of things under which that Chamber could be swamped with nominees of either party passes. Another important provision in the Reform Bill is a proviso for a referendum of the people on any measure on which there is parliamentary disagreement and a deadlock. The Lang Party claims that an affirmative vote by the electors will dispel the rights of democracy for all time and will enable an anti-Labour Government to set up a dictatorship and keep Labour out of office indefinitely and prevent the will of the people from being given effect to. The Government’s supporters, on the other hand, have argued that the usefulness of the present Upper House as a deliberative, revisionary chamber has already been destroyed by the precedents Mr Lang established by trying to force consecutive Governors to acknowledge that his Ministrs had the right to interpret their own mandate and the right of swamping that Chamber in order to force legislation through Parliament.