POST-WAR INDUSTRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25456, 10 February 1944, Page 5

POST-WAR INDUSTRY

GOVERNMENT PARTICIPATION CONTROVERSY IN AUSTRALIA (N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) SYDNEY. Feb. 8. Proposals for the Australian Government’s participation in industry on a commercial basis after the war have been endorsed by the Prime Minister, Mr Curtin, and the matter is likely to be warmly debated when the Bill to authorise a referendum on extra postwar Commonwealth powers comes before the new session offethe Federal Parliament. Althougn thfl Prime Minister said there was no fixed Government policy on participation in industry, he added: “It is just a broad question of how best to use the nation’s assets. I do not think they should be sacrificed by being knocked down to some bidder at a bargain sale.” Mr Curtin was commenting on a statement made yesterday by the Minister of Munitions. Mr N. J. Makin, that the Commonwealth should be given wider post-war powers so that it could enter industry to maintain the Government munitions plants, valued at £100,000,000, on an efficient basis. Mr Makin’s statement has already aroused considerable controversy. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr K. G. Menzies, has commented: “ The Government is apparently to become a highly-favoured competitor in the business world. Mr Makin’s statement is most revealing. While the Attorneygeneral, Dr Evatt, is earnestly explaining that the proposed powers are really designed to provide justice for the returned members of the fighting services and that our fears about socialisation are groundless, Mr Makin comes out with a blunt proposition that these powers will enable the Government to use for trade purposes its munition factories, which have been largely paid for by those many thousands of taxpayers who are engaged in private enterprise.” Mr Makin has replied that apparently Mr Menzies would “sell out for a song ” the enormously valuable assets created by the Commonwealth during the war in the munitions industries, just as after the last war vested interests had succeeded in gaining control of the Australian shipbuilding indus- e try and of the Commonwealth shipping line.

Mr Makin said his statement had nothing to do With the general question of nationalisation. He had merely insisted that the muntions potential should not be dissipated as it was after the last war. Among items which have been suggested for post-war manufacture by the Government munition factories have been hot and cold water services, plumbing, doors, windows, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and other household, electrical equipment, and farming machinery. It has also been suggested that the plants might be even more widely used to implement the gigantic prefabrication housing scheme.