NATIONAL SECURITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25560, 13 June 1944, Page 4

NATIONAL SECURITY

WAR-TIME REGULATIONS

MODIFICATION EXPECTED (N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent! SYDNEY, June 12.

Modification, or even repeal, of many of Australia’s thousands of war-time regulations is expected to follow the appointment of an advisory committee to review the National Security Regulations, This committee has been set up following numerous complaints against many . forms of Government control. Restoration of declining public confidence and improvement in referendum prospects are two results believed to be hoped for by the Government. The chairman of the committee is the new Labour member, Mr A. D. Fraser (New South Wales), who in his maiden speech suggested the appointment of an anditor-general of civil liberties. He has three colleagues who also fought hard for civil liberties. They are Mr David Maugham K.C. (president of the Law Council of Australia). Dr Frank Louat (president of the Constitutional Association of New South Wales), and Mr J. V. Berry, K.C. (Melbourne). Mr Maughan only a few weeks ago powerfully criticised the excessive war-time practice of law-making by regulation. During the past week a Parliamentary committee has been investigating communications censorship set up under the National Security Regulations, now to be reviewed. Extracts made public from evidence taken in camera disclosed, first, that the censors had passed on to the Rationing Commission information of rationing breaches found in soldiers’ mail; secondly, other information, including secret business formula found in private mail, was passed on “ discreetly and secretly” to Government departments and to the taxation authorities. The committee announced that it was “ likely to recommend ” discontinuance of the use of communications censorship for rationing breaches.

The existence of such a “Gestapo system” has been widely denounced, and it is hoped that the committee now appointed to investigate Australia’s National Security Regulations will make further recommendations, resulting in their substantial modification where the powers delegated exceed those needed for strict war purposes.