“INSULT TO PEOPLE”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27240, 17 November 1949, Page 7

“INSULT TO PEOPLE”

Mr Chifley’s Policy Speech Denounced By Opposition Leader NZPA—Copyright Rec. 8 p.m. SYDNEY, Nov. 16. A crowd of 2500 last night cheered Mr R. G. Menzies, Leader of the Federal Opposition, when he denounced the policy speech of the Prime Minister, Mr Chifley, as “ smug, and “an insult to the Australian people. Mr Menzies opened his New South Wales campaign at Ashfield, Sydney. He attacked Mr Chifley for his failure to state the Government s policy on the four main issues pf Communism, industrial peace, banking, and Socialism. “The Government is so smug, and so eaten up with selfconceit,” said Mr Menzies, that it insults the people of Australia by saying, in effect: “We refuse to put our policy before you. We are the wonder boys of the age.” The Labour platform had one objective —the Socialisation of production, distribution, and exchange, said Mr Menzies. Mr Chifley had not qualified that by one word. Child endowment was introduced by the Liberal Party and then adopted by Labour, which had twice increased it. Yet the At-torney-general, Dr H. V. Evatt, had argued that the Liberal-Country Party proposal to extend this endowment to the first child would reduce wages. The Labour approach to this , was miserable, partisan, and barren, said Mr Menzies. Labour’s Objectives

Speaking at Rockhampton (Queensland), in his first public meeting of the election campaign, Mr Chifley sald Government was completely opposed to compulsory military training, except in an emergency, such as war. Mr Menzies’s policy speech was largely a string of generalties, he said. “ He did propose the introduction of compulsory military training. I roake it quite clear that we will be no party to that in the present circumstances “ One of the Government s great objectives is to build up production by using aU possible labour, said Mr Chifley. ‘We are bringing hundreds of thousands of people from abroad to this country. They will go into m dustry, and will have to be assisted for a time. Except in a case of great national emergency, such , a s in the last war, we will not support a policy of taking labour from industry for compulsory military training.’ P Mr Chifley pledged the party to fight Mr Menzies’s proposal to restore tne Commonwealth Bank Board of private financiers. ’ The only way to defeat Communism was to improve the people’s conditions, and so remove the breeding ground of Communism, he concluded Dr Evatt’s Claims Prices had risen in the last eight years of Labour rule but the main reason for this was that Mr Menzies and Mr Fadden had deluded the people into rejecting Federal price control, said the Attorney-general. Dr H. V. Evatt, opening his campaign at Sans Souci, Sydney. • . “In spite of increased prices tho standard of living is as high in Australia to-day as anywhere in the world with the possible exception of New Zealand. It is clear that the outstanding question in the present election is whether the people intend to give Mr Chifley the mandate to maintain full employment and the satisfactory standards of life they enjoy to-day. Dr Evatt concluded.