PROPOSED AMENDMENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27390, 16 May 1950, Page 5

PROPOSED AMENDMENTS

Anti-Coipumist Bill EXPLANATION BY DR EVATT N ZP A—Copyright CANBERRA, May 15. The Labour Party’s proposed amendments to the Communist Party Dissolution Bill gave full right of defence to people other than the Communist Party, said the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Dr H. V. Evatt, explaining the amendments which he will move in the House of Representatives this week. Dr Evatt said that the amendments, which concerned the onus of proof, right of appeal, costs and compensations and powers of search, would enable individuals and organisations to answer allegations against them by the Government and to establish relevant facts so' that the charges must be proved to the satisfaction of a court of justice. If those fundamental rights were departed from, justice might be denied and the innocent condemned without trial and even without knowing the allegations they had to meet, Dr Evatt said. , In Sydney a rank-and-file protest has forced the executive of the Ironworkers’ Association to cancel a 24hour stoppage of the ironworkers, which was to have been held today on the south coast of New South Wales to discuss the Communist Party Dissolution Bill. The stoppage would have affected 4000 members of the association. The branch secretary, Mr W. Frame, who was among those named by the Prime Minister, Mr Menzies, in the House of Representatives as members of the Communist Party, was to report on the Bill at the meeting. Following protests from rank and file members, the committee cancelled the meeting, as it was apparent that most of the ironworkers would have disregarded it and proceeded to work as usual. In the past, the South Coast branch has always been solidly behind the decisions made by the Communist leadership of the union.