PREMIERS’ PLAN

Taranaki Daily News, 8 June 1932, Page 12

PREMIERS’ PLAN

UNANIMITY LIKELY. THE AUSTRALIAN OUTLOOK. ' Sydney, May 25. With the prospective return of the United Australia Party at the New South Wales elections, with the defeat of the hopelesslydivided Labour Government in Victoria, and with no alarm felt at the prospect of the return of a sound and sane Labour Government in Queensland, practically the whole Of Australia will, be committed to the Premiers’ Plan of orderly rehabilitation. It will mean a change in the whole outlook of Australia to a degree which, at the moment, it is almost impossible adequately to conceive. And if the new era means the virtual destruction of the old Labour Party, those in its own ranks who have dismembered a once powerful and trusted organisation can alone be to blame. This mad process of “’blowing out its brains” is not new to Australian Labour politics. In South Australia, where latterly the outlook has undergone a bright change, the Hill Labour Government is faced with disruptionists in the movement’s ranks who are looking hopefully to a no-confidence motion against their own Government in the coming session. The Leader of the Opposition has announced on several occasions lately that his party, even at the risk of some embarrassment, will not oppose the Hill Government on a no-confidence motion, provided the Government adheres to the Premiers’ Plan. Since the Government proposes to adhere to that plan, it looks at the moment as though the wreckers within the movement will be unsuccessful. Railway finance constitutes one of the worst phases of Australia’s difficulties, due in a measure to the construction in all the States, at a huge cost, of lines which have never paid, but which have been built, at enormous loss, simply as vote-catching propositions; and due, also, among other factors, to the political control of a vast business organisation. Western Australia, alone of all the States, appears to hive made a satisfactory recovery in railway finance during the latest quarter. There, compared with the corresponding quarter of the previous year, a loss of £B9l has been converted to a profit of £100,371. In part, but not wholly by any means, this has been brought about by Wage reductions, but it has been clearly revealed that more efficient organisation has played no small part in the brighter outlook. The greatest bugbear of Australian railway administration is political interference —a phase of railway management which called forth such adverse comment at the recent inter-State transport conference in Sydney, summoned by the Federal Government. Railway and allied Governmental transport management in Australia must always remain a huge problem so long as there is political meddling with it. There was a striking example recently of a State

railway department paying 19s a ton for 409 tons of coal every week from a Stateowned coal mine which a Royal Commissioner had recommended was worth, at the very most, not more than 15s 9d a ton. It is only one aspect of political interference with railway management.