FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20850, 5 October 1937, Page 7

FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN

INTENSE PARTY ACTIVITY MELBOURNE, September 23. The first shot in the Federal "election campaign, which will extend until polling day on October 23, was fired in Fremantle this week, when the Leader of the Opposition, Mr J. Curtin, who holds that seat in the Labour interest, gave the policy speech of the party. For the first time the enrolments will exceed 4,000,000 voters. The sum of £115,000 has been provided in the Estimates for the election, and 32.000 officials will be employed at 10.000 polling booths. The wages of these officials will absorb more than half the sum provided in the Estimates. Bullock Waggon and Packhorse The printing of the main roll has been completed in all States, and immediate steps will be taken to distribute them. Air mail services will be used to forward the rolls to outback centres in Queensland and Western Australia; but many parcels will have to complete their long journey by truck, camel, bullock waggon or packhorse. ' After he has delivered his opening speech in his own electorate in Tasmania the Prime Minister, Mr J. A. Lyons, will fiy to Wagga, New South Wales, to begin his mainland campaign. He will visit all States except Western Australia, and he will make extensive use of air travel. Mr A. E. Green, the member for Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, who claims to represent the largest electorate in the British Empire—it is about four times the size of England—would have no hope of visiting all the main centres in his territory unless he took to the air, as he proposes to do. Similarly. Mr A. M. Blain, Northern Territory, will do his electioneering by aeroplane. Mr Lyons’ Bicycle. This modern mode of election travel contrasts strangely with the transport arrangements Mr Lyons adopted nearly 30 years ago. when he first sought a seat in the House of Assembly in Tasmania, of which later he was Premier. In those days he was dependent literally on his own motive power, for he pushed a bicycle along the rough roads of Wilmot on the north coast of Tasmania. But even in these days of fast travel many campaigners and many voters in the far outback will journey as they did a generation ago—on horseback or in buggies. And. in spite of the increasing use that is being made of wireless to deliver speeches, most candidates will still have to do much touring of the electorates. Safest Seat in Land However, the day of personal representation of electorates appears to be passing. The party machine is almost always the decisive factor. In the old davs the local member knew many of his constituents by name. Perhaps in the whole of Australia there is now only one member of that school surviving, Dr W. Maloney, affectionately known as “the little doctor.” An octogenarian now. he is not much heard of in the counsels of the nation. But while he chooses to stand Labour is never likely to lose the representation of the Melbourne electorate. He has not yet returned from his visit to England for the Coronation, as illness delayed him abroad. But in any case there will be little need for the doctor to address any meetings or to answer any loud-voiced demand to “Give us your policy.” He has the safest Parliamentary seat in the land.