CENSURE MOTION DEFEATED

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 22992, 8 September 1944, Page 5

CENSURE MOTION DEFEATED

(Rec. 7.30 p.m.) CANBERRA, Sept. 7. After a debate lasting three days the Opposition’s censure motion on the Government’s coal policy was defeated in the House of Representatives by 40 votes to 17. The voting was on strictly Party lines. During the last stages of the debate, the Minister for Information (the Hon. A. A. Calwell) asked for the withdrawal of the censure motion, since there had been practically unbroken work in New South Wales coal mines since the debate started. An Opposition member retorted that, since this was so, the debate should be permitted to go on interminably. Tim miners have asked the Prime Minister to exert more Government control over the Northern New South Wales coalminers, because of the number of fatalities there. Four men had been killed at these mines during the last week and 21 this year—double the number of fatalities in a norma 1 year. The Federal Government will shortly discuss with the States a plan to guarantee prices to primary producers after the war. The defeat of the referendum made it Impossible for the Federal Government to act alone In the matter. During the war guaranteed prices have been provided for wheat, wool, potatoes, pigmeats, dairy produce, barley, feed trains and a number of processed primary products.