LABOUR GOVERNMENT’S DILEMMA.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160797, 3 November 1920, Page 2

LABOUR GOVERNMENT’S DILEMMA.

CANNOT FILL VACANCIES IN N.S.W. PARLIAMENT. SYDNEY, Oct. 10. . The Labour Government of New South Wales is perched fair and square on the sharp horns of a dilemma, - and look\vhere it will, it can find no way out of its trouble. There are three seats vacant in Parliament. 'Ordinary • jhstice to the electors, apar\ from custom, demands that they be filled at. once. But the electoral law is m a tangle, and the Government does not khow how to fill them (says the Post’s correspondent). ’When toe parties came back from the pblla, the strength of the Nationalists and the Progressives, or Country Party, combined, exactly equalled that of the Labour Party. Labour formed a Government, and secured a majority of one by persuading tbe old Nationalist-Speaker to retain his office. Theii the Labour Government' offered a Judgeship to Mr Beeby (Progressive). Mr Beeby accepted. Result, a Labour majority of two. ■ A member of the Progressive Party died suddenly. Result, a Labour majority of three. The Labour Government, offered another Judgeship to Mr James, a leaning member of the. Nationalist Party. Mr James accepted. Result, a Labour ' majority of four—and three vacant seats to be filled. It seems easy to fill a vacancy by means of a by-election—but it is not easy under the Proportional Representation, system as it exists in NewSouth Wales. The late Nationalist Government duly brought the P.R. law into operation, but completely omitted to make any provision for filling extraordinary vacancies. The Labour Government obviously did not know what to do—particularly in view of the fact that it was pledged to bring in 'a law reverting to the old system of single electorates. The electoral system in existence provides for the election of either three or five men to the representation of the various electorates, and there is no machinery for electing one. So. the Government called a Labour Caucus, and it proposed to the caucus that, by some special law, the vacant seats be given to the parties respectively represented by the men who had dropped opt. The caucus, by only four votes, turned down this proposal. Then a caucus member proposed that the seats be given to the - unsuccessful candidates in each electorate who had polled the largest number- of votes. (This, be- it noted, would have given two of the three seats to Labour, al--though the men who had dropped out were in every case anti-Labour). This was defeated by only three votes. And thus the matter was left. The Government now says that it does not know what to do. It does really seem 'to be in a quandary—but its enemies are pointing out vigorously that a policy of . laissez-faire suits it in every way. With that comfortable /majority pf four—part of which it secured deliberately by offering lucrative jobs tp its political foes-^— it has no need to bq anxious about its position. ' y .