LANG’S REIGN

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 133, 31 May 1932, Page 5

LANG’S REIGN

More Revelations

UN EM PLOYMENT FUNDS

MISUSE ALLEGED BY MINISTER

By Telegraph—Copyright—Press Assn.

SYDNEY, May 30.

The Minister of Labour and Industry (Mr. Dunningham) makes what he describes as remarkable revelations in regard to the Lang Ministry’s misuse of the unemployment funds derived from the wages tax of a shilling in the pound. He says he has discovered that £40,000 had been diverted to the payment of taxation on the staff’s salaries, £40,000 to the rent commitments of the Chief Secretary’s Department and £2OOO for charitable relief which should have come from the mother fund.

£lOO of hush money went to the Newcastle Watersiders’ Union to prevent a strike which was likely to embarass the Lang Government, while £5OOO was advanced to the Furniture Trades Union ostensibly to meet the needs of the unemployed of that organisation whereas it was discovered that no condition whatever was attached to the advance. Mr. Dunningham adds that several avowed Lang Plan advocates also received first-class inter-state railway passes to enable them to pursue their activities in other States. There has also been a vast amount of joy-riding in Government cars during the Lang regime. It was quite obvious that the unemployment funds were illegally used because of the Government's impecuniosity in the latter months.