PREFERENCE FOR SERVICEMEN

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24895, 7 June 1946, Page 4

PREFERENCE FOR SERVICEMEN

LEGAL DECISION IN VICTORIA

INDIGNATION EXPRESSED BY SOLDIERS’ LEAGUES (N.2. Pres? Association—Copyright) (Rec. 7.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, June 6. Reaction to the ruling of a Victorian Magistrate who found that preference to returned soldiers did not operate in Commonwealth Government establishments is growing stronger. The presidents of three former servicemen’s associations said last night that the Federal- Government’s Re-establishment and Employment Act was a colossal bluff to hoodwink the public and servicemen. Their attack was directed against a statement by Mr E. J. Holloway, the Acting-Attorney-General, that men who considered themselves victimised could appeal to the Central Preference Board and from there to the highfer Court, Returned soldiers pointed out that former servicemen nave no right of appeal to the Central Preference Board, which deals only with men and women who have not been in uniform, but consider that their war efforts should entitle them to the same preference as former servicemen. The Federal executive of the Returned Soldiers’ League will appeal against the Magistrate’s decision. In Canberra to-day, Mr Holloway said that the Magistrate bad merely ruled that the case had been taken to the wrong Court. He denied that the Magistrate’s decision meant that preference to returned soldiers did not operate in Commonwealth Government establishments, and said that the policy of the Government had always been to give preference to returned men.