Canberra Security Irritates Some

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31093, 23 June 1966, Page 13

Canberra Security Irritates Some

(X.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) CANBERRA, June 22. Australia’s Parliament House. where the S.E.A.T.O. Ministerial conference is to be held next week, is being subjected to a nightly “electronic sweep” as a check against hidden microphones and tape recorders. Visitors have been forbidden to bring “electrical devices” including radios into the building.

I The security precautions have caused intense irritation among Ministers, who normally work in Parliament House. Before the Minister of Social Services, Mr lan Sinclair, could attend Cabinet yesterday he left his brief case in a colleague’s office because he claimed this was easier than trying to get through the guard of soldiers between the front door and his own office. A member of the Labour Party’s Shadow Cabinet, Mr Allan Fraser, objected when a soldier laid hands on him and tried to bar his way to his office.

Mr Fraser said: “I refuse to recognise the right of military authorities to prevent me entering the House of which I am a democraticallyelected member.

“This would be the only Parliament in the world that would surrender Parliament House to military authority,” Mr Fraser said.