SIX PARTIES

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 70, 24 March 1933, Page 8

SIX PARTIES

IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA

A COMPLEX POSITION

(From "The Post's" Representative.) . SYDNEY, March 9. With the Labour Party split into three camps, and a record number of Independents offering, the South Australian election campaign, now in full swing, is one of the most unusual in the history of the State. The elections will not take place until April 8, but already much campaigning has been done, and there is great public interest. Altogether six parties are running candidates. The Parliamentary Labour Party, .which is in power, and the Liberal and Country Party, under the Loader of the Opposition (Mr. E. L. Butler, a former Premier), both, favour a continuance of the Premiers' Plan for the balancing of Budgets, and their policies agree in the main essentials. Repudiation of the plan is advocated by the State Labour Party and the Lang iabour Party. The other parties are the Single Tax League and the People's Party.

Labour took office after the last elections with thirty followers out of a total of forty-six in the House of Assembly. Trouble began, in the party /when the then Premier "(Mr. Hill) started to put into operation the economy scheme of the special advisory committee on finance. The definite split occurred later when the Premiers' Plan was adopted by the Government. Eight members left the caucus and those who supported the plan were expelled from the State Labour Party. Three of them have since been readmitted and are now standing as endorsed Labour candidates and opponents of the plan. Mr. Hill faced another caucus crisis at the beginning of the present year when- he failed tq, get his followers |to endorse his election policy based on the principles of co-operation and the sinking of all contentious party issues. The outcome of this was the decision to send Mr. Hill to London as. AgentGeneral for the State. The contest in the Cabinet led to the resignation of one of its members who himself was a candidate for the London position. The Government is going to the country tin a moderate policy, in the forefront of which is a continuance of the in-escnt. financial . administration. Its new leader (Mr. B. S. Bichards), who succeeded Mr. Hill as Premier a month ago, is forty-six years of age and was once a newsboy. Ho was a mine carpenter before his election /to Par ment. His followers have been concentrating on the seats already held. In many of the electorates the fight will be between the rival Labour organisations, and it is difficult to say how the results will go. It would not be surprising in the circumstances if the Liberal Party, which ha 3 already had a taste of power, should be returned. The Liberals are very strong in tho country areas, and providing there is no surprise at least five of them will be returned unopposed.