CHANCES ANALYSED

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 73, 28 March 1933, Page 7

CHANCES ANALYSED

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, March 23.

Western Australia is now in the midst of an election campaign, and the voting will take place on the same day as that in South Australia—April. 8. The major issue in the West is in keeping with the times and concerns financial problems. The National-Country Party is fighting hard to retain office, and the Labour Party, which has been in Opposition for three years now, is naturally anxious to return to the Treasury benches. Such questions as unemployment relief, assistance to farmers, and taxation rank largely in the scheme of things political. They furnish the basis of innumerable claims for credit for. past achievements and for high-sounding promises. On election day the people will also vote on the momentous issue of secession. This question is not merely complementary to the party fight, but has actually become part of it.

Of the 50 seats nine are uneontcsted, and six of the members who have been returned unopposed are Labour men. Thirty-seven Nationalists are contesting 25 electorates; the Country Party is represented by 27 candidates in 17 districts, and Labour has endorsed 37 members to fight 31 seats. There are IS Independents and two Communists. Communist aspirants for political standing in previous elections in Western Australia have cut an inglorious figure, and there is nothing to justify the belief that the two '■ stalwarts of the party on this occasion will meet with any better reward. One of them is the sole opponent of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Collier) in Boulder, while the other will take part in a "triangular contest in South -Fremantle.

The Premier is faced with formidable opposition in Northam, where for' the first time the Country Party is represented as •well as Labour. Political circles regard the Country Party challenge as an unknown quantity, but many lean to the view that the Premier will have most to fear from Labour. Northam is notorious for small majorities, but the Nationalists are confident that the Premier will retain his seat, even if he will not have much to spare. The secession movement seems to have caught the popular fancy in the West, and few candidates have been brave enough, to oppose it.