TO-DAY'S VICTORIAN ELECTION.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 8, 2 October 1937, Page 4

TO-DAY'S VICTORIAN ELECTION.

As has been previously explained, the State election that is being held to-day in Victoria has some peculiar features. It has been brought about long before its normal time by a Country Party Government under the leadership of the Premier, Mr A. A. Dunstan, which, however, counts only 20 seats in a . House of 62 members and has gained and retains office only at the will of the Labour Party with its 18 representatives. As against this combination is a United Australia Party Opposition numbering 24, led by Sir Stanley Argyle, whom Mr Dun- ■ stan, by what looks like a rather shabby trick of disloyalty, superseded in the premiership after going to last previous election with him on what was virtually a ticket of coalition between the United Australia Party and the Country Party. The political situation in the State is thus just the complele converse of that which holds iri the Federal Parliament, where the Government consists of a coalition between the United Australia Party, under the Prime Minister, Mr J. A. Lyons, and the Country Party, under Dr. Earle Page, while the Opposition is constituted from the Labour Party alone. It is on these lines that, the normal life of the Commonwealth Parliament having expired, the Federal Government will appeal to the whole Australian electorate just three weeks hence. The main point upon wnich Mr Dunstan' s Government gogs before the State electors is the question of reform in the Upper House. A Bill with this purpose in view was introduced by the Argyle Government, was passed by the House of Re- t presentatives but was rejected by the Lcgislative Council. The same fate awaited it when quite recently it was reintroduced by the Dunstan Government. It will thus be seen that, on what is, ostensibly at any rate, the main point at issue, Sir Stanley Argyle and his supporters are placed in a rather awkward position. They are presumably still in favour of legislation designed to curb the obstructive actions of the Upper House, but are at the same time, of course, desirous of putting an end to Government by what they regard as an unholy alliance between the Country and Labour Parties. Howeyer, other planks, probably dictated by the Labour Party, have been added to the Government' s election platform, and upon these that party is bopeful of increasing its own representation, possibly to the extent of overshadowing that of the Country Party. This is a contingency that must occasion Mr Dunstan some little concerft, seeing that he may then have the same sort of trick played upon him as he himself played | upon Sir Stanley Argyle. • % » * ^ It is not so much, however, with iespect to the result of the State election upon the colour of the next State Government as to its possible effect upon the voting at the ensuing Federal election that concern is being felt in Australian poli- . tical circles. Any substantial aecess of numbers to the Labour Party in the State Parliament would naturally react to its advantage in the Federal election. On the other hand, it is thought that the possibility of complete Labour domination in the State Parliament will have turned many of Mr Dunstan' s Country Party supporters to favour Sir Stanley Argyle. It will, at any rate, be very interesting to note how these rather complicated considerations will eventually work out among the Victorian electors to-day.