WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 16 June 1932, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS

AUSTRALIAN ELECTIONS. NEW SOUTH WALES AWAKENING (From a Correspimuent). WELLINGTON, June 13. Next to football, the general election in New South Wales was the principal subject of discussion in Wellington on Saturday and Sunday, and to-day the result of the contest is being eagerly analysed in clubs and offices, on the wharves and at the street coineis. Needless to say tliffi. clubs and offices, generally, are well enough pleased with the result of the contest, but the wharves and the street,, corners,}’ again speaking generally, are not at all satisfied that the campaign has gone thenway. As a- matter of faf>#eJtfel the electors in the oldest of Australia’« colonies has shaped very badly An Labour. In the last Parliament, the one in which Mr Lang was ejected Horn the Treasury Benches by the Governoi. tlie Labour party held fifty-five seats and the Nationalists and the Country Party between them thirtv-fivc. Now the United Party probably holds sixtyfive and Labour twenty-five. Here and There.

A comparison between the Labour Party in the new Parliament in New South Wales and the Labour Party in the present Parliament of New Zealand need not necessarily he odious. No one acquainted with Mr Holland and his colleagues would suspect them of perpetrating such irregularities- —let us say—as Air Lang been chaiged with committing. Probably spine of their critics May; say they jMiver have had such opportunities as Mr Lang has enjoyed, but suggestions of that kind are superfluous. It is permissable to say, however, that Air Holland, without the slightest indication of contemplating any impropriety, has been almost as obscure in speech concerning loans and taxation as Mr Lang was in practice during his eighteen months of office. Mr Holland, had h e been returned with a majority at the last general election, would .have twenty-five millions sterling and saved us all, as he said, from cuts and doles.

Hsrder and Sure*. The Uniteds and the Reformers in New Zealand, - now styled the Coalitionists,* and Hie Nationalists and Country Party in New South Wales, now known as the United Australia Party, and the United Country Party have now joined hands in their respective spheres. Til the New Zealand parliament of eighty members, fifty seats ai'e held by Coalitionists, twenty-four by Labour and six by Independents; while in the New South Wales Parliament of ninety members, sixty-five seats are held by the United Parties, twenty-five by Labour and two by the Unity Party, which probably will he"attach'd to United Party. Approximately this would mean Hie attachment of 72 per cent, of the voting strength of the n-'uv House to the Government and only 28 per eonu to the. Labour Opposition. In the.. New Zealand election of rathe:* more tha. nsix months ago the' corresponding rates were 63 per cent, to the Coalition Government, 30 per cent, to th Labour Opposition and seven per cent to the mixed Independents.