NINE OR TEN MAJORITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 516, 20 November 1928, Page 9

NINE OR TEN MAJORITY

BRUCE’S POSITION LABOUR AND THE SENATE (United P A. —By Telegraph Copyright) SYDNEY, Monday. Further returns to hand to-day from the majority of the electorates in connection with the Federal General Election have improved the position of the Bruce-Page Government. Labour to date has won seven seats in the House of Representatives, three of which are in New South Wales. It is improbable that it will win more than two others. Mr. Bruce should have a clear working majority of nine or ten. On the present figures the state of parties in the new House of Representatives, compared with the position at the dissolution, will be as shown in the following table:

The latest returns for the Senate show Labour in the ascendancy in three States —New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. It is practically certain that all three seats in the Senate for New South Wales, which are being contested, will gQ to Labour. The state of the parties before the election in the Senate was: Anti-Labour 27 Labour 9 The total votes counted so far amount to 2,202.105. of which Labour has received 1,127,688, and the Nationalists 1,074,417. MINISTRY GOES BACK MR. BRUCE PLEASED “SUBSTANTIAL MAJORITY” SYDNEY, Monday. Two defeated candidates for the House of Representatives in New South Wales are Sir Elliot Johnson, formerly Speaker (Lang seat), and Mr. A. G. Manning, Government whip (Macquarie seat). All the Ministers have been returned. Mr. Bruce to-day expressed gratification at the Government’s return “with a substantial majority.” It was inevitable that some seats should be lost because at the 1925 elections the Government was returned with the biggest majority in the history of the Federal Parliament. With the swing of the pendulum a few Labour seats had reverted to that party, which was not unexpected. The Premier of New South Wales, Mr. T. R. Bavin, commented that the outstanding feature of the election was that Labour bad been emphatically defeated. “I do not think anybody expected the results of the 1925 election to be repeated on this occasion,” he said.

New At House. Dissolution. Anti-Labour . 41 52 Labour .. , .. 30 23 Doubtful .. . .. 4 —