PM Transcripts

r W. 67/ 10 2
FOR PRESS: P. M. No. 52/ 1967
A. L. P. TACTICS ON POSTAL CHARGES_
Comment by the Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Holt
Increased charges by Governments are never popular, and
it is not surprising that the Labor Party should attempt to turn the
announced increases in postal and telephone rates to its political advantage.
But the decision to use its numbers in the Senate to defeat the Government
on a substantial financial matter reveals the depth of political opportunism to
which the Labor Party, under its new leadership, will allow itself to sink.
It is one of the most firmly established principles of British
Parliamentary democracy that a House of review should not reject the
financial decisions of the popular House. The terms of the Commonwealth
Constitution reflect this principle.
It has long been a cherished principle of Labor policy that the
Senate should not frustrate the financial policies of a Government possessing
majority support in the House of Representatives. This was consistently
adhered to by the former Leader of the ALP, Mr. Calwell; it has been
repeatedly emphasised by Labor's Shadow Treasurer, Mr. Crean, and given
clear expression by Mr. Whitlam himself. He is on public record as having
stated Labor's belief that Senate powers on financial matters diould be only
those of consultation. He made this statement at a time when he was acting
Leader of the Labor Party. Labor's attitude on this matter is carried to the
point of maintaining as a plank of policy in its platform, the abolition of the
Senate. There will be many staunch Labor supporters disgusted by this
cynical abandonment of a long-held princtp1e and this blatant exercise of
political opportunism in the teeth of so many firm and clear public declarations
of the past. If this is the new look in Labor leadership, then it is revealed
as having no basis of consistency or principle nor any respect for historical
democratic tradition and practice.
CANBERRA, May, 1967.