Grand Tours

By Australian Ministers

AUSTRALIAN Ministers have been enjoying some gorgeous picnics lately at the expense of the Australian taxpayers.

While the average Australian citizen has been wrestling at home with Gov ernmental incompetence, industrial dis ruption and the heaviest taxation in the world, some six or seven Australian Min isters, complete with lady wives and well groomed entourage, have been conspicu ous in the capitals of Europe and North America.

Of particular interest to Islanders have been the tours of Mr. Johnstone, Aus tralian Minister for the Interior, who made a personal and official call upon the Portuguese Governor of Timor, and Mr.

Riordan, Australian Minister for the Army, who has been away up througn New Guinea to inspect the great naval base abandoned by the Americans in Manus. , _. .

Why Mr. Johnstone should pay a State

call upon Portuguese Timor, no one knows. But everyone knows why he paid no call upon Dutch Timor—a few miles away—the very Red Watersiders’ Union, which practically dictates the foreign policy of the Australian Government, has declared war upon the Dutch, and blood brotherhood with the insurgent Javanese.

Mr. Johnstone decided also that it was important he should inspect two tiny islands in the Timor Sea, which apparently belong to Australia—but so insignificant are they that they are not mentioned in the Australian Year Book or shown on any map. He could easily have travelled cheaply and quickly to those places by air. Instead, he went forth grandilo quently and most expensively in an Aus tralian warship, attended by the usual little party of happy officials.

Because Australia nagged the United States to the point of exasperation on the subject of the ownership of Manus Bass, where the Americans had spent an enormous sum, all American forces were withdrawn north of the equator in June- July, and Australia was left to do as she liked with Manus. The Australian “Foreign Minister” (Dr. Evatt), the Public Works Minister and the Army Minister have all gone to have a look at the place—and now are saying that it is going to be very expensive to maintain.

Ordinary people would have decided that it is quite beyond Australia’s means; but these Socialist Ministers, with their remarkable talent for tossing around the millions contributed by Australia’s groan ing taxpayers, indicate that they are go ing to try to maintain the base, Mr. Riordan could easily and cheaply have flown there, but that is beneath th Q dignitv of an Australian Trades Hall politician. He went to Manus in the cruiser “Australia,” with the usual merry party of officials.

Meanwhile, New Guinea’s very own Australian Minister. Mr. Ward, having thoroughly toured Western Europe and North America, is making his leisurely way back across the Pacific, bubbling with plans for establishing new agricultural in dustries for the natives of New Guinea. (See article elsewhere).

As thev say in Australia, “join the Labour Party and see the world—in luxury.”