AUSTRALIA Reprieve for Reds Australia's Parliament last year passed a bill outlawing the country's small (15,000) but troublesome Communist Party. The bill authorized the federal government to designate as a Communist anyone whose acts prejudice public safety, and bar him from Crown employment or key trade-union leadership. In March the High Court declared the law unconstitutional. Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies' Liberal-Country (conservative) coalition countered by proposing a constitutional amendment to sanction the act.
Australia's Labor Party, led by ex-Deputy Prime Minister Herbert Evatt, charged that the amendment threatened civil liberties, and led a heated campaign against it. Last week, in...
