PRESS EXCLUDED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 71, 24 March 1936, Page 14

PRESS EXCLUDED.

" HUSH HUSH " POLICY.

CITY COUNCIL SENSATION.

lOBJ MAYOR'S ACTION.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, March 12.

Last Tuesday week the Lord Mayor caused a decided sensation in the City Council by submitting a minute to the effect that the representatives of the Press should be in future excluded from all municipal committee meetings at the Town Hall. The minute was adopted by the council, though only by a majority of one vote.

It was evident that even some of the Reform aldermen, who belong to the Lord Mayor's own reorganisation, were reluctant to take this step, and some of them later said rather apologetically that they did not like to oppose the first resolutibn tabled by the new Lord Mayor. Naturally there was a great outcry from the Press and the general public at the attempt to shroud municipal business under a veil of secrecy, and at the following weekly meeting the Labour aldermen attempted to get

the "hush hush" motion rescinded. The

Lord Mayor, however, was evidently » very much in earnest about the matter, and after beating up all recruits he recorded his own deliberative vote in favour of his resolution, and then when the voting among the aldermen resulted in a tie, lie gave his casting vote also for it. In this instance the criticism to which the resolution itself was exposed was' sharpened by the knowledge that the Lord Mayor had broken away from all the established traditions of public business by giving his casting vote for a new procedure instead of supporting the established order of things. Break With Tradition. For it must be understood that this proposal to exclude the Press from the council means a clean break with a lon - established municipal tradition. For 33 years the Sydney newspapers have sent their reporters regularly to the committee meetings at the T ? w ° kept their readers closely in touch with the public business there In 1921 there was a six months' break under Lord Mayor Lam;bert whose administration was largely responsible later for the appointment of a Royal Commission to clean up our affairs The abuses of the system were so that vigorous efforts were made to secure the readmission of the Press, and it mav be mentioned that one ot tlie "deals" thus ventilated was an attempt on the part of a committee to pay £76,000 for a coal mine not worth £4000. ; ,>i "With full publicity assured by the prev * .eence of the Press such abuses of power opportunity ore now unknown. llsSlifey t \

I It should also be remembered that when the Citizens' Reform Association (the C.R.A. of to-day) was organised in 1921 one of the chief "planks" in its platform was the removal of this embargo on theJPress reporters. This clause has remained unaltered in the C.R.A. programme ,to the present day, and it is therefore all the raore remarkable that Lord Mayor Howse and his civio reform associates should have ventured on! a step wholly inconsistent with the principles that they have, always professed and incompatible with the declared policy of their own association.

It is interesting to note that when the original motion to allow the presence of reporters at committee meetings was first carried in 1003, its supporters contended that it was the right of the ratepayers to know what was ,being done at all the committee meetings, and how it was proposed to expend- the rates, and these objects could be best assured by allowing the Press free access to all committee meetings. Previous Experience. When in 1921 Lord Mayor Lambert moved for the exclusion of the Press, he argued that "information regarding civic affairs was prematurely published, which was against the interests of the ratepayers." This argument was denounced by Alderman Arthur McElhone as misleading and hypocritical, and it was with the help of the C.R.A. that the prohibition imposed under the Lambert regime Was finally revoked. Under these circumstances it is strange to hear Lord Mayor Howie, a prominent member of the C.R.A., repeating to-dg.y the very arguments used by Lord Mayor Lambert 15 years ago—that the business activities of the council are liable to be hampered by "premature, unreasoned and irresponsible publicity"; and also that some sensitive aldermen "have not always cared to express their views as emphatically as they might have wished while the Press has been in attendance."

Nor did the Lord Mayor make his case any better by" the singularly weak arguments that he used when the matter came up for revision. His suggestion that in many municipal councils all committee work was done "in camera" roused a howl of derision from the Labour aldermen: "Why should Sydney follow the suburbs?" Alderman Rowe, evidently anxious to back up his' C.Ii.A. colleague, made the foolish mistake of arguing that because business firms keep their meetings of directors "private and confidential" the City Council should do likewise. Alderman Donald Grant and others at once pilloried the absurdity of comparing a private concern with a city council, which is the custodian not of private but of public funds, and deals solely with the ratepayers' money. The indignation of the opponents of this strange embargo became almost uncontrollable, interjections and vituperative epithets were frequent, and the Lord Mayor had great difficulty in recalling the aldermen to order. Pointed Editorial. Though the Labour councillors were extremely bitter and vehement, they said very little more_ than the "Sydney Morning Herald" said ill an editorial

to-day dealing with "the City Council and the Press." The "Herald," in handling public questions, always makes good use of its traditional dignity and self-restraint, and it would bo difficult to improve upon many of its comments. It complained with good ground that "the tradition of years, both on the council itself and in the Reform party, has been broken for no sufficient reason," It reminded its readers that the City Council is not "a private concern operating for private profit," and that there is no sound excuse for refusing to allow the ratepayers to discover in the utmost detail how their business is being carried on. It pointed out that the committee meetings are of vital interest to the citizens because in them decisions are reached which may involve huge sums of public money, and their proposals are almost always endorsed by the council. It warned the aldermen that "they have introduced a principle of which, dangerous advantage maybe taken by unscrupulous persons at some future date," and it reminded them that the danger of partial or one-sided information which might be most injurious to the council and its members, can be averted only by providing the fullest possible publicity for a free and well instructed Press. It would be' hard to put the case more temperately and wisely, and it is difficult to believe that these arguments can have no effect.