FREE SPEECH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 136, 10 June 1936, Page 10

FREE SPEECH.

LABOUR PARTY STAND.

BROADCASTING SERVICE.

BETTER FOOTING THAN EVER. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. The determination of the Government to place broadcasting on a better footing than it has ever been on before was emphasised by the Minister of Education, Mr. Fraser, in the Ho.use to-night. He said that the member for Wallace (Mr. Hamilton) and the member for Awarua (Mr. Hargest) had concentrated on. one or two points. Mr. Hargest: That's all there is in the bill. Mr. Fraser said that if opponents of the •bill had dealt with those points with moderation and due regard to the facts the arguments advanced would have been entitled to respect. Miv Hamilton had engaged in hallucinations when he had suggested that New Zealand was likely to follow Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in' Italy. The control of broadcasting in Parliament was in the hands of the Government, and could it be said that it had not been fairly exercised? During the whole of its political battles the Labour party had stood four-square for the principle of free speech and the right for every person in the country to express himself. It was preposterous to imagine that a party with that record would trample under foot the most sacred heritage the country had. Major Atlee, Leader of the Labour party in the House of Commons, had stated that if a Government took complete control of broadcasting it was possible for a nation to be reduced to a nation of robots. He agreed with that

and stated that it would be to the disadvantage of the labour Government to aim at anything of the sort. If there was not the right for. all sides to express an,opinion if-would be impossible for Labour to prove the soundness -of Labour's argument and the unsoundness of the argument of thot.,l opposed to it. Labour wanted its opponents on the air equally with itself. "Characterised'by. Grab." Mr. Hamilton had said that Labour's policy had so far bee,n characterised by; gra-b,, but the ex-Minister and his colleagues should be the last to talk on that subject. The Labour Government's objective was to stop the policy of grab and' introduce as soon as possible a policy of justice. The Labour Government had introduced the Reserve Bank Bill so that it could have control of the financial resources of the country. Without that control it would have been impossible for the Government to put its policy into operation. The policy of the last Government had been to delegate its authority to others, and the result had been the setting up of a number of boards. By getting up so many boards the late Government had thrown on to other shouidcra many of the responsibilities that rightly belonged to aoiy Government. i There was the case of the railways, the Minister added. He ventured to say that at the end of three years the people who used the railways would find themselves better served "than they had been before. Nobody who had had a place on the Broadcasting Uoard had played any part whatever in the success of broadcasting in New Zealand. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Forbes): You are very hard on the board. Mr. Eraser: That is my opinion._ I irn putting them on the same footing is.' I would put the ex-Prime Minister and myself when *I say that we would be out of place on that board, but I would say. that neither he nor I would be so much out of place as some of the members of the board were. I Programmes Commended.

It was not his intention', to criticise the programmes, said Mr. Ffaser. There might be certain complaints, but it was his opinion that taken by and large the broadcasting system so far as programmes were concerned was not so bad as had sometimes, been stated. The Government realised that the listeners were entitled to the best that the system could give them, but there was a place for political speeches. Nothing had been more popular than the broadcasting of speeches from the House. Mr. Coates (National, Kaipara): I Wonder. Mr. Eraser: It is not a case of wonder. The people in remote country districts and in villages have as much right to hear what is going on in this House as the people in Wellington and the people in the galleries to-night. The Government wants every point of view stated over the air, so that the people themselves can judge. The Minister went />n to say that there -seemed to be an extraordinary fear of advertising over the air. Was advertising wrong in the "Railway Review" and in Government publications? If that was justified there could be nothing wrong with judicious advertising over the air.