BROADCASTING RESUMED

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22594, 27 December 1938, Page 9

BROADCASTING RESUMED

RADIO STATION IN SYDNEY

APOLOGY FOR UNTRUE STATEMENTS

(Received December 26, 7.10 p.m.) SYDNEY, December 25. The Trades and Labour Council’s broadcasting station 2KY came on the air again at 7 p.m. on Saturday with official sanction. The occasion was marked by a brief speech by the secretary (Mr R. C. King, M.L.C.), who made a dramatic flight from Adelaide, where he concluded a peace with the Postmaster-Gen-eral (Mr A. G. Cameron) on Friday. He read the station’s apology and thanked the public and the daily press for helping them in their hour of trial and difficulty. He assured the authorities that the Labour Council’s desire was to broadcast the truth and avoid giving offence, but he insisted that there must be freedom of speech on the air as well as in the press. He added, facetiously; “We are the first commercial station on the air and strangely, the first off it.” The directors at a special meeting agreed to the Postmaster-Gen-eral’s terms for the restoration of 2KY on the air. These involved an apology by them for statements which they acknowledged as untrue, concerning recent Government actions in - the pig iron dispute at Port Kembla and the clash between the Minister for Civil Aviation (Mr H. V. Thorby) and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr J. Curtin). The apology was published in the Labour paper, the “Daily News,” in which an admission was made that the statements which had been broadcast from 2KY were untrue, and the person making them should have known they were untrue.