BROADCASTING CONTROL

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25638, 29 October 1948, Page 7

BROADCASTING CONTROL

BILL INTRODUCED AT CANBERRA POWERS OF PROPOSED BOARD (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) CANBERRA, Oct. 28. Sweeping changes in the control of Australian broadcasting are contained in a bill to establish an Australian Broadcasting Control Board which was .introduced in the Senate by the Postmaster-General' (Senator D. Cameron). The board, he said, would take action to ensure that programmes were of reasonable extent and variety, that adequate and appropriate times were set apart for religious broadcasts, that equitable facilities were set apart for political and controversial matter, and that the advertising content of programmes was not excessive. The bill deals with the setting up of machinery to provide for more efficient and co-oYdihated control of all broadcasting services in Australia. It provides for a board of three with wide powers to co-ordinate national and commercial services. The board will also act as censor, particularly in the case of political presentations. It was apparent that the bill was designed to suppress a series of broadcasts which were presented twice a week in every State by the Liberal Party, said the Federal president of the Liberal Party (Mr R. G. Casey). “That many sections of the bill are a direct invasion of the realm of free speech is quite clear.” he said. ■ “The bill, if enacted, would confer powers tantamount to those formerly possessed by Goebbels in Nazi Germariy and to those so disastrouslv exercised in Soviet Russia and its satellite countries.” When he introduced the bill Senator Cameron said that the ban on dramatised political broadcasts at election time would now apply to all broadcasts on political matters current in the preceding five years.