ALLEGED TAPPING OF TELEPHONES

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26513, 30 August 1951, Page 6

ALLEGED TAPPING OF TELEPHONES

CHARGES BY TAMAKI CANDIDATE

MR HOLLAND REPORTS ON INVESTIGATIONS

(New Zealand Press Association) GISBORNE, August 29. “Mr Skinner has been informed that he has but to give us facts and we will follow them up and prosecute any offender who can be identified. Senior officers of both the Post and Telegraph Department and the Police Department waited upon Mr Skinner yesterday to inform him of this and to examine any evidence he had against those two departments" This was said by the Prime Minister (Mr Holland) to-day, in commenting on investigations he had ordered after allegations of telephone tapping and letter opening had been made by Mr T. E. Skinner, of Tamaki. “It is now reported to me by those officials who interviewed Mr Skinner yesterday that he is not prepared to make any statement or to produce any evidence to them.” added Mr Holland. “He maintained this attitude even though the representatives of the departments concerned in the charges assured him that no authority or direction had been given for the tapping of any telephones or the opening of any letters. “The chase after this slander on two of the most important departments in our Public. Service has been a long one, but I do not propose to let up on it,” said the Prime Minister. “What a lot of nonsense to talk of having some sort of special inquiry. It is Just plain stalling. ‘All that Mr Skinner had to do—and he must know it—was to produce the opened letters, for example, which he says he has in such quantity, and hand them to the officers. The departments would then move into as searching an inquiry as would be accorded any citizen in this land should they have a similar serious complaint. “The men in these departments value their integrity above all, and these unsupported charges are hurtful and damaging, These are the sort of chargee and worse that were used to smear the Government in circumstances that led to the present election. "It appears that each time the Government tries to pin down the accusations or the accusers there is this constant evasion.” said Mr Holland. “It is unthinkable that highly-respected departments which have served suecessive Governments down through the years should have to submit to such charges as soon as a Labour Government is replaced by another. Unsubstantiated allegations of so serious a nature justifiably cause resentment throughout the Public Service.”