RADIO TIME “Access To Public Denied Liberals”

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30278, 2 November 1963, Page 13

RADIO TIME “Access To Public Denied Liberals”

(New Zealand Press Association) PALMERSTON NORTH, November 1. A declaration that the exclusion of the Liberal Party from the air during the General Election campaign was an indication that the National and Labour parties were afraid the Liberals would become dominant was made by the leader of the Liberal Party (Mr R. M. Hutton-Potts) in an address in Palmerston North tonight.

There were five parties contesting the election, but the Government considered the Liberal candidates were only

■ outsiders." said Mr Hutton Potts. But outsiders often paid the biggest dividends.

National and Labour had shared the Government benches tor the last 30 years, and were reluctant to admit another member, the Liberal Party, to their club. The argument that before they were allowed time mi the air. the Liberals should give some proof of substantial public support was ait variance with the policy laid down when the Broadcasting Corporation was established. It was difficult to see how a party could get public support if it were denied access to the public. The general idea upon which the two big parties

seemed to have agreed is that the Liberals must be kept off the air, while the Social Creditors are allowed time, because, presumably, they are pretty harmless anyway. “The whole purpose of the act under which the Broadcasting Corporation was set up was to develop, extend and improve the service in the public interest, to supervise and control programmes, and !to advise the Minister, but with the Government in charge. “Was the shutting of the Liberals off the air developing the service in the public interest, and was that the advice given to the Minister by the Broadcasting Corporation? Or. according to the Director-General, all that the corporation did was to allocate a certain amount of time on the air and to let the Minister allocate it. “The result has been a decision that the Liberals shall not be allowed two halfhours over the radio and two lots of five minutes over television —one hour and 10 minutes throughout a campaign of about six weeks. “This is just one of those controls to which the Liberals object, but it is an exceptionally objectionable form of control in that it stifles opinion.”