Mr Jar den to stay

Press, 19 October 1976, Page 3

Mr Jar den to stay

PA Hamilton The chairman of the Broadcasting Council (Mr Ron Jarden) plans to ignore a call for his resignation from radio and television journalists. “I certainly do not intend to step down,” he said from his Wellington sharebroking firm’s office yesterday. Mr Jarden had been asked to comment on a resolution calling for his resignation, passed by a meeting of 500 staff of the Avalon television centre last week. The president of the Association of Broadcasting Journalists (Mr Shaun Brown) said Mr Jarden has assured employees of the two television channels that their organisations would retain “operational and financial independence.” Mr Jarden had also said he would resign if the Gov-

ernment betrayed him on this point. This was now happening through the Broadcasting Amendment Bill, said Mr Brown. Mr Jarden said he knew of nothing “that in any way would make me feel that the Government had let me down. “Frankly, if these people want to have meetings and concoct charges of this sort, they are just wasting everybody’s time. “I have no idea what it is all about, and until they extend the courtesy of communicating with me, as far as I am concerned nothing has happened,” he said. Public Service Association officials around the country yesterday were planning a series of meetings of broadcasting staff to gauge reaction to the Government bill.

A spokesman said the meetings would not disrupt broadcasting services. But a national stop-work in protest against the proposals was “a definite possibility” with sufficient support from broadcasting staff, he said. The P.S.A. broadcasting central committee is expected to meet in Wellington to consider the possibility of direct action over the Government’s planned changes aimed at bringing radio and television under tighter State control.