Inquiry’s head experienced

Press, 1 May 1984, Page 2

Inquiry’s head experienced

The chairman of the controversial Commission of Inquiry into the Broadcasting Corporation, Mr Walter Reid Jackson, brought to the job a wide range of business and managerial experience. Mr Jackson, a Dunedin chartered accountant, is chairman of the newlyformed Meat Industry Council and is on the board of 23 companies including the Petroleum Corporation of New Zealand and the Christchurch based Blackwell Motors, Ltd, and Ferguson and Company, Ltd. He is chairman of seven companies, among them the Natural Gas Corporation. Mr Jackson’s secretary said last Thursday that he had “gone away for a couple of weeks.” He is

therefore not available for interview. However, the agricultural journal, “Straight Furrow,” did a profile on him in March after his appointment to the Meat Industry Council. In it he was described as “a crucial man for the meat industry” — wellknown in the South Island but not yet prominent nationally. It said that Mr Jackson had never been a member of a political party but that he had done a number of jobs for the Government and had always performed them well. He was also said to be a man sensitive to the need for change, determined to see progress made, and was described as having a sense of urgency tempered by “an enjoyable sense of humour.”