RADIO BOARD’S RENTALS

Evening Star, Issue 22362, 11 June 1936, Page 6

RADIO BOARD’S RENTALS

£3,493 IN THREE CITIES [From Ouk Parliamentary Reporter.] WELLINGTON, June 10., Particulars of the rentals being paid by the Radio Broadcasting Board for the use of its premises in Wellington,Christchurch, and Dunedin were given by the Postmaster-General, Mr Jones, in replying to the second reading debate on the Broadcasting Bill. The information had been asked for earlier in the debate by Dr M'Millan (Government member for Dunedin West). , The Minister said that in Wellington the Board rented the Wellesley Club, for which it paid £1,571 a year. It had offices in the Loan and Mercantile building, for which it paid £350 a year, and in the New Zealand Skipping Company’s building at a rental of £52 a year, making a total of £1,973 a year for the use of premises in Wellington. Mr Jones added that he was not saying there was anything wrong with that, but those were the rents the Board was paying. In Christchurch, said the Minister', the Board paid £B6O a year and rates for its station in the A. R. Harris building. The Rev. Clyde Carr (Timam): Too much. Tho Minister; I’m not a judge of that. In Dunedin, he continued, the Board used portion of the ‘ Evening' Star ’ building, for which it paid £670 a year. Mr Anderton: Scandalous. The Minister said that when he was a private member ho had asked the former Postmaster-General, Mr Hamilton, how much rent the Board ~wae paying in Dunedin, and Mr Hamilton replied that ho could not get the information. When he had asked for information from the board he had not had any trouble in getting it.