SECRECY OF PARLIAMENT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1649, 7 October 1903, Page 19

SECRECY OF PARLIAMENT.

THE QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE. THAT OBNOXIOUS STANDING ORDER. Parliament on Thursday afternoon, (luring tli9 consideration of the standing orders of the House, discussed tire privileges question. Mr Withe-ford moved an amendment in the direction of having order 229 struck out. This order makes privileged all matters before a Select Committee until the committee had reported to the House. The member for Auckland City quoted from the London press to show that the proceedings of Select Committees of the House of Commons were published from day to day, and in particular instanced the reports of five committee meetings appearing in one is Sue of the London "Times.” He asked why should the press of New Zealand be placed upon, a different footing to the press of Gre>at Britain? Were not the pressmen of New Zealand just as respectable and entitled to their confidence as those of the Old Country ? It was a well-known fact that a pressman would never report anvthing ox" a private nature if given to him in confidence. That, at any rate, was their experience in Auckland. If pressmen were allowed in committee and private matter brought foiward, and they were asked not to publish it, they would not do so. Although there were certain committees whose deliberations it might perhaps be necessary to keep private yet in regard to such commitas' the ’ Education Committee, d eatin. o- w ith matters which it was desirable the people of the whole colony should know, ho thought it would be. in the interests of the country that their meet, ings should be open. Probably the House would not agree to strike out the clause, but there might be gome way of arriving at a more satisfactory c-oncD-

tion of affairs than existed at present. Although no injury had been done to any member of the House by the recent publication of the articles on education, yet the decision had been come to that if anything was published again, in contravention of th-8 standing order, the fine, he believed, would be J& 100, and that the reporter who offended would be disqualified from a seat in the Press Gallery. He did not think the . House should be placed in the position of having to pass such a sentence, and in view of the procedure in the British House of Commons, the New Zealand Parliament should, lie thought, strike tills clause out of its standing orders, or simplify it. They had an example of what happened after a caucus. These were secret, yet within an hour of the caucus rising everything that happened there was known. Mr Dave*y seconded the amendment. The Premier considered it would be very unwise to omit this clause, altogether, and instanced the necessity of private deliberations rn regard to the Public Accounts Committee’s proceff.v ings. It would be against the interests of the country to admit the press to the meetings of that committee. He had on the previous day pointed out a way in which some amendment might be' made, namely that a committee might ask the House in respect, to certain cases to allow evidence to be published. There were some casco where.ho thought power like that should be given"to> a committee, but to strike out thg standing order altogether would mean that they would certainly destroy the effective work of committees. Mr Davey, in. (having .yecondcd tho amendment with the greatest pleasure, fplt that honourable members would give him credit of knowing something about the subject. They all knew that for ■many years there had been an unwritten code of honour in journalism which had seldom, if ever, been broken by newspaper ’men. Rc-verting slightly to tho inquiry held the other day, because the reporter had honoured that well-known, unwritten agreement among newspaper men not to divulge the source of information. yet -Parliament fined him for adhering to the code of. honour. There was not a member of the House who would not say the reporter acted rightly and who would have condemned him if lie had divulged the name of his informant. Had he done so, how'would they have dealt with someone, probably a member of that House, for divulging the source of his information ? The reporter was employed to do the work of his newspaper and he got a “scoop”—the reporter only did what any honourable member of that House would be pleased to have a chance of. doing—to bring down something which would be hailed as a “scoop”; and yet they fined the reporter. He referred to what happened in the House on Tuesday afternoon., when the member for Motueka read notes upon tho report of a select committee just presented to tho House in reference to the petition of the Newtown hotelkeepers. It was wrong for any member of the committee, after making an agreement, to allow information to go out. Supposing they knew how tho member for Motueka had got his information, what could they do? Nothing. And yet they fined a newspaper man who did all he possibly could for his paper. He rather regretted that the Premier had suggested that in future any newspaper pubiisliing information — Mr Speaker: The honourable member is breaking the rule by referring to past debates. Mr Davey concluded by observing that Parliament should do something in the direction of amending the standing order, though he quite agreed that it would be unwise to strike it out entirely. Mr T. Mackenzie thought there was something in the Premier’s suggestion that certain committees should have tlie right of asking the House to admit the press. There* was no doubt certain business must be kept secret, such, for instance, -as the deliberations of the Public Accounts Committee. But take the caso of the Education Comnnirtee now sitting. He was .persuaded to the conclusion that it would have been wiser to have circulated the information placed before it throughout the country, in order that they might have had the opinions of Education Boards, their inspectors and secretaries upon it. Mr Hogg quite agreed with the Premier that there might be circumstances in' which it would be advisable in (lie public interest to admit the press to committee meetings. Private business, however, was not conducted alone in Parliament, but also on local bodies, and there was no trouble there whatever in regard to the press. If members of the press were told that tlie proceedings were private, they would rega.nl it as such, and lie had never yet known an instance where tlie confidence had been misplaced. What hie _ suggested was that instead of extinguishing standing order 229, the amendment should be in the direction of admitting the press to select committees unless the committee agreed that its proceedings should be of a private nature. Matters affecting the welfare of the whole colony, dealing with public properties, had to be considered iu private through I lie existence of this arbitrary clause, which lie could only look upon as a relic of tie dark a gee. Members of committees now haid their lips sealed, and die select committees of Parliament had been turned into veritable Star Chambers!, conducting the important business) of the country under a cloak of secrecy, doing thereb3 r an injustice to the people and the country. He declared that Ibe press should have a perfect right to attending select committees except when dealing with matters that should be of a. confidential character. Mr Tanner supported the suggestion of the Premier. The present standing order was clumsy and ineffectual. Mr R. McKenzie maintained that there was some kind of business transacted before Select Committees which could not be made public. When ordinary committees met there could no-t be the slightest objection to having them open, but there were many oases in which it would be entirely premature to publish the deliberations of the committee. There was, for instance, the Public Petitions Com-

mittee. If they made public what transpired there, members would have to go about with firearms for self-protection. Then in regard to the tariff, to make known the deliberations of a committee might involve a serious loss to the colony. A.s to Mr Davey’s remarks regarding the Newtown licensing question, he did not get any information from any member lof the Select Committee on tlie matter, but tlie position was this: Almost any question of importance which came before a committee was openly discussed in the lobbies, and there was no difficulty in coming to any conclusion fuo.m the opinions expressed there in refornnee to committee deliberations. Mr W. Fraser pointed out tliat if the amendment was carried it would mean that all committees would be open to the press. If the member for Auckland city had moved a motion to tho effect that the standing order should be referred to the committee for the p.urpo-se of getting an amendment made m it, lie would have supported it, but as the motion stood, he must vote against it. There was a good deal in what had been said in regard to relaxing the stringency of the rule, but he suggested that the amendment be withdrawn, and allow tlie leader of the House to bring down a resolution, and test the feeling of the House whether it desired to remove the restrictions in any wav. Mr Bud do hoped the mover of the amendment wouM not press for a division, as nine-tenths of the House were against it. .me standing order in question was essential, but he agreed that where public matter might be given to the press, the House might very well agree to it. Mr Withe-ford, by request, withdrew his amendment, -it being understood that the matter would bo dealt with in some way to meet the wishes of members.