DEFENDING BOARD

Southland Times, Issue 22008, 6 May 1933, Page 5

DEFENDING BOARD

RADIO BROADCASTING. MR HOLLAND REPLIES TO CHAIRMAN. (Per United Press Association.) Christchurch, May 5 Addressing a public meeting at Kaiapoi to-night, Mr H. E. Holland, Leader of the Opposition, said that the defence of the Radio Broadcasting Board by its chairman, Mr H. D. Vickery, yesterday contained two statements that called for the closest attention. Mr Vickery had pleaded that the regulations prohibited the board from broadcasting controversial matter, and also that under the regulations the board was compelled to broadcast the Government’s statements. In the first case, Mr Holland said, the board day by day was broadcasting matter that was highly controversial, and was therefore flouting the regulations. If the second statement was true, he declared, they were confronted with one of the gravest administrative scan dais New Zealand had ever known. The Broadcasting Act of 1931 bestowed no power whatever on the Government to compel the board to broadcast its statements, and shut out those of the Opposition. It was clearly another case of the Government promulgating by Order-in-Council measures which override legislative enactments. It was the extreme of absurdity that Mr Coates should be permitted to broadcast in favour' of the Ottawa decisions while the Opposition was denied facilities to examine critically the same decisions. Either wireless broadcasting would have to be made available .to both sides of Parliament or, in the interests of fairness and common decency, it would have to be denied to both. To make a great national service a propagandist monopoly of the party in office was something that could not be tolerated. On being asked to comment on the criticism of Mr H. E. Holland, Leader of the Opposition, upon the board’s refusal to broadcast his speech at the opening of the Industrial Exhibition at Dunedin, Mr H. D. Vickery, chairman of the Broadcasting Board, said there appeared to be a good deal of misunderstanding in the matter. The terms of the board’s license required that the radio regulations must be observed, and one of these regulations debarred the broadcasting of controversial matter. Mr Holland informed the board’s officers on the day of the proposed broadcast that he purposed dealing with political matters, including the Ottawa agreement. In the circumstances the board had no option but to abandon the idea of broadcasting his speech. Another radio regulation prescribes that the board must transmit any announcement by the Government, if requested to do so. 1