“FREEDOM OF THE AIR”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21088, 14 July 1938, Page 9

“FREEDOM OF THE AIR”

USE OF OFFICIAL NEWS BULLETIN PROTEST BY PRESIDENT OF FARMERS’ UNION WELLINGTON, July 12. Criticism of the use of the official news bulletin issued by the Prime Minister’s department during the sitting of the Parliamentary Committee which took evidence on the Government’s social security plan was made by Mr W. W. Mulholland in his presidential address to the annual meeting of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union.

After discussing public interest attaching to the activities of the union, Mr Mulholland said:— “The evidence submitted to the Parliamentary schemes was considered of such importance by the Government that the Prime Minister thought it necessary in the 7 o’clock wireless broadcast from his department on the evening of the day following the de-

livery of our evidence to broadcast a considerable part of Mr James Roberts’ evidence. “This evidence was a series of eulogiums which were duly responded to by the Prime Minister and other members of the Parliamentary Committee, who, in their turn, congratulated Mr Roberts on his excellent evidence, all of which was broadcast as news. This incident is only one of many that proves the undesirability of Ministerial control of broadcasting. “Parliament should lay down certain definite principles, and give the administration of them to an officer or board responsible only to Parliament and as independent of the Government as the judiciary. To-day freedom of the air is an integral part of free speech.”