USE OF THE RADIO

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 105, 6 May 1933, Page 8

USE OF THE RADIO

THE GOVERNMENT ATTACKED CRITICISM BY MB. HOLLAND ONESIDED PROPAGANDA [ Per Press Association. J 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. Vickery, yesterday, contained two statements that called for the closest attention. Mr. Vickery pleaded that the regulations prohibited the board from broadcasting controversial matter, and also that under the regulations the board was compelled to broadcast Government 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 that they were confronted with one of the gravest administrative scandals New Zealand had ever known. The Broadcasting Act of 1931 bestowed no power whatever on the Government to compel the board to broadcast its state meats 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 the Hon. J. G. 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.