New Control Of Broadcasting To Come In Australia

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 October 1948, Page 5

New Control Of Broadcasting To Come In Australia

CANBERRA, Oct 28 (Reed 11 pm). —lt was apparent that the Bill to establish an Australian Broadcasting Control Board, which had been introducted in the Senate, was designed to suppress a series of broadcasts which were presented twice a week 5n every State by the Liberal Party, said the Federal President of the Liberal Party (Mr. R. G. Casey). “That many sections of the Bill are a direct invasion of the realm of free speech is quite clear,” he said. “The Bill, if enacted would confer powers tantamount to those formerly possessed by Goebbels in Nazi Germany, and to those disastrously exercised in Soviet Russia and its satellite countries.”

When he introduced the Bill, the Postmaster-General, Senator D. Cameron, said the ban on dramatisation of political broadcasts at election time would now apply to all broadcasts on political matters current in the preceding live years.

Sweeping changes in the control of broadcasting are contained in the Bill. The board, Senator Cameron said, would take action to ensure that programmes were of reasonable extent and variety, that adequate and appropriate times were set apart, for religious broadcasts, that, equitable facilities were set apart for political and controversial matter, and t hat, the advertising content of the programmes was not excessive. The Bill deals with the setting up of machinery to provide for more efficient and co-ordinated control of all broadcasting services in Australia. It. envisages a hoard of three with

wide powers to co-ordinate national and commercial services The board will also act as a censor, particularly in the case of political presentations.