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New Zealand's First
Parliamentary Broadcast
The Story
From Behind The Microphone.

Radio history was made last month with the first broadcast from inside Parliament. The story of the great innovation is told for “The Railways Magazine” by Mr. Chas. E. Wheeler, a well-known parliamentary journalist who was officially selected to initiate the broadcasts with descriptive “eye-witness” accounts of the election of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the next day's opening of Parliament by His Excellency the Governor-General. He also gives information about the technical organisation, equipment and practical operation of “outside” radio broadcast.

The opening of New Zealand's 25th Parliament on the 25th March, 1936, was notable for one remarkable innovation. This institution, so jealous of its privileges and so concerned about “strangers,” allowed the broadcasting microphone within its well-guarded precincts.

“Parliament is to be brought into the people's homes, to their own firesides,” declared the Prime Minister, and as a very experienced parliamentarian, the Hon. M. J. Savage knew, when he said it, that this meant a tremendous innovation and a breaking down of strong tradition.

Radio listeners in the Dominion will get so easily into the habit of tuning in to hear what Parliament is doing on big occasions that they may come to regard the privilege as a common-place. At present it certainly is not! The jealous way in which Parliament maintains an attitude of exclusiveness about its proceedings has an origin deep in the past, when Parliament fought with Kings for the right, expressed in the famous phrase, “No taxation without representation.”

Even last March it was the duty of the Speaker of New Zealand's House of Representatives to make a request on its behalf to the Governor-General, the representative of His Majesty, in these words:

“I have now, on behalf of the House of Representatives of New Zealand, to lay claim to all their privileges, and especially to freedom of debate, and to free access to Your Excellency whenever occasion may require it, and that the most favourable construction may be put on all their proceedings.”

And there are other outcroppings on the rock face of modern parliamentary procedure, reminding us of historic, almost forgotten controversies. For instance, His Excellency the Governor, as the direct representative of the King, receives the elected members of the House of Representatives in the Legislative Council chamber on the opening of Parliament, and in a Speech from the Throne directs them regarding the legislative programme which his advisers, the Ministry, require to be passed during the session. Members of the Lower House thereupon return to their own chamber “for the despatch of business” as their summons runs.

But do they proceed at once on the King's business? No. The Prime Minister at once moves the first reading of “The Expiring Laws Continuance Bill,” a measure not mentioned in the Speech from the Throne, but assertive of Parliament's privilege of legislating without direction. Only after this formal revival of a hard-won privilege does the House hear one of its members give notice that next sitting day he will move “That a respectful Address be presented to His Excellency, in reply to His Excellency's Speech.” Nothing more is heard of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, the counterpart of which, in the British House of Commons, is “The Prevention of Outlawrys Bill.”

As an institution, Parliament's official attitude towards the newspapers is merely one of tolerance. Members of the Parliament Press Gallery are there on sufferance (though they are given every facility, and some comforts) and they are included among the “strangers” whom Mr. Speaker does not “see” —otherwise they can be removed. The Standing Orders of the House inferentially recognise the Press Gallery by including a penal clause under which any newspaper representative may be excluded from the Gallery for committing breach of privilege.

And it was in this exclusive atmosphere that the broadcasting microphone came into action on the afternoon of March 25th when, for the first time in history, the actual proceedings of a legislative assembly were allowed to be heard outside the walls. Having accepted this innovating “stranger,” Parliament did the thing handsomely by giving what it called “the official commentator” a seat on the floor of the House, close to backbench members on the “Noes” side. Here on a table was the relay apparatus and the announcer's microphone, while suspended above members’ heads down the centre of the chamber were three microphones, since increased to four. They are of the ribbon type evolved by the British Broadcasting Corporation's engineers, and represent the last word in efficiency for broadcasts outside a radio studio.

(Continued on page 49)

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