POLITICAL PATTERN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 99, 15 August 1944, Page 4

POLITICAL PATTERN

WERE a referendum of the country's greatest reaction- to the broadcasting of Parliamentary proceedings possible, we doubt not but that the majority would join in declaring it as the finest illustration of 'how not to conduct a meeting whether it be: devoted to ordinary every day pub-' lie body work, or the so-called higher motive of legislating a country. We can recall writing on the subject some time ago under the caption of 'Political iLarrikanism.' To-day the position seems to have deteriorated even from the standard of two years ago. At times during the budget debate it became almost impossible to distinguish the voice of Mr Speaker in the babel of interjections, bovine-Uke bellows of derision, blatant coughing, nose-blowing and forced laughter. Way back in the rules of debate, coined by Parliament itself in more dignified days it was stipulated that each speaker should justly enjoy the privilege of having his say, after which the opposition had the right of reply. To-day it seems the rules of debate are observed with reasonable decorum and effectiveness everywhere but in Parliament itself—a Gilbertian situation if ever there was one.