Not In Radio Time

Press, Issue 31095, 25 June 1966, Page 3

Not In Radio Time

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, June 21. The Opposition's senior whip, Mr H. L. May, was accused in Parliament tonight of refusing a Minister permission to interrupt the imprest supply debate to farewell the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) while the House was still being broadcast

Mr Holyoake leaves Wellington tomorrow for the S.E.A.T.O. conference in Canberra.

“I felt it would be appropriate to this House and the people of New Zealand that this should be done while we were still on the air. But when I put the proposition to the senior Labour whip he refused,” said the Government's senior whip (Mr J. H. George).

The Government would have withdrawn one of its own speakers from the debate.

“There was no intention of wasting any time. 1 thought it was sufficiently important to the people of this country that it should have been on the air—but the Opposition decided otherwise,” said Mr George. Mr May: It was not at any time suggested to me that a member of the Government would forgo a speech. Shortly before the adjournment tonight, the Minister of Labour (Mr Shand) and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk) expressed the best wishes of the House to Mr Holyoake that his mission would be successful.