THE PRESS OF MELBOURNE AND THE PARLIAMENT.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 522, 19 February 1876, Page 3

THE PRESS OF MELBOURNE AND THE PARLIAMENT.

An unwonted conjuncture of the press and the public service has been witnessed in Melbourne recently, which is indicative of the true position of the “fourth estate,” a position which is not properly understood by colonists generally, and perhaps least so by members of Parliament (according to a correspondent of the Queenslander). The interest felt in the budget debate upon the new fiscal policy of Sir James McCulloch prompted the editor of the Argus to propose to the Premier and the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly to give full and adequate reports of all speeches delivered up to midnight of each sitting ; and the proposition was accepted with alacrity. After a few days, however, hon members who could not catch the Speaker’s eye before 11 o’clock p.m, would not rise except to move the adjournment, fearing that the exigencies of the demands upon the valuable space of the broadsheet might involve a serious curtailment of their eloquence; and the consequence was the protraction of the debate for a month ! It is known that Victoria has a Hansard, in which hon members’ speeches are recorded more fully than in the Argus, yet the majority of the people’s representatives are painfully anxious to be reported in the daily press rather than in their own financial organ. Every pretext is availed of to secure an appearance in the leading journal. Incidentally it may be mentioned that the sittings do not, as a rule, exceed three days a week, and six hours each sitting day.