N.Z. Parliament

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 65, 20 September 1940, Page 21

N.Z. Parliament

Radio Item For Australians Half of New Zealand listens to Australia’s Fred and Maggie. This note in the "ABC Weekly" indicates that we have fair exchange to offer in entertainment currency:

other night to a station broadcasting a sitting of the New Zealand Parliament, says the writer in the "ABC Weekly." I had no intention of being there or of staying there. My broadcasting programme for the night was planned on very different lines, but> that chance connection crashed the schedule, and I listened for three hours and a-half The experience convinced me-con-trary to any speculation I would have made on the subject beforehand-that a Parliamentary sitting makes first-class broadcasting. It was the more surprising because I have taken no interest in New Zealand politics, picked up the debate after it had started, and knew none of the speakers. Neither was the subject itself -New Zealand broadcasting — of any particular interest to me. "Warts and All" Actually, too, the standard of the debate was poor. Had any of the speakers been giving a "talk" over the air they would have been intolerable. Almost every other sentence began with "in regard to" or "in connection with" and they rambled and stumbled and stammered through tortuous. sentences in which the meaning was implied but rarely expressed. But the pleasure of the broadcast arose from ‘the fact. that it was natural, spontaneous and convincing. You saw Parliament just as it was -warts and all. Speakers made delightful errors. One began a_ devastating attack on a balance-sheet only to find B: accident I turned the dial the

that he had confused a debit and a credit, and that, in consequence, all his arguments had supported the side he had intended to confound. The laughter and chaffing of members, and the desire of all of them to pick on this unhappy member who had been confounded by his own confusion, was so natural that I found myself laughing with them. It was an excellent "actuality" broadcast, miles better than those stilted exchanges called radio debates, Natural and Unrehearsed The interjections and the come-backs were most entertaining--not because they were witty or quotable, which they were not-but just because they were natural and unrehearsed, and had a spontaneity which has gradually disappeared from broadcasting since it ceased to be an adventure and became institutional and organised. The quality of the discussion was about the same as that at a club or a pub or in a railway carriage. It needed gesture to be completely comprehensible, but the broadcast gave an honest picture of members as they really were, the party publicity man having no chance to sew a silk purse on the sow’s ear. Excellent for democracy, I should think. New Zealand voters can depend upon their own ears as to what goes on in Parliament and have only. themselves to blame .if. they let things slide. I have had one night’s good entertainment from the New Zealand Parliament and, pending similar broadcasts from Canberra, am going back for more. The station is 2YA.