Radio: Government by Radio

The New Zealander is the only citizen in the world who can settle back in his easy chair and actually hear his Government making laws. His House of Representatives in Wellington is wired for sound, and every word spoken from the floor (wartime exception: military information) comes to him by radio.*

U.S. soldiers stationed in New Zealand have observed this unique procedure with considerable interest. The U.S. has.nothing like it. Nearest thing to it was Manhattan station WNYC’s broadcasts of the proceedings of the City Council for two years (1938-40). That was such a farcical success that council members eventually caught on and voted themselves off the air. To U.S. citizens at home or abroad, the thought of a microphone in the halls of Congress has decidedly interesting possibilities.

Up With Debate. New Zealand could now give them some facts about its own experiment. Final results were announced of the first general election faced by a House which had undergone a full term of broadcasting. Alarmists who had thought that the microphone would encourage fluent hypocrisy at the expense of floundering soundness were silenced—along with many of the House’s most agile speakers. Some of the House’s lamest orators were triumphantly reelected. To champions of parliamentary broadcasting, this seemed proof that the New Zealand voter was capable of being educated without being entranced.

But the conservative press and many Conservative Party members were dead against the microphone.

Dairy v. Kitchen. Their opposition went back to 1936, when the system was established by the late Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage, head of New-Zealand’s first Labor Government (“The Fair Deal”). He wanted the House proceedings broadcast, on the grounds that the press did not give the Labor Party an even break. He put New Zealand’s transmitters under direct Government control, appointed himself first Minister of Broadcasting.

New Zealand, which has the world’s fourth highest radio density (one for every 4.6 people) ate the parliamentary broadcasts up. Farmers fought their wives over the question of where to put the radio: dairy, barn or kitchen. Prime Minister Savage’s pear-shaped tone and forthright manner quickly made him their favorite broadcaster. Conservatives have yet to produce his peer.

Pun and Tinkle. From Auckland to Dunedin, Tuesday to Friday, New Zealanders hear the tinkle of the bell summoning House members from the lobby at precisely 2:30 p.m. Eight hours later—with a two-hour dinner intermission—they catch Speaker William E. Barnard’s words ending the day’s session. Although the broadcasts have long since lost their novelty, guesstimators swear that for big debates half the Dominion’s radios pick up Australasia’s most powerful station (2YA, 60 kilowatts).

The citizens hear lesser matters, too, from five microphones slung above the House’s black-leather settees—an occasional barroom pun, laments upon a Representative’s hangover, etc. The Speaker of the House censors all speeches for military security with a push button at his right hand. Orators can tell how they are doing by watching the colored lights above his desk. Red means “fine.” White means the mike is dead.

* New Zealand’s House is its lawmaking body. Its Upper House ishonorary and advisory.