PROCEEDINGS IN THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (REPORTING AND SCRIPTED SPEECHES)

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am obliged for having obtained the right to speak on the motion for the Adjournment. The matter which I wish to raise before this House is one of considerable importance not only to this Assembly, but to the people at large. There are approximately not more than one hundred people at any one time watching the proceedings of this Assembly, and it is a matter of vital importance that a fair, impartial and unbiased account of the proceedings of this Assembly should be given by agencies which are within the control of this Government. Neither the Government nor this Assembly have any right to dictate how our newspapers are to give their accounts of the proceedings in this House. But we take strenuous objection when a Government agency like Radio Malaya, both in its news bulletins and in its monthly accounts of proceedings in the Assembly, gives an account which leaves the listener with an impression which is completely different from that which a person sitting in the Strangers' Gallery would obtain.

I am not suggesting that either the Chief Minister or the Chief Secretary has in any way been personally responsible for these reports. I would say that it is part of the legacy of a colonial past. [Interruption.] We should not have such unparliamentary language from a person who occupies so high an office in this country and in the hierarchy of the colonial system. He should conduct himself with more propriety and decorum. He should remember that even if he is not personally responsible for these reports, he should not, as the Member responsible for that branch, allow an agency, which in more democratic countries in the world are fair and impartial corporations, to be an instrument of government propaganda.

Sir, I do not wish to go too far back into the past, but I think whoever listened to the 1.30 news of Radio Malaya after the emergency meeting last Monday would have believed that the House was filled with nothing but a roaring peroration from the Hon. the Chief Minister reading out his lurid account, unchallenged, of what took place. [Interruption.] I beg the Chief Minister's pardon, but one finds it difficult to overcome the habits of a colonial past. It is not the Chief Minister. When one thinks of the person in authority one always thinks of the colonial official as that person, the person who directs the course of affairs. The Chief Secretary spoke approximately for some seventy minutes in this House. I could not believe that report over Radio Malaya, and I therefore went back to check my facts. I discovered that I spoke approximately five minutes less than the Chief Secretary, and the Chief Secretary's tirade received almost ten minutes over Radio Malaya's 1.30 p.m. news, and the Opposition, the answer to his speech, was dismissed in fifteen seconds.

Now, Sir, if the English Press, or the Chinese Press, or the Indian Press, were to do that, we would make no complaint. We believe in Democracy. We believe in the right of a free Press. But we believe in a fair, unbiased public radio corporation. We do not want the wireless to become an instrument of government propaganda, particularly in reporting accounts of what took place in this Chamber. The only way in which a fair and impartial account can be given, other than by the Hansard publication of this House itself, would be through an agency such as Radio Malaya. This raises important matters of principle, which previous governments had neither the inclination nor the will to face. It is only in colonial territories, or in Fascist countries, or totalitarian countries that radio stations are part of the government machinery of propaganda. In more democratic countries they come under the control of a board of trustees of impartial men of integrity, who run it in the public interests. Whilst talking on this point, E would draw the attention of the Chief Minister to what he must know is a very important matter, which should receive his early attention as soon as he has settled the more urgent matters which now bedevil his Cabinet. But this is a matter which must be tackled.

I reliably understand that the present Director of Broadcasting in Singapore is going home on leave for consultations with the Colonial Office about the creation of such a public corporation for Radio Malaya. It is a good sign that even colonial officials can learn and can try to live up to democracy, but I think it is more important that we in this Chamber, who represent the people, should take the initiative, and not leave it to some energetic colonial official.

I would also like to make another point in relation to proceedings in this Assembly. The Public Relations Office is rightly an instrument for the dissemination of the Government's point of view and for the providing of facilities to foreign correspondents and other newspapermen just as the Central Office of Information in Britain. But when foreign correspondents, immediately after the debate in this Assembly, go to the offices of the Public Relations Department, and can pick up the speech that was made by the Hon. the Chief Secretary, and pick up the speech that was made much later in the day by the Hon. the Chief Minister, but are unable to find any scripts of speeches made by Members of the Opposition, I think the process of using the Public Relations Office as an instrument of government propaganda is carried a little bit too far. Here again, I wish to make it clear that I make no charge against either the Chief Secretary or the Chief Minister personally. But I wish to draw the attention of this House, publicly, and on the floor of this Assembly to say that that should not be the case. We are not saying that it was wrong of the Public Relations Office to provide scripted copies of the speech made by the Chief Minister, nor that of the Chief Secretary, but they should not have done that to the exclusion of speeches made by Members on the other side of the House.

I can quite believe that the Chief Secretary and the Chief Minister are completely unaware of this. But I hope, now that I have brought these matters to their attention, that such a very undesirable bias, both in Radio Malaya and in the Public Relations Office, should not be allowed to continue. They are matters which relate very intimately to this Assembly. I think the Assembly has the right to ask the Government that all proceedings in this House, if they are reported in any way through any agency, or through any medium, over which this Government and this Assembly have any control, however remote, such reports should be fair, impartial and unbiased.

I would say last week's Radio Malaya's commentary on the proceedings, where eleven speakers who spoke on the motion were dismissed in one line and which said "eleven other people spoke", is not one that can be called fair or impartial by any stretch of the imagination.

Mr R. C. H. Lim: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am quite confident that the Chief Minister and the Chief Secretary will look into these complaints, but there is one point I should like to mention, and that is that it is not necessary that long speeches made in this House should be lengthily reported through Radio Malaya or in the papers. Long speeches which contain long repetitions might be cut down to one single sentence, and a short speech which contains more substance and more facts might occupy much longer space both through Radio Malaya and in the local Press.

Mr Francis Thomas: It just occurs to me, Mr Speaker, Sir, that this was the occasion, I think, when the People's Action Party was unable to make up its mind and had to abstain from voting. If, following a 65-minute speech which apparently led nowhere, neither he nor his Party knew which way to vote and had to abstain, it hardly seems to me deserving of report in that case.

Mr Goode: Mr Speaker, Sir, much of my thunder has already been stolen. I fully share some of the view expressed by the Member for Tanjong Pagar (Mr Lee Kuan Yew) that it is important that the proceedings in this House should be fairly, accurately and impartially reported. It is particularly important at this time, Sir, when in certain quarters of this country there is not that degree of freedom of speech which we enjoy here. I support that, and I am quite sure that you, Sir, will be jealous of that principle, and that should you ever feel that it is being abused by any of those who sit in the Gallery, you will not be slow to exercise the powers given to you under Standing Order 75.

Having said that, Sir, I regret that the Member for Tanjong Pagar should be so upset, not I think really at his lack of publicity, but at his bad publicity, and that in his vexation he should feel justified in trying to put the blame on to two really fairly innocuous Government departments. I realise that the colonial legacy hangs round our necks like a millstone, but I hope and trust that other Members of this House are not so obsessed by the bogey as the Member for Tanjong Pagar.

I do assure you, Sir, and other Members of the House that Radio Malaya seeks to cover the debates in this House with a purely factual summary of those debates. It refrains from opinion, and it refrains from comment. It endeavours to favour neither the Government nor the Opposition. Whether or not, of course, it succeeds in this, to me, very difficult task must be a matter of opinion, and I should expect that after any given debate the opinions of each Party in this House probably differ.

After our sitting on the 26th of April quite a number of people criticised to me the then report given by Radio Malaya of our debate and made the most unwarranted suggestion that the People's Action Party had got hold of Radio Malaya. That was how it was that the Member far Tanjong Pagar got such a tremendous publicity. I had no hesitation in saying then, as I say now, that there was no question of Radio Malaya being nobbled by the People's Action Party. They were doing their best to give a factual report of what had happened, and I think we are all agreed on that day the hon. Member did put up a very good and convincing performance.

Well, now, after our last sitting apparently, he does not think he got sufficient publicity. He makes the suggestion that on the half-past-one news, I think it was, I got ten minutes, and lie got fifteen seconds. Well, I would point out that he finished speaking - if I remember rightly - at about twenty minutes to one of the clock in this House, that the bulletin put over on the half-past-one news had to be prepared and ready for that half-past-one news; and that whilst it did naturally devote a good deal of its time to a speech which had been completed in time for it to be summarised, the bulletin went on to say that a full report would be given later in the evening. So that I would say that they did their utmost, again, to be quite fair. But I do not for one minute accept the criterion that because the hon. Member speaks for sixty-five minutes the length of coverage in Radio Malaya or in the Press should be directly related to the length of time he takes to tell us what is in his mind.

We have also a very real check. We are not solely dependent on Radio Malaya. We have a very strong and representative Press section to listen to our debates, and I think we can rely upon them to correct any unbalance or any human failure on the part of Radio Malaya.

As regards the Public Relations Department, as I see it the position is slightly different. The primary function of the Public Relations Department is to inform the public of Government policies and Government decisions, and to give explanations of Government's actions. I think it is a well recognised part of that function in most territories that the Public Relations Department should endeavour to get out texts of important speeches made by Ministers. I know this is not an easy task for them to discharge. They did make a very creditable effort at our last debate, and they managed to get out fairly full texts of the speeches made by my hon. Friend the Chief Minister and by myself. It would have been quite impractical for them to have attempted to perform that service for the Member for Tanjong Pagar, and I do not think, Sir, that that is strictly part of their functions.

I would like, Sir, in conclusion, not I hope appearing to be an arrogant colonial official, to try, if I may, to speak as one who has had now quite a number of years' experience of speaking in Legislatures; somewhat rashly I would venture to give three tips to the Member for Tanjong Pagar.

The first tip is that he should not expect that the coverage he will get in the Press and radio will be related to the time it takes him to speak in this House.

The second tip I would give him is that he should endeavour to marshal his arguments and his sentences shortly, so that it is easy not only for this House, but for our guests to understand what he is driving at.

And, thirdly, when he indulges in one of his cold, penetrating rapier thrusts at Ministers on the opposite side of the House to himself, he should make certain, when he drops his voice, that he drops it into the microphone and not on to the middle of the Table.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this Assembly do now adjourn.

Adjourned accordingly at 4.15 p.m. to the 29th of June, 1955.