Strong Protest
p. 11 · Read in the full issue
Wireless License
Fees
“Papuan Courier’ Makes Strong Protest
From Our Own Correspondent
Port Moresby, May 24.
ONCE again the Commonwealth Govern ment has demanded license fees from the wireless listeners in Papua. The spasmodic demand takes place once every two or three years.
The “Papuan Courier” has strongly ob jected to this demand and considers the collection of such fees quite illegal, in taking this view it is not looking for loop holes in the law to evade the payment, but merely wishes to obtain justice.
The Commonwealth Government, it as serts, has no right to collect from the residents of Papua moneys which are to be placed in the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Commonwealth, over which the people of Papua have not the slightest control. “We do not admit,” it continues, “the right of any country to tax the resi dents of Papua and at the same time treat us as foreigners.”
To collect listeners’ fees from Papua is an absurdity—when it is realised that at no time of the day is the reception good and that for perhaps three to four months of the year only can Australian stations be heard, and then reception is imperfect.