Media and Parliament: A Partnership to promote representative and participatory democracy

Kent Durr, MP – ACDP (NCOP)

Thursday, 13 June 2002

During a debate in the National Council of Provinces yesterday ACDP MP and member of the National Council of Provinces, Mr Kent Durr, gave the following speech regarding the Media and Parliament: A Partnership to promote representative and participatory democracy:


I have difficulty with the word “partnership” in the Motion. Media and Parliament are co-responsible and of course both have a real role to play; and both have a responsibility. Partnership with Parliament perhaps, but with the executive arm of government? I think not. It would be a mismatch and inevitably the executive would attempt to co-opt them and to become the senior partner. The media must resist the temptation of being silenced by being too much of an insider.

Parliament must never regard the preserve of the media as some kind of privilege: They are here by right and have a vital role to play, inter alia, in upholding free speech.

Dr Essop Pahad himself said on the 15th of April, speaking at a conference “Parliament and the Media”. “The relationship should, however, not be over close. They should stand at arms length”.

The press mirrors what goes on in Parliament and in our society. Their problem is that when we look into that mirror, we often don’t like what we see or hear, and often then we wish to kill the messenger.

What our Parliament can do to help the media in African countries, is too intervene at Parliamentary level. We know that media is under attack currently in Zimbabwe!

Liberty and freedom of speech which includes media freedom, is indivisible.
You protect it everywhere or you protect it nowhere.

What have we in Parliament done specifically to protect Press freedom in Zimbabwe? Let alone the harassment of our own correspondents in that country?

In the past two years, the Mugabe government have stolen US $ 18 billion (or Zim $ 1 trillion) in private assets from his own citizens; 83% of which the owners acquired after independence in 1980 – the majority with specific government approval and permission.

What have we done about it? What kind of “partner” are we. Each time we do not speak up, each time we look the other way, we shame not only them, we shame ourselves.


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For further comment please call Kent Durr MP at 083 2802674 or ACDP Media Liaison Liza Bloemetje at 082 4781037