The community group seeking change at Millicent community radio station 5THE-FM has welcomed the resumption of some live broadcasting from its Railway Terrace premises.
Community group spokesman David Walshaw said a local volunteer presenter hosted a music program on Wednesday afternoon.
Mr Walshaw said the presenter announced on air that he had not been in Millicent in recent weeks as he had been holidaying interstate.
“As far as our community group is concerned, this program was the first local transmission from the Millicent studio for a number of weeks,” Mr Walshaw said.
“There appears to have been little other activity at the station since late September.
“The landline phone line has been disconnected, there are no social media posts and messages and emails have gone unanswered.
“Our community group has made repeated approaches to station management and its Naracoorte lawyers about holding an annual general meeting and processing 60 membership applications but had no response.”
Meanwhile, Mr Walshaw said his group believed the impasse with 5 THE-FM could be overcome by implementing the legislated options available to the State Government’s Consumer and Business Services Commission.
“We have sought some external advice in relation to this matter and in particular, the Corporations Act,” he said.
“Section 44 and 44a of Division 1 of the Act (which talks about defunct associations) has been mentioned to us as a possible remedy.
“The Commission has the power under those sections to determine an association is defunct, take control of the assets and even subsequently return the assets of the association back to the community.
“Notwithstanding the 5 THE-FM community radio station is still operating, i.e., broadcasting, it is often doing so directly from the internet and mostly without a physical presence of somebody on site at the station on Railway Terrace.
“It should be relatively easy to establish the association running the Millicent community radio station 5 THE-FM is defunct.
“There is no public officer listed for 5 THE-FM, there appears to be no board, secretary or treasurer listed in place and no annual general meeting has been held within the appropriate timelines and no membership applications or volunteer approaches are being accepted or even communicated with.
“By any definition this would suggest the association incorporated under the act is now defunct and not operating.
“We have informed the investigations unit Consumer and Business Services Commission of our views.”
The SE Voice has approached 5 THE-FM for comment.
