Television New Zealand Bill

Once again I rise to speak to the bill. I suspect that the Minister in the chair, Steve Maharey, as he looks at the commencement date listed in the bill, must more or less hold his head in shame, because the bill states: “The Act comes into force on 1 July 2001.” That is when the charter was supposed to come into effect.

💬 Hon David Carter: John Tamihere would have got it done in time.

He would have got it done in time—quite clearly so. The commencement date is 1 July 2001, and here we are, some 19 months later, talking about this bill now. We are into the fourth year of talking about the charter, the fourth year of discussing this bill. Now the Government is bringing in, at the Committee stage, changes that make the bill quite radically different from the bill that the Commerce Committee looked at.

This part sets out the purpose of the Act. Once again, things have changed dramatically. It was intended that there be no split of BCL from Television New Zealand. Unlike Marc Alexander, who spoke before, I do not see having the two parts of the organisation together as cannibalistic. There are some good reasons for having the two organisations together. BCL is a very profitable organisation, and a lot of the profits from that particular part of the company have been able to be directed into the production of local content. That will not be possible now. If we are to look at the good sides of cross-subsidisation, that was one.

Now BCL is going to be split off. That is a total about-face by the Government, but it has nothing to do with United Future. It has more to do with the fact that the Alliance is now no longer an important part of the Government. We all know that keeping the two organisations together was Jim Anderton’s goal.

In terms of splitting off BCL, and the changes that are outlined in the Supplementary Order Paper from the Government, I would like to take the Committee back to some comments made by the Minister when he was being interviewed on Media Watch. At the time the Minister was asked: “So the elements of the structure we have now—two commercial channels, with BCL part of the same entity—that’s set in stone?” Steve Maharey replied: “Yes.”

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: That’s one of the things you say as a Minister that you don’t really say.

This was actually 25 August 2002; even back then, he said it was set in stone. The second question was: “Now there’s no temptation, now that you’ll possibly have the opportunity, to split BCL as the Government has always wanted to?”. He responded: “No. I think, as I say, the die is cast there to get this legislation through.” That was said back in August 2002, and here we are, further down the track, with a bill that is dramatically different from the one that was discussed in the select committee, and with these eleventh-hour changes.

If we look at the purpose of the bill, we see it aims to put in place the charter. We have a document that comprises probably fewer than 500 words. This Government has managed to deliver less than one word a day. Frankly, I am sure that if my colleague Tony Ryall had put pen to paper, he could have written the charter in half an hour.

In terms of where we have to go to from here, the purpose of the Act, although set out there in black and white, is still incredibly vague. It states that the television business has to give effect to the charter. I ask the Minister what “gives effect to” means. Does it mean “implement”? What does it mean in terms of the way this charter will be measured? Some years down the track, we are still standing here without any idea of how this charter will be measured, how much it will cost, or how much impact it will have on the TVNZ business. The purpose of this Act is quite vague and really should have greater detail.

Of course, the Minister says that the $12 million that the Government has put into the provision of the charter will make a big difference. I remind the Committee that, on the day that press release came out, Annette King was making a comment about the health sector. She said that $10 million, if my memory serves me correctly, was a mere trickle.

I would like to talk about Part 1, the purpose of this Act. I reiterate that the Green Party does support the transformation of Television New Zealand into a Crown-owned company, because we would like to see it change from being a commercially focused State-owned enterprise to being an organisation that, hopefully, is editorially driven rather than just commercially driven, and that will have the satisfaction of viewers, not the return of a commercial dividend, as its primary objective. What is the point, we say, of keeping a television channel in public ownership if it is not going to focus on a New Zealand voice, a New Zealand perspective, and New Zealand programmes?

We do need to remember that TVNZ has been more commercially driven, more dependent on commercial income and advertising revenue, than any other public service television in the world. Figures from a year ago show that whereas we were spending about $3 a head annually on public service television, Australia was spending $30, and the United Kingdom was spending $120. So we support the idea of trying to change the culture of Television New Zealand from one that is simply preoccupied with advertising revenue and ratings, to one that is focused on New Zealand programmes and the New Zealand perspective.

In that regard, we sincerely hope that TV2 will improve its performance. At present, a mere 13 percent of the programmes screening on TV2 are New Zealand programmes. That is the channel that children watch. Our children are watching a couple of hours of television every single day, on average. What are they seeing when they watch TV2, the young people’s channel? They will learn more about Los Angeles than they do about their own suburbs and communities, because New Zealand society remains largely invisible on TV2. We sincerely hope that will begin to change—or what is the purpose of a publicly owned television channel?

Although we support the transformation of TVNZ into a Crown-owned company, we are totally opposed to the Government’s last-minute amendment, which came like a bolt out of the blue, to separate off the transmission arm. We believe that, exactly as Katharine Rich said, it will weaken, not strengthen, TVNZ. It will shrink the potential revenue base of TVNZ and therefore its potential to make New Zealand programmes. It will eliminate the option of having transparent cross-subsidies from the transmission arm, and it will make TVNZ increasingly reliant on advertising revenue, at the very time that we are asking it, in the charter, to be editorially driven, not ratings driven. It will weaken the implementation of the charter.

Given that advertising revenue is notoriously fickle, and in particular will become so—as we and the pundits predict—as we move into the digital era, we believe that this bill, when the Minister of Broadcasting’s amendments are adopted with the help of United Future, will inevitably increase TVNZ’s dependence on Government funding, which, of course, has its own problems of potential political interference. If TVNZ is dependent on Government funding, what happens when there is a change of Government and there is no more funding forthcoming? On the political interference argument, there is an old saying: “She who pays the piper plays the tune”. It would be very easy for a future Government, unhappy with Television New Zealand’s election coverage, for example, to threaten to reduce the Government subsidy—$10 million a year, we are told, for the next 3 years. Helen Clark made it plain that she was furious with TVNZ’s election coverage 4 years ago. It is not unimaginable that in future a Prime Minister would vow to reduce the amount of Government funding available for TVNZ, because of his or her unhappiness with election coverage. That is what happened back in 1975 when Robert Muldoon refused to raise the licence fee, essentially as a way of punishing the broadcaster.

It is a great privilege to be able to speak in this debate along with Katherine Rich, the National Party broadcasting spokesperson. I want to echo the comments she made about Part 1 of the Television New Zealand Bill. Part 1 lists the purposes of this Act, and they have changed quite remarkably from when the bill was first introduced. When the bill was first introduced it was all about providing Television New Zealand with a very complex, three-board structure with two subsidiaries, with various people having various cross-directorships.

💬 Katherine Rich: Dr Armstrong would have been on all three.

Dr Armstrong would have been on all three. But we now find that a Supplementary Order Paper has been tabled late in the day that provides for the splitting up of Television New Zealand into a television business and a transmission business. This is a quite fundamental change and about-face from the Government in recent times. Katharine Rich was the first person in the whole Television New Zealand debate to say that the transmission arm should be split off from the broadcast arm, and she has been proved correct, but I would like the Minister of Broadcasting to stand up and explain the remarkable about-face that we have seen in his tenure of the broadcasting portfolio. He was asked on the Media Watch television programme: “So the elements of the structure that we have now, two commercial channels, with BCL part of the same entity, that’s set in stone?”. Mr Maharey replied: “Yes.” He said it was set in stone. He said that on the Media Watch programme on 25 August 2002. What a remarkable turn-round!

The reason he has changed his position is the logic and the weight of the argument that Katharine Rich and the National Party in Opposition have brought to this bill. The Government simply could not withstand the weight of the argument.

I would also like the Minister to stand up and explain the very generous references to Māori in clause 4. We are spending oodles of taxpayers’ money on a Māori television channel, and now we find that the alternative channel will have to take lots of notice of Māori interests, as well. Not only will there be a Māori television channel; the public service television channels will be dominated by Māori interests, as well. Māori are not getting one channel; they are getting three. That is not what the Government promised the people of New Zealand. I want the Minister to stand up, take a call, and explain why Television New Zealand will have to take into account the aims and aspirations of Māori more than any other group in the community, and where that sits with the fact that tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money will provide a special channel for Māori. Why does Television New Zealand have to accept that responsibility, which this Government has decided will be met through an independent television channel for Māori? I would like the Minister to get up and explain why some people can get two bites of the taxpayer cherry, while others are shut out and get none of what is going on, as a result of the segregationist approach that this Government wants to pursue throughout this country.

I acknowledge the debate, led by Katherine Rich, that has led to the about-face by the Government. It is extraordinary that only 4 months ago the Minister was saying that the previous structure was set in stone. It is now a few months later, and the Minister has done a complete 180-degree flip on that issue, without giving any explanation to the people of New Zealand. We used to have a thing called the “Maharey principle”, which refers to things people say when in Opposition that they do not really say when in Government. Now we have the “Maharey principle 2”, which refers to things people say when in Government that they do not really say when they are in Government! Beat that! What a flip! Clearly, this Government owes Parliament an explanation of why it has changed its position.

Part 1 of the Television New Zealand Bill deals with the purpose of the bill, which has now been totally changed by the Supplementary Order Paper we have just been given. The purpose of this bill is interesting because for the first time it brings in the dreaded word “charter”, which we will get to later on in the Committee stage. Paragraph (b) of clause 3 on Supplementary Order Paper 57 states that the legislation will “ensure that the Crown entity responsible for the television business gives effect to its Charter while maintaining its commercial performance:”. Commercial performance is defined later on in this part, but a tension is developed here. How can this Crown entity give effect to a charter that is trying desperately to please every single little sector of the public, and, at the same time, maintain its commercial performance? There is absolutely no way that it can do that.

Under the old bill, before Supplementary Order Paper 57 came in, there was a slight chance that that might happen. But now that BCL has been separated out and taken away, the only way that Television New Zealand will get any funding is from the advertiser or from the taxpayer. We have already seen the Government commit $12 million to implement the charter. That $12 million has going to a business that was once a proud enterprise, returning over $60 million a year in 1999. The Government already has to give it $12 million, and that will increase, because an enterprise like this cannot both be dependent upon advertising and try to be a public broadcaster.

The ACT party would do away with this whole bill, and sell Television New Zealand. Why do we need public broadcasting? What is the purpose of a public broadcaster? What is so special about television? Why does Labour not buy back all the publishing companies in New Zealand? There are many people who read more books than they watch television—probably including most of the people in this House. Books are enormously important in terms of seeing one’s own culture, of seeing the Kiwi identity reflected—whatever “Kiwi identity” means; it is something defined by politicians. Why does not Labour buy all the publishing companies, and deliver a charter to get rid of, for one thing, the secularisation of the State? That is a dangerous, slippery slope that this bill goes down, as we will see later.

I see that the Minister of Broadcasting is not in the chair any more, but perhaps the Minister who is now in the chair, Jim Sutton, could take a call and explain to us why Supplementary Order Paper 57 proposes to change the definition of “shareholding Ministers”. At one stage, shareholding Ministers were defined as the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Broadcasting, but now that has changed to the “Minister of Finance and the Minister for the time being responsible for TVNZ”. What on earth does that mean? I call on the Minister to take a call and explain to us what that means. It is another one of those nebulous sorts of phrases that creep into legislation like this. For instance, does it mean Parekura Horomia, who might want to increase taxpayer funding for Māori programmes on Television New Zealand, as well as the mythical, elusive, Scarlet Pimpernel - like Māori Television Service? Perhaps the Minister could take a call and explain to us what that means, if, indeed, he knows.

I will conclude by supporting Katherine Rich’s comment that the Minister of Broadcasting must be ashamed when he sees that the commencement date has changed from 1 July 2001. We see that time and time again with legislation that comes before this Committee.

I take pleasure in speaking to Part 1. I, too, have concerns as far as the purpose of the bill is concerned. There has been a big change from the structure in the original bill, which was to “provide for a Television New Zealand Crown entity group consisting of a Crown holding company with 2 subsidiaries, one of which conducts a television business and the other a transmission business”, to one that “provides for the existing State enterprise, Television New Zealand Limited to be split into a Crown entity conducting a television business and a State enterprise conducting a transmission business;”, and so on.

I think the Hon Tony Ryall had a very good point. Four months ago this Government said the previous structure was set in stone. Now, all of a sudden, this Government has done a total turn-round. It has obviously realised that its policy-making machine—or whatever it is that its crazy ideas sometimes come from—does not work.

I will also speak on clause 4. It states: “In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,—equal employment opportunities programme” etc. It then goes on to state, in the definition of “good employer”: “including provisions requiring—”, and it goes on down to paragraph (d), which states: “recognition of—(i) the aims and aspirations of Māori; and (ii) the employment requirements of Māori; and (iii) the need for greater involvement of Māori as employees of the employer operating the personnel policy;”. It goes on to some other issues, as well. It reminds me of the exact wording in the State Sector Act 1988—not that I was very old back then; at least, Darren Hughes and I had been born at that point in time. The wording reminds me that the Labour Government has not changed its spots, although it appears to be different, and tries to be a new face of the Labour Party.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

I was saying that the Labour Government has not changed its spots. The Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues thinks that the phrase I used was a bit outdated. But clause 4, after the definition of “equal employment opportunities programme”, talks about recognition of “the aims and aspirations of Māori”, “the employment requirements of Māori”, “the need for greater involvement of Māori as employees of the employer operating the personnel policy”, and so on. As I said earlier, that sounds like the Labour Government of old—the Labour Government under David Lange. The exact same wording is used in the State Sector Act of 1989. Where is the creativity in this part of the bill? This Government has a new look, but underneath it all it is the same Labour Government. Four months ago this Government said that the previous structure was set in stone, then all of a sudden it made a total turn-round.

Five years ago we saw the Prime Minister all dressed up in nice photos; she looked very nice in them, but that was not the real Prime Minister. The photos of her did not even look like her much. That is what the Labour Government is like. It is all dressed up with window dressing, but really it has no substance.

💬 Hon Dover Samuels: Hang on!

That got a bite! I have concerns about this bill, especially about Part 1.

I was very keen to take a call on Part 1, in which we are discussing the surprising—or maybe it is not surprising—about-face by Mr Maharey. In August last year he argued that in no circumstances would BCL, the transmission arm, be split out to be a separate company. Now, after listening to and recognising the excellent contributions and work done over the intervening months by my colleague Katherine Rich, the National Party spokesperson on broadcasting, Mr Maharey has conceded that there may be a better way of doing things.

But I want particularly to talk about clause 3 as it went to the Commerce Committee. It has now been eliminated under Supplementary Order Paper 57, which was drafted at the eleventh hour by this Labour Government. I refer specifically to paragraph (c), which stated: “ensure that the subsidiary responsible for the transmission business operates as a successful business:” Those are fairly simple words—“ensure that the subsidiary responsible for the transmission business operates as a successful business:”. We acknowledge that the “Maharey principle” has been applied to this legislation. Mr Maharey has suddenly changed his mind, and we are no longer talking about a subsidiary of Television New Zealand.

However, nowhere in the Supplementary Order Paper can I find any reference to the requirement that BCL still operate as a successful business. If it is there, I expect Mr Maharey to take a call and point that out to us. But I suspect that what we are seeing here, again, is further destruction of taxpayer value—further destruction of a business that, at this stage, is still a profitable part of Television New Zealand—by allowing the business to operate on the basis of one of those wally-ish social responsibilities, with no requirement at all that it be run as a sensible business.

💬 Marc Alexander: Rubbish!

Marc Alexander interrupts, and says: “Rubbish!”

💬 Hon Steve Maharey: It is rubbish.

The Minister has not taken a call.

💬 Hon Steve Maharey: The member hasn’t asked a question yet.

Yes, I have asked a question. I will repeat it, seeing that Mr Maharey not only has changed his mind but appears to be hard of hearing. I ask him why the words “responsible for the transmission business [operating] as a successful business” have been taken out. Why have those words now been taken out of the original bill that went to the select committee? If Mr Maharey will take a call and explain that, I will happily sit down and let him do so.

💬 Hon Steve Maharey: No, I’ll wait for a sensible question to be asked.

No, he is not going to take a call. Maybe Mr Alexander would like to take a call, because he has suddenly become a real expert on the Television New Zealand Bill. Let him take a call and assure the Committee that this particular arm of Television New Zealand, once it is split into a separate entity, will still be required to operate as a sensible and profitable business. It is a simple question. It should be easily answered. I am happy that Mr Alexander is prepared now to acknowledge that he will take the next call. It will be interesting to see whether he does—to see whether he jumps to his feet and defends the Government’s new change to the legislation before the Committee. [Interruption] He might come with God’s message! I do not mind how he comes to the debate, but let him now take the next call and assure us that he is supporting legislation that will not have this business become another part of the social agenda, with no requirement at all that it operate as a successful business.

We have already heard in the debate that Television New Zealand was worth a billion dollars. Now it would be difficult to sell, even if the Government wanted to do so. That is the level of destruction of shareholder value that we have seen in 4 years.

💬 Marc Alexander: Because of the split?

No, definitely not because of the split. The member should listen. It is because of the way that Television New Zealand has now completely changed its focus. It no longer has to focus on delivering dividends to the Government.

I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, not yet.

I shall consider this legislation from a New Zealand First point of view, comparing its original purpose with its new purpose, which is to split the company into a Crown entity conducting a television business, and a State enterprise conducting a transmission business. The previous speaker made an excellent point. Unfortunately for me, he stole my thunder to some extent. I had also noticed that the original paragraph (c) in clause 3 made it clear that the purpose of the legislation was to “ensure that the subsidiary responsible for the transmission business operate as a successful business:”. Whatever happens, however it might be owned, we can only say that that is an excellent proposal. But on Supplementary Order Paper 57, thrust upon us on 20 February, there is no requirement that whatever is formed operates as a successful business. United Future says it is a party of business people. From time to time we have heard from Gordon Copeland about his business past. I would have thought that United Future members would insist that that provision be inserted in the bill.

Again, New Zealand first objects to the split of anything that would enable the Government of the day, whatever one it might be, to sell part of it. It might not be the immediate Government, but if there is a change, and those members become the socialists they really are, they would possibly sell off this business, or, if they go back to the Roger Douglas style, they might sell off the entity that has been created. If it is not created, if there is no split, it cannot be sold, and New Zealand First opposes the split.

I would have thought that United Future, which so boldly said that the title should be the “Thank God for United Future Bill” would include in the purpose of the legislation—in keeping with what it says is its philosophy—that all future television programmes should be of a family nature, supporting the family and the development of family life in New Zealand. There is nothing in this bill that promotes family life. United Future talks a lot about family life. In its coalition agreement discussions with the Labour Party, I would have expected that United Future would insist that family life be referred to in the purpose of this legislation. New Zealand First will be putting an amendment at an appropriate time to require that the programming feature programmes of a family nature that support the family and development of family life in New Zealand. That is consistent with my member’s bill, the Commission for the Family Bill, which is waiting to be drawn in one of the ballots that are forthcoming. I expect United Future to support my amendment. That is the basis on which those members are here in this House. I expect the United Future members to stand up and vote for the amendment, along with whoever else cares to vote for it, ensuring that family life is given full status in this legislation, and ensuring that the legislation is not silent on the subject, as is the case with the charter at the present time. If United Future members were strong they should have, in all their negotiations for which they are taking credit, and with all their talk about family life, insisted that a purpose of the Act be that family life is given priority in television programming. But they have failed to do so. It goes to show that they were really not thinking of this much. To utter what I regard as almost a profanity, in saying that the bill should be called the “Thank God for United Future Bill”, and not to have the purpose of the bill take into account family life, shows how little regard United Future really has for family life in New Zealand.

The Government has thrust upon us Supplementary Order Paper 57. It could have done the dog legislation in the same way, by way of a Supplementary Order Paper to the Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 2). But, no, we see in relation to the Television New Zealand Bill a Supplementary Order Paper that makes a dramatic change to how this bill will operate and to the future of television in this country. The Government is prepared to do that for this television legislation, but on a relatively minor issue, the dog legislation, it was not prepared to take the same course. Instead, that bill ended up back at the Local Government and Environment Committee, from which it will never arise again.

That shows how the Government tries to impose its will on us by way of this Supplementary Order Paper, to which the Minister of Broadcasting has not spoken. We have had no explanation from any Government speaker, as I recall, during this Committee stage, as to what this Government intends by this bill. Maybe the Government does not really know what it intends. Has this legislation been drafted by United Future? Does only United Future know about this? Is the Labour Party totally ignorant of what is in it? The Labour members who are in this House might want to take the next call and explain to us what is meant by the various amendments in the Supplementary Order Paper and how they work. Surely Parliament is entitled to know what is in the mind of the Labour Party.

I move, That the question be now put.

I have followed this debate with interest, particularly the contribution that has been made by National members who were on the Commerce Committee. It is interesting that Tony Ryall and Katherine Rich are the only two members who have spoken in this debate who have an understanding of what this is about.

💬 Sue Kedgley: Do you think we don’t know what this is about?

I know that other contributions have been made. I am saying that from a National point of view it has been really, really important that two members of the Commerce Committee have made a valued contribution to the debate. They understand all the issues that have come forward. I am not decrying some of the debates that have come from our ACT friends and from New Zealand First, because they have been substantial.

Deborah Coddington made a very good point, which I have written down. She was asking why the Government is involved in television at all. That is a good question, and I would like the Minister of Broadcasting to answer that.

💬 Hon David Carter: Sky does a good job!

As my colleague says, Sky does an extremely good job. In the short call that I have I want to ask the Minister to take a call and explain why clause 3, “Purpose of Act”, has been completely changed by Supplementary Order Paper 57, which has been promoted in his name. What we see now in clause 3(a) is a split to “provide for the existing State enterprise Television New Zealand Limited to be split into a Crown entity conducting a television business and a State enterprise conducting a transmission business;”—a complete split. That is one of the points that Katherine Rich has talked about and promoted for some time. Yet it was not in the original bill. It has only come about now, in a Supplementary Order Paper that has come forward at the eleventh hour.

I want the Minister to take a call and explain why this change has just happened. Why were the recommendations of Tony Ryall and Katherine Rich from National, who were on the committee and looked at the whole of the Television New Zealand Bill, not taken heed of? What we see now is that, at the eleventh hour, the Government has decided to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper that splits out the two arms of Television New Zealand. That is something that Katherine Rich has promoted and something that National supports.

But the issue now is that a once very profitable organisation—a State-owned organisation—has over recent times lost shareholder value. It has been losing it for some time. At some stage it was worth about $60 million; that is a figure that has been talked about tonight. What we will see now, under the charter, is a $12 million taxpayer injection into the making of programmes. What happened to the commercial model? We had a television station that worked extremely well, yet in recent times it has been muddled around by this Government. That commercial model could have worked. With the split and the charter we are now seeing an injection of $12 million of taxpayer money into the production of television programmes.

We find that that is not necessary. We are not supporting it, and I doubt that that is surprising to members, at all.

💬 Dail Jones: I am not surprised.

That is not a surprise, is it! The other point I would draw members’ attention to in the Supplementary Order Paper—and I once again ask the Minister to take a call on this—comes under clause 4, which states that “shareholding Ministers means the Minister of Finance and the Minister for the time being responsible for TVNZ”. I want to know from the Minister, and I ask him to take a call on this, what he means by “the Minister for the time being”. Is this an ad hoc approach? Is this just a temporary arrangement for the time being, for TVNZ? I want to know whether that Minister will be the “Minister for Social Responsibility”, or the Minister of Māori Affairs.

💬 Stephen Franks: That is all they are!

Well, it could be. I am giving the Minister an opportunity to tell us. What does “the Minister for the time being” mean?

I have been listening to the debate very closely, and I think, finally, Lindsay Tisch has asked a question that is worth answering.

💬 Deborah Coddington: I asked it first!

Well, if the member asked it earlier, then I should have noticed and answered it then. I think it is a reasonable question; it concerns a change that I think the Committee does need to be aware of.

One of the issues that we have had to deal with in relation to splitting the organisation into a State-owned enterprise and a Crown-owned company—a “CROC” as it is called—for the television business is the fact that in Australia the transmission arm operates under the name of Television New Zealand. Under the rules that operate in Australia around capital gains tax, if one splits the organisation apart in the way that we are intending to do, then one invites capital gains tax to be paid on that part of the organisation. What we are doing at the present time is ensuring that we do not expose ourselves to paying that kind of capital gains tax in Australia in relation to the organisation. We have ensured that the shareholding Ministers remain the same as they were before. In other words, the ownership structure of this organisation remains the same until we see where we go from here. The Committee needs to know that we are simply protecting the value of the organisation in Australia. We have made sure that no money needs to be paid in relation to the changes that will take place. That is why these changes are in the bill.

I may appear to be frivolous in the next few minutes, but often the easiest way to illustrate a point is to show the extent to which it becomes ridiculous. In this case, it is a very serious point.

When we write law that is obscure, that is deliberately ambiguous, and that can mean just about anything someone wants it to mean, we are really lining the pockets of lawyers and feeding the egos of the activist judges. We are giving them the ability to make decisions that this House is not willing to make. I point here to clause 4 and the definition of “equal employment opportunities programme” and the definition of “good employer”.

With the equal employment opportunities programme definition in this Television New Zealand Bill, the Government is telling TVNZ—under clause 22A, which comes later—that it must develop and ensure the implementation of programmes to eliminate “all aspects of policies, procedures, and other institutional barriers that cause or perpetuate … inequality in respect of the employment of any person or group of persons.” What the hell does that mean? What possible meaning can a court give to this, when any persons or group of persons can come along and complain about inequality in employment? Does this mean it is wrong for TVNZ to have a screening policy, for example, that keeps out the stupid? Does this mean that it is wrong for TVNZ to do psychological testing to make sure it eliminates those who may pick on their fellow workers, or who may steal money? Does this mean that the procedures for seeking references, in order to shut out those who have a history of criminality, can be precluded, because those people can then come back and say: “You are excluding the group that has a criminal record.”? Does this mean that in any employment dispute, this poor institution is going to face constitutional lawyers bringing up clause 22A, and demanding to know why TVNZ has taken any kind of step that discriminates between the good and the bad?

What does this do if, for example, TVNZ turns down a Jehovah’s Witness, we find that TVNZ has no existing Jehovah’s Witnesses in its employment, and it is asked why it does not eliminate this inequality? What does it do for Mormons or paedophiles in that situation? What about members of the Man-Boy Love Association who claim that their views should not preclude their involvement in programming? What about the Prostitutes Collective? I guess this provision would be wasted on the Minister in the chair, who has led his life of “blameless excellence”, and would not have any particular interest in this. The range of groups or persons who can claim that they have been the subject of inequality in employment practice is almost endless.

We want to know from the Minister whether TVNZ is allowed to discriminate between the polite and the impolite, or the respectful and the disrespectful, or those who are sensitive to the mores of Catholics or of Māori and those who are not. Are we allowed to have even the vigour of broadcasters like those from The Rock, who can make very good jokes that a number of others do not appreciate? This provision says to me that inequality—which is not defined—in relation to any persons or group of persons will be the basis for legal action.

This is not trifling. This is not mere rhetoric. We could, for example, get the Libertarianz demanding to know why its members cannot be employed, because their view that Inland Revenue Department workers should be brought before a Nuremburg-type tribunal probably has not been represented by TVNZ to date. That is pretty unequal, because there has been plenty of representation of the view that more tax is good! We have had countless repetitions of the view of the Minister of Finance, Michael Cullen, that whacking up tax rates is clearly a social virtue, irrespective of the fact that the Government has put up the tax rates on working families even more.

I move, That the question be now put.