Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill

I am pleased to stand and speak to the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill, if only to say that National opposes it and that it has been a complete waste of time. There are other things about Radio New Zealand that deserve attention, and what this bill seeks to do will not aid Radio New Zealand one iota in its bid to get its share of the listening audience. Although the bill is a small one, it is taking up the time of the House when it ought not to do so.

The bill seeks to amend the charter through, first of all, amending the principal Act by adding the words “spiritual and ethical” after the word “cultural” in the expression “... contribute towards intellectual, scientific, and cultural development, promote informed debate, and stimulate critical thought”, and so on and so forth, that currently appears in the charter. So the bill seeks to add to the provision of programmes two other traits: spiritual and ethical ones. It also seeks to extend the purview of Radio New Zealand’s programming so that, somehow, it can cater to the full range of age groups. I guess that means children, as well as adults. Section 7(2) of the principal Act is also amended by adding paragraphs that seek to have Radio New Zealand commission surveys, first, of those who listen to it and, second, of persons who are not members of its current audience. In one respect that is fair enough, but as I said in my opening statement, this bill is a waste of the House’s time. Radio New Zealand, to date, has failed to deliver on the existing charter, yet this bill seeks to amend the charter by putting more obligations in it.

National opposes the bill for those reasons, and asks questions along the following lines. First of all, we are all very much aware that at the time the bill was introduced into the House earlier in the year, we had all witnessed—because it had become very public—in Radio New Zealand an organisation that was completely dysfunctional. Back in February of this year, a report was commissioned from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu to look into management and other issues that had surfaced in Radio New Zealand. It was found that Radio New Zealand’s staff were at breaking point. They were in despair over budget cuts and associated woes, and there was a high staff turnover. The newsroom was at breaking point. There was the issue of the treatment of Sean Plunket. When one thinks about the fact that the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill seeks to insert a provision in the Act for the radio station to cater to the ethical needs of New Zealand, one wonders why the Government showed no concern about the way that prominent broadcaster was being treated. There was also the issue of Ms Snowdon, who had to use any means by which she could make her concerns about Radio New Zealand known. There were budget blowouts, and the board was asking for more money.

It was in that context, and with a declining listenership, that the Minister introduced this bill earlier in the year. Now he is persisting with it, yet nothing that has happened during the year—this is confirmed by my colleagues who were part of the financial review of the organisation earlier this year—suggests that things have turned round at Radio New Zealand. That is not good enough. More criteria are being introduced as to the way the organisation should—

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

The bill before us is the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill. Public radio, under its current charter, is required to provide programmes that contribute to intellectual, scientific, and cultural development, and this bill adds a spiritual and an ethical dimension to the charter. I have to ask whose ethics and whose spiritual beliefs they will be. That is such a wide, wide brief there is no way in the world, in my view, that any State broadcaster could fulfil that function. However, no doubt if this bill passes into law, we will see how that pans out. The bill also adds a responsibility to provide programmes that cater for a full range of age groups. The big listening audience in New Zealand, I understand, is the younger age group: 18 to 40-year-olds. How Radio New Zealand caters for that age group is obviously its big challenge. The Government now sees fit to make that a requirement of the charter. How can it cater for littlies—who knows?

This Government is intent on imposing more requirements in the charter when, quite frankly, from the Opposition’s point of view, Radio New Zealand has failed to deliver on the charter requirements that it has, in any event. [Interruption] Gosh, that was lucky. A Minister has just come into the House—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member must not refer to the absence of a Minister.

Of course, the context within which the Minister seeks to pass this bill into law is that Radio New Zealand has struggled over recent years to hold its share of the listening public. Its operations have been characterised by governance and management issues. There has been something close to what one newsperson earlier in the year described as internecine warfare, with staffing and personnel issues that have shown the organisation to be dysfunctional and chaotic. I do not know whether anybody is confident at all that much has been done to correct that—other than that there is now a new chief executive for Radio New Zealand.

I want to comment now on the new chief executive. Hopefully, Peter Cavanagh, an Australian, will somehow be able to lift Radio New Zealand to the place it ought to have. We must remember that the listening public is spoilt for choice. We have a marketplace that is saturated with commercial radio. Peter Cavanagh’s task—and he certainly seems to have the background for it—will be to lift the listenership, and to make sure that Radio New Zealand is a broadcaster whose proper place in the broadcasting scene can be found and confirmed. The charter requirements that are added in this bill will not help his job, but nonetheless, we will see how he, along with the board, will deliver on those requirements. Hopefully, Peter Cavanagh will get the basics right first and make sure that the funding this broadcaster has is funding it can live with, and that it is able to ensure that its management issues are properly resolved.

This bill tries to cater to everybody and to be all things to all people. That is typical of this Government, but it will not work. It is also typical of this Government that it seeks to impose its politically correct views on the public. Hopefully, that is not what is envisaged in this bill. In any event, as I said earlier, the bill is a waste of this House’s time. The Government ought to have made sure that the broadcaster delivered on its charter requirements as they were, without imposing more requirements—as this bill does.

I rise on behalf of the ACT party to oppose this bill. We refused to support the changes to the charter through the Statutes Amendment Act, because that Act is meant to be used for issues that are non-controversial. Even though the bill is only a very short piece of legislation, its size does not mean that it is not non-controversial. In fact, there are a lot of changes in the bill—changes to the charter—that are loaded words, and a lot of members in the House have already gone over those. I say again that we are not supporting a situation where an undefined instruction can become a licence to use money raised from taxpayers to promote religious and ethical beliefs. Those beliefs should be obliged to compete in the marketplace of ideas on their own merits, using the resources provided by their supporters.

Private radio in New Zealand already caters well for spiritual and ethical beliefs, in terms of radio stations like Radio Rhema and others. If we want to save public broadcasting in this country, we have to ensure that public broadcasting is exactly that—that is, broadcasting for the public, not broadcasting for the Government of the day, whatever that Government might be. The level of bias against Radio New Zealand has been made a number of times, in terms of State radio—Government-owned radio—being pro-interventionist. We very rarely hear voices of market liberals and voices of non-interventionists on Government radio in this country.

When the current Minister of Broadcasting took up his position in September 2002 he said that he wanted Radio New Zealand to be “an exciting and compulsive listening piece of our media.” Since then, a survey of Radio New Zealand listeners—people who listen for 8 minutes or more in one week—has shown that the proportion of listeners has gone down 6 percent, and the proportion of listeners to Concert FM has decreased by 10 percent.

This Minister has allowed Radio New Zealand to settle for mediocrity. He has allowed Radio New Zealand to set its target at 90 percent of the previous year’s target.

That has been authorised by the Minister. If Radio New Zealand were a private organisation, its shareholders would be crying for blood, but what can the shareholders in New Zealand do about it? They can do nothing.

The State should be secular. We are going down a dangerous path in this country, where we are using taxpayers’ money to promote religious and ethical beliefs. They are not minor amendments. For instance, the Government wants to extend the audience to a full range of age groups. Obviously, the Minister wants to compete also with youth radio in the general market in the private sector—which is already well catered for by the private sector. I ask the Minister how he will cater to the youth market. There is no need to use taxpayers’ money to promote the youth market. We have only to look at George FM in Auckland—[Interruption] Well, those members over there can laugh, but that is the regard with which they hold taxpayers in this country.

George FM was started in a garage in Ponsonby by people with very few resources, and now it captures a lot of the market share in Auckland. No taxpayers’ money was needed, at all. As the proportion of listeners to Radio New Zealand plummets, the board goes to the Government for more money.

They asked for $3 million last time, from the select committee. There is not enough accountability. As I said, if we want to save public broadcasting in this country, we need to have a hard look at the situation. This legislation is just a further nail in the coffin for public broadcasting. It is politically correct legislation. It introduces relativism in terms of promoting ethical development. What is “ethical development”? “Ethical development” means different things to all sorts of people. If we look in one dictionary—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just tell the members on my right that running commentaries are out of order, as per Speakers’ rulings 51/5. If they want to make a speech, they can do so next time.

If we look at the dictionary meaning of “ethical development”, one of the meanings is “professional standards of conduct”.

At the Minister’s talkfest last week, the chief executive of Government radio referred to Rupert Murdoch in her speech as “the great Satan” of the media. Are those professional standards from an organisation that should be neutral and unbiased? When one says: “commercial radio—four legs, bad”; State radio—two legs, good”, that is not a good use of taxpayers’ money.

What else were we told at this Government-sponsored talkfest? The chief executive officer—when she was talking about Murdoch, “the great Satan”—said: “Do you want to be left with half the facts?” I would argue that private radio stations in this country adhere more to the charter that is set out for Radio New Zealand than Government radio does. If you go to the press gallery and you talk to people from Global News—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Will the member please not bring the Chair into the debate.

I beg your pardon. If one goes to the press gallery and does a quick survey of interviews done by Global News and Sport, it does more in terms of giving the voices of dissent than do the other State radio things.

It is not just me who says this. Listen to what Dr Geoff Lealand said. He is the Associate Professor of Screen and Media Studies at Waikato University. He said that he is a National Radio listener, but that it does not surprise him any more. National Radio does not challenge him. It does not supply him with a range of dissenting opinions. He said: “Concert FM is dull and doesn’t speak to New Zealanders at all. On National Radio, there’s a divide between the mornings, when you do sometimes get people asking interesting questions, and the afternoons”. That is from someone who knows what he is talking about.

I finish by saying that ACT opposes this legislation. There are past board members of Radio New Zealand who oppose this legislation. Dr Denis Dutton and Dr John Isles said that Radio New Zealand had lost its professional standards and lost its neutrality, and when the Minister of Broadcasting used a Radio New Zealand staff function in May this year to sympathise with staff that they had “every reason to feel nervous, bullied, and uncertain under the previous administration”, one really has to question the neutrality, and whether there is ministerial interference in the State broadcaster. ACT opposes this bill.

I rise to support the second reading of the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill. It is a short bill, and correspondingly I will keep my comments brief.

The bill covers three aspects of Radio New Zealand’s operations, and is the result of the Commerce Committee review of the Radio New Zealand charter—the same committee that has just considered its recommendations in the form of this bill. Those three main aspects, on which I will comment briefly, are: amendments to the charter to encourage Radio New Zealand to contribute towards New Zealand’s spiritual and ethical development; amendments that require Radio New Zealand to feature programmes that provide for varied interests, including, now, a full range of age groups; and finally, the last amendment of substance requires Radio New Zealand to survey annually not just its existing audience but also attitudes amongst those who do not presently listen to Radio New Zealand.

A lot of members have commented on how woolly some of these charter prescriptions are. They are really an acknowledgment of aspects of our lives other than just the material. We have heard that broadcasting should be for the public. Well, the public do have spiritual views and they have ethical views, and these ought to be represented in a charter. They are not particularly prescriptive. It is not a device to try to push a particular view—religious or otherwise—but to embrace a diversity that we all share.

Earlier in the year, the United Future caucus received a submission from the Churches Broadcasting Commission seeking our support for the provision that requires Radio New Zealand to provide programmes that contribute towards the spiritual and ethical development of our society. We are happy to do that. As I say, it is a fairly woolly sort of description, but it caters for the fact that we have other than materialistic interests in life. However, the commission went on to say how disappointed it was that such provisions could not have been replicated in the recently enacted TVNZ charter. I point out to those members of the Churches Broadcasting Commission, and other similar groups, that such provisions were eventually incorporated into TVNZ’s new charter. The amendment to the Radio New Zealand charter, therefore, largely brings some consistency in terms of programming requirements for these two publicly owned broadcasting media.

Clause 3(2) requires Radio New Zealand to provide programming that caters to a full range of age groups. It is particularly pleasing that this provision is included, as it will ensure that Radio New Zealand provides programming that is specific to children listeners, and not just to the elderly. There are some problems in its enactment, as far as I see, in that we have to be much more responsive to public need. We are—as has been mentioned—well catered for in a lot of the other age groups, as well. In trying to appeal to those age groups, the charter covers one of the things that public broadcasting is supposed to do, which is to appeal to all New Zealanders.

One of the ongoing issues on which we have sought resolution is the issue of accountability by Radio New Zealand to its public. We believe that we are entitled to greater information, not just about the quality and type of programming but also about the greatest indicator of how well Radio New Zealand is or is not doing its job—in other words, audience share. This bill requires Radio New Zealand to survey both its audience and its non-audience, so that it might delineate the wishes of the rest of the radio-listening public, provide for their interests, and attract new listeners accordingly. This amendment is commendable. However, we are severely disappointed that the committee has remained too timid to deal with the real issues surrounding Radio New Zealand’s surveys—that is, its refusal to participate in the neutral sector surveys that determine actual audience share for all radio stations. It should compete on a level playing field.

Commissioned in 2002 by Radio New Zealand, an ACNielsen survey found that one in five radio listeners listen to either National Radio or Concert FM. It would be very interesting to see whether a comparison with the monthly commercial radio surveys showed a consistent listenership of Radio New Zealand, but we do not know this because Radio New Zealand has decided not to take part in the industry’s standard surveys. I have to question why not. I know that this issue is essentially an operational one, and I am aware there were some practical reasons for Radio New Zealand choosing not to take part in the comparative survey, but if a select committee can go as far as to specify that Radio New Zealand must undertake annual surveys of its audience—of a quantitative and qualitative nature—then it would have been easier to specify that Radio New Zealand takes part in regular industry-wide radio audience surveys. It is disappointing that the committee has not addressed this. I think Radio New Zealand will continue to kid itself about its true level of public support, until it faces reality and subjects itself to the scrutiny of the regular industry-wide surveys.

United Future will be lobbying the Government to require Radio New Zealand to do this. That is part of the accountability process. In the meantime, I commend the bill to the House.

I am pleased to rise in support of this bill. I think it is good legislation and, as many of my parliamentary colleagues would say, if they ever had any doubts about it the comments from the previous ACT speaker would convince them that their position must be correct.

I wish also to rise in support of this bill, and wholly support Mr Benson-Pope’s comments about the ACT member, whose remarks I thought were quite amazing at this particular stage.

The National Party is opposed to this legislation. We are opposed because of its intention. Some of our previous speakers have already spoken about the fact that it smacks of Government interference. One of the things that have been good about Radio New Zealand is that it has generally been a non-political organisation. I have to say there has been the odd occasion when there has been a suggestion that there may have been some political involvement. But in the main it has been fair to say that Radio New Zealand has endeavoured to conduct itself in a non-political way and has represented the views of its listeners, and New Zealand generally. But what we are worried about is the way in which this bill now changes the charter, and possibly allows for some political direction. If that were to be an outcome of this legislation, it would be a sad and a bad thing.

One of the neat things about this democracy, and this country, is that—while obviously here in Parliament we play politics, because that is what we do—bureaucracy generally is apolitical, although I have some worries about that as well. It certainly implements policy that is set down by the Government of the day, and so it should because that is its role, but to a large degree—although, as I say, there is some suggestion that that is changing a little—the bureaucracy has been apolitical.

While one can poke the finger at some of the media from time to time, in the main it is fair to say that the media tries to be balanced. Mr Assistant Speaker, from time to time you and I and others in this Parliament may well have a different point of view on some of the utterances that we read and see, and some of the television shots that are taken, but in the main there is a degree of fairness. Certainly the media would suggest that it tries to be fair.

We are worried that the way in which this bill introduces things such as spiritual and ethical needs leads one to wonder exactly what that means, and whether that allows an avenue for a Government, or in particular a Minister, to have some political direction through the board and to the manager of Radio New Zealand. If that were to be an outcome, I think it would be a sad day for us. It is not the sort of thing that we want to see in our country, quite honestly. We need to have the media giving the public an unbiased view, so that the public can make a rational decision. That has been the strength of our democracy. Indeed, it is one of the reasons that New Zealand is such a free place, and our country—as the Speaker of our House said tonight at a function—has a very proud and honourable record of not having any corruption within our Parliament, within our ministries, and amongst our Ministers. There has been no history of it, and long may that remain.

We need to take care when we are working through legislation such as this that we do not end up causing the thin end of the wedge to start as a consequence of political involvement in things where the Government does not need to be.