Debate on Crown Entities, Public Organisations, and State Enterprises — Television New Zealand Ltd

I want to take the opportunity today to speak to the House about the unusual circumstances in which Television New Zealand Ltd (TVNZ) had its annual review completed by the Finance and Expenditure Committee this year, and about the unfinished business that lies before that committee, having completed the annual review.

It is widely understood that in the past 12 months TVNZ has been beset by major eruptions. We have seen scandal after scandal, culminating in the departure of the company’s chief executive, Mr Ian Fraser, who made assertions of political interference in the work of the management of that company. That led the Finance and Expenditure Committee to take a most unusual course in relation to the financial review. The select committee decided there should be a conventional financial review by the committee but, parallel with that review and subsequent to it, a formal inquiry should take place to enable members of Parliament to ask the questions in order to give the public the answers they were due about what had happened in their State broadcaster.

It is now a matter of history that as a consequence of the two hearings before the Finance and Expenditure Committee, TVNZ ended up before the Privileges Committee of this Parliament. That was the subject of an earlier debate in this House. Suffice it to say that on this occasion, TVNZ was handed a very stiff warning by the Privileges Committee and was required to apologise to the House. The director was fined $1,000, which was the first time in 103 years that we have seen a fine levied by the Privileges Committee. The committee especially noted the very poor culture that exists in that company.

I say to the Committee today that this is unfinished business lying before the House and the Finance and Expenditure Committee as we move into the next few weeks. What the Finance and Expenditure Committee and the Privileges Committee did not know when they conducted their reviews was that inside TVNZ were some private emails from Mr Fraser to Mr Boyce, which told us two things. First, they told us that the then chairman of TVNZ, Mr Boyce, thought the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee of this Parliament were “bastards” who were the enemy of TVNZ. We could not possibly underline more graphically the contempt and disdain that senior people in TVNZ have for the select committee process and for the whole process of accountability to this House and to the owners of TVNZ than is evident in that email.

Second, we also know from those emails that Mr Boyce was part of a process of avoiding revelations about what he called the “mid-year stuff” between “yourself and Ann”—Mr Fraser and Dame Ann Hercus—because revealing the truth about that would “be a disaster for everyone”. So in this email we have a chairman of TVNZ telling the departing chief executive that it is his firm intention to go along to a select committee of this Parliament and lie like a flatfish. If the “mid-year stuff” between Mr Fraser and Dame Ann Hercus were to come up, Mr Boyce intended to lie. He then proceeded in this email to traverse the lie that he intended to tell the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

How very, very unfortunate for Mr Boyce that those emails should see the light of day. How even more unfortunate for Mr Boyce that the inquiry is still alive before the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I say to Mr Jones, the chairman of that committee, and to my colleagues who serve on that committee that this is a test for them. This is a test for the Finance and Expenditure Committee that conducts the review of TVNZ. Are they prepared to accept being told by the chairman of TVNZ that they are bastards who are the enemy of the company? And are they prepared to now find out that the chairman intended to, and duly did, lie to that committee?

I will take a short call on Television New Zealand. The financial review for the year is—

💬 Hon Bill English: Another mess.

The member Bill English should go and get therapy. He has been such an angry young man for such a long time. He ought to seek help, and that is all I am saying. I want to tell listeners at home that we are just trying to get through the insistent yelling of Mr Bill English, who needs a bit of counselling.

Television New Zealand operates in a world where things have changed quite substantially for all public broadcasters all around the world. The issues canvassed by Mr McCully I will leave for the select committee to canvass, because they are issues that lie within the purview of the committee and are nothing to do with the financial review. I want to put on the record of the House that the television business is a very difficult business to be in. Not only is it one of high competition with a fragmenting audience but a lot of people out there are seeking to get others involved in radio, television, newspapers, and magazines, so the media market is highly competitive. Many people like to compare Television New Zealand’s performance now with its performance in the past, but the past is something very different. There were fewer outlets, competition was less, and people automatically watched Television New Zealand—that is what they did.

I want to put on the record my thanks to the company for getting through what has been a difficult period where there has been a number of issues around presenters and so on. It has managed to maintain a very good financial performance during that period of time. In fact, in comparing Television New Zealand with other public broadcasters around the world, one can see that of all public broadcasters the company is holding its audience share, which routinely peaks at around 65 percent. It holds the major news share and therefore is still returning a major commercial return to New Zealand, and in that sense is more successful than ABC, NHK, CBC, and BBC. Those organisations do not have that kind of audience share and therefore cannot command that kind of share in the market and cannot get that kind of advertising revenue.

That is an amazing performance when one thinks about the kind of competition that is being undertaken here. New Zealand has the most competitive media market anywhere in the world at this time, because of our heavy deregulation in the 1980s. It is the nature of the game. So, from a financial point of view, we are looking at a year where things have been good for Television New Zealand and it got its share of the market as we had hoped that it would.

On the other side of the equation, we know that the company has also had the operations of the charter to consider. The charter is a new area of work. It takes a while for programmes to be commissioned, to be put on the air, and then to find out whether they are working. But if we look back over the last little while, with the small amount of money that the company has had, we have begun to see a change in its behaviour. Whether it be more Pacific Island news being put on during an evening, or whether it happens to be a new programme like the Frontier of Dreams, we are seeing an effort made by Television New Zealand to begin to do things that otherwise it would not do in a commercial environment. It is beginning to change its behaviour. It has a better relationship with the private broadcasters that make many of its programmes. It is attempting to move down that road, and I am hoping that what we will see in the immediate future is more of that kind of behaviour.

This country owns television and radio because they are part of the national infrastructure of any country. Whether it be science, schools, or whatever, we want to have infrastructure that is our own, because we want to be able to control those things that matter to this country. That is why we own Television New Zealand, and when we look back over the past year we see that this company is seeking to carry out its mandate as a public broadcaster within the constraints that it has on it—for example, not getting a great deal of money from the taxpayer. It is expected to generate income from its commercial revenue, and it is managing to do that as well.

As Minister of Broadcasting, I want to put on the record my thanks to Television New Zealand for its performance in those areas. As I have said elsewhere on the record, I will be pleased to see it out of the news for some of the things that have put it in the news over the last little while, and carrying on with an underlying strong performance through this year.

Report noted.

Foundation for Research, Science and Technology