Broadcasting Amendment Bill

I really had not intended to take a call on the Broadcasting Amendment Bill until a few moments ago, when I looked at these three short clauses and suddenly realised what their significance might be. One is the title clause, the second is the commencement clause, and the third is an amendment to the principal Act. As I looked at the title clause, I read: “This Act is the Broadcasting Amendment Act 2007.” Then it occurred to me that we are in 2008, so clearly a change is required there.

Then I looked at the commencement provision: “This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” Now, there are a number of different ways of drafting commencement provisions; I guess there are three that are commonly in use. This is an example of one. Another way that commencement clauses are worded is to provide for a specific date, and a third is to provide for a date so many days after a Gazette publication.

Before the Chairperson assumed the Chair this afternoon, we were briefly contemplating the Limited Partnerships Bill. There was comment in that bill as to what the Commerce Committee saw as the preferred way that commencement clauses should be drafted. As we saw in the context of the Limited Partnerships Bill, this is not the preferred way. The preferred way, I would contend—and I would be supported by the Commerce Committee in this regard—is to actually nominate a specific date, and we do not see that here. Although the class of case that involves legislation coming into force after a Gazette notice is probably the most to be deplored, because of course it adds a substantial degree of uncertainty, there is, nevertheless, a degree of uncertainty with this type of commencement clause. So I urge the Minister to take back to his colleagues the proposition that it is a better plan, a much better plan in this particular case, to have a firm date. What would be the downside of specifying that in the context of this legislation? Absolutely nothing.

So I come to clause 3, “Principal Act amended”, which states: “This Act amends the Broadcasting Act 1989.” In the course of this debate we have examined exactly what the impact of this bill will be on that legislation, and noted the tragedy that the opportunity was not taken to make substantial and more far-reaching change to the bill than has occurred in this particular instance. We are looking at quite serious issues, certainly, when we look at the position of Television New Zealand, because we see that since 2003 the value of Television New Zealand has gone down from $381 million to $194 million, and operating revenue has dropped by $117 million, or around 24 percent. The aspirations in the charter, which has been so derided in the course of this debate, have also failed to deliver local content. In 2002 Television One was delivering 60 percent total local content; in 2006 the figure was 53 percent. Over the same period local content on TV2 dropped by 5 percent, and it is now just 20 per cent. So I repeat the view of National that it is a pity a greater effort was not made in this legislation to produce for us a public broadcasting system of which we could be much more truly proud.

I will respond briefly to the points that the member Richard Worth made.

I will not refer much to his comments with regard to clause 3. It is clear that this bill is a minor bill, and it is clear also that major work is going on, and that major legislation will follow on from the digital review.

On the question of the commencement date, I generally agree with the member’s comments. Whenever there is a substantive amendment, I think it is important to be clear. The approach in clause 2 is one that does leave a lot of power in the hands of the executive. I was trying to bring to the front of my mind a particular piece of legislation that was passed when National was in Government, I think in coalition with New Zealand First, that was never brought into effect, because the Order in Council was—

💬 Dr Richard Worth: The Lawyers and Conveyancers Act was a very good illustration.

We will just leave that. I think the point needs to be made that this approach leaves a lot of power in the hands of the executive rather than in the hands of Parliament. I agree with the member that with, especially, something of substance—I am not pretending that this is substantive legislation; it is minor legislation—it is important to be clear.

On the first point that the member made, I was surprised by it. He is an experienced member and he is a lawyer. He should know by now that the Clerk’s Office does amend, and it is within the discretion of the Clerk’s Office to amend legislation for things like the date.

💬 John Carter: He knows what he is talking about, unlike the Minister.

I know what I am talking about. Members do not have to have been here for as long as I have to know that the date of an Act is something that is amended on the way through, after this process, by the Clerk’s Office. Doing it that way saves another printing of the bill. It saves us a bit of money, and I think it is a logical thing to do.

I suppose we can be appreciative of the Minister in the chair, the Hon Trevor Mallard, talking a call. But, again, I thought he might just treat us, with it being 1 hour now until the end of Thursday—the end of a parliamentary week in Parliament—to the plan for the future. That seems to be a favourite slogan that the Prime Minister is rolling out after her visit to the Australian Prime Minister. The Minister did say there will be major legislation following the review. That is of the charter, I take it?

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: No, no, no, the digital review.

It is the digital review.

💬 Dr Jonathan Coleman: The secret agenda!

I am not sure. I am not sure when he thinks that major legislation will come in, because he is actually running out of time. So it might have been a great thing for him—as Labour is running out of time, and as he might not get his so-called major legislation on to the floor of the House—to treat us to his views. I am not sure how long the Minister has been in this particular job. He will have some views, obviously; he has been here a long time.

My colleague Jonathan Coleman has been asking pretty continuously about the continued roll-out of digital and about the switch-off of analog. He has asked many times over the last year. This Minister might not necessarily know because he has only just taken over the job recently, but, given that he is a longstanding, experienced member of the House, one would think he would be reasonably up to date and that he would be aware that we have been wanting detail on the continued roll-out of digital. We do not have it yet and it looks like we are never going to get it anyway, because this Minister will run out of time. That is a great shame in a way, because he has been in the job now for the odd few months and we still really do not know what his view of the future is.

I come back now to the bill before us and clauses 1, 2, and 3—particularly the title clause. When Jonathan Coleman was on his feet, the Minister kept saying that this is not about broadcasting. [Interruption] The Minister was saying something along those lines. It is about content and it is about funding content so in that sense it is narrow. But this is the broadcasting environment, and it is obviously an area that New Zealanders who fund the whole industry, in terms of Television New Zealand (TVNZ), and whose money has been poured into that organisation by the millions over the last 9 years, have a very direct interest in what the Minister plans in terms of digital television. Frankly, millions have already gone in, have they not?

💬 Dr Jonathan Coleman: $104 million.

$104 million has gone in. When we look at the title of the bill—the Broadcasting Amendment Bill—those issues cannot help but come to the forefront of the mind of the Opposition, whose job it is to speak for the public about expenditure and to watch the Government in the way it spends public moneys.

In terms of TVNZ, over the 9 years, sometimes, as I said earlier, that has appeared to be a black hole into which money has been thrown, and the Labour Government does not appear to have been terribly worried about what the New Zealand public has got back for it. [Interruption] No, it is not Labour’s money, but Labour is in Government with a mandate to spend money responsibly. That is, it is not in Government to take money in the way it does, in terms of taxes, but if it is going to take those taxes, then it has to make sure it is accountable for the expenditure of that money. I would say that a television broadcaster that thinks that Police Ten 7 and Location Location Location satisfy the requirement of the Māori component in the charter has totally lost the plot. Indeed the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, actually said the broadcaster had lost the plot. I wonder whether this Minister, the new Minister of Broadcasting, has done any work with TVNZ to make sure it is getting the plot right. That is what National would have liked to hear, and unfortunately we are never going to hear it.

I think my colleague Georgina te Heuheu just hit the nail on the head there, because during the Minister’s speech he made a fatal slip. He said that major legislation is going to be following on from this digital review. Now that is quite incredible really, because we have these discussion documents out there at the moment. The Minister and his officials are saying that it is all a blank canvas and they do not know what is going to happen. But it is quite clear that there really is a secret agenda in broadcasting and it is going to be heavy-handed regulation, and the Minister, I am afraid, has let that one out of the bag. We are talking about the title of the Broadcasting Amendment Bill; it sounds like this Minister has a lot he is going to be amending about the broadcasting environment in the months to come. I agree with my colleague Mrs te Heuheu that we should ask why the Minister will not tell us what is really on his mind. Why waste the time of the public, the broadcasters, and the officials, with all this sham consultation process, which we see in a lot of areas this Government puts its sticky beak into, when really it knows what it wants to do all along?

Trevor Mallard knows what he wants to do, because he has a big problem with FreeView. He has a massive problem with it. This has been the Government’s baby. The Government has put $104 million of taxpayers money into FreeView, but it does not know how it will succeed. It is a real issue. The FreeView consortium has a set of television channels, but the figures will plateau because the basic problem is that there is not a lot that people will want to watch on it. So the Minister can either get something on those channels that people want to watch, or he can turn off the normal analog television signal. That will be politically difficult for Mr Mallard, because he does not have a plan for telling people how he will switch off that last group of people who refuse to get into digital television, or how he will convert those people to digital TV.

If we look at the digital TV uptake across New Zealand at the moment, about 800,000 households still need to be switched over. By the Minister’s timetable he has until 2012 to set the date for analog switch-off. That poses a problem, because if 800,000 people do not have digital TV by 2012, there will be 800,000 pretty upset people. Of course, this could all be fiction as far as the Labour Government is concerned, because the chances are that it will not have the responsibility of shepherding all that stuff through.

Trevor Mallard has made an interesting statement, and it would be great if he would take a call on this and explain what he means when he says major legislation will follow on from the digital review. The Minister has had lots of opportunities this afternoon to get up and say something substantial on broadcasting. People are waiting for him to do so. It is no good that he goes around the sector, as he has done, saying: “Well, I’m very busy, I know nothing about broadcasting. I am holding the baby here because Steve Maharey has retired.” That will not work. People want some substance, and Minister Mallard has to lay out his plans. This digital review is already 4 months behind schedule, and why is that? It is because the Minister wants to keep secret this agenda of regulation.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I wanted to read and understand the material before it went out—that’s why.

Does the Minister understand it now?

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I think I do.

OK. Well, the Minister understands it, and I think what the Minister understands is that he will launch—

💬 Jill Pettis: Why isn’t this man out saving lives?

Why is Mrs Pettis not giving up the waste of space she fills in Parliament and letting in someone to actually rejuvenate this absolutely exhausted Labour caucus? Why is Mrs Pettis not out doing something useful? There is no answer from Mrs Pettis, because there is nothing useful she can do, apart from making those ridiculous comments.

There is a problem that Trevor Mallard has to face up to, because we have a failed broadcasting policy that has been delivered by this Government that has brought Television New Zealand to its knees. There is no plan for how it will recover. The executives there are doing the best they possibly can. Labour has failed on broadcasting.

Labour has a real problem. How will it make FreeView successful? Labour members do not know. They will not tell us. We know they want to legislate. Trevor Mallard is dying to legislate. Frankly, if he had his way he would socialise absolutely everything. He has let the cat out of the bag today. He is smiling and playing the nice guy. He has a big problem now. He has told us there will be major legislation after this digital review. Why, then, is he wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars on this review? Why will he waste the time of the hundreds of New Zealanders who will respond to this review, when he already knows the answer? Why does he not just take a call now and say what he wants to do in the whole area of digital regulation?

The answer is that it is because he knows that his secret agenda will be pretty unpalatable. It will make it even harder to bring this failed Government within any hope of re-election. As it is, Labour members have pretty much lost all hope and are giving up on the whole exercise, so they are wondering why they should bother being transparent with this regulatory agenda on broadcasting.

Basically, if the Minister does not bring in his regulatory agenda he has no other way of propping up FreeView. If he cannot get something worth watching on it, or if he does not switch off the analog TV signal, which will be pretty unpalatable for those 800,000 households concerned, his FreeView project will be in big trouble. Basically it will need some innovative thinking, which I think is beyond this Minister. He has admitted he knows nothing about broadcasting and he is not really very interested. He is pretty busy on a lot of other projects and, in fact, he is doing his emails on his BlackBerry now. He is not even really interested in the issues at hand.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Hang on! If you can’t ride two horses, get out of the circus.

Oh, he is not doing his emails—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: No, I am doing my emails and listening.

Well he knows he is not meant to be doing his emails. He should have his mind on the job, and the job is what will happen in broadcasting. Why does he not tell us about the secret agenda he referred to before when he said there would be regulation after the digital review?

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I didn’t.

The Minister did say that but he is now denying it.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I didn’t. I said there would be legislation, not regulation. It’s quite different.

Legislation, regulation—what is the difference? [Interruption] There will be legislation. With this Labour Government, legislation means regulation. Labour members want to laugh it off but the public is on to them. The public is tired of this far-reaching, nanny State regulation we get every time a diehard Labour supporter opens his or her mouth, and people at home had better believe that this is what Labour will be doing in broadcasting. Trevor Mallard wants to bring in a heavy-handed regulatory regime because it is the only chance he has of turning FreeView round.

Look at what Steve Maharey has done to TVNZ. He actually halved its value over the time he held the portfolio, and I reckon that if he had had the portfolio for much longer he would have chomped through the other half of it. It will be very interesting to see what the financial results of Television New Zealand are—very interesting.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Very good at the moment—very good.

The Minister says the results will be very good. That is another slip that we have on the Hansard. We have a lot of material now. Every time the Minister opens his mouth he is digging a grave for himself in broadcasting. I think if the Government had time for a reshuffle before the next election Mr Mallard would be saying: “Can’t I swap this portfolio for the Rugby World Cup one?”. The answer is no—bad news, he will not be able to. He has lost that portfolio. He will have to do his time in broadcasting. It has got pretty tough, but he will have to see it through.

To come back to the title, the Broadcasting Amendment Bill will bring the funding arrangements into line with what is happening out there in terms of the technology. There have been wide-ranging technological changes to broadcasting. Broadcasting now occurs over a variety of media. It is not limited to just radio and television, and the funding arrangements have to reflect that, because New Zealanders are sourcing their content on the Internet, they are watching things downloaded through their mobile phones. New Zealand on Air and Te Māngai Pāho want to be able to reflect that in the way they fund broadcasting. This whole Parliament is supporting this bill, but there are wider issues. The wider issues in broadcasting are regulation, the future of Television New Zealand, and the charter.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.