Television New Zealand Amendment Bill

Kia ora tātou, nō reira, e te Whare, e ngā iwi, e ngā reo, e ngā hau e whā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Good evening, honourable members. The House is in Committee for consideration of the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill. When we last considered the bill debate on clauses 1 to 3 was in progress. The Hon Lianne Dalziel has the call and has 3 minutes and 30 seconds remaining, if she so wishes. Of course, we understand that a number of members are in Christchurch because of the earthquake, so I ask a member to seek the call.

Firstly, I thank you, Mr Chairperson, for acknowledging that Lianne Dalziel, with other Christchurch MPs, is in Christchurch and doing a fabulous job there looking after the interests of the people. I am sure the Committee would join with me in saying that we hope that on Thursday we have a very positive announcement, and that the people of Christchurch can get on with their lives. I wish all the best to the Hon Lianne Dalziel, as well.

Clause 1 states the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill will be enacted as the Television New Zealand Amendment Act 2009, but as we all know it is now 2011, so I presume that the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Defence, will be able to tell us that this date will be updated and it will be the Television New Zealand Amendment Act 2011. I presume that is just a consequential amendment, but I would like the Minister to take a call and confirm that that is the case. We are, after all, in 2011, and it would be a strange thing if the Act was passed in 2011 and called the Television New Zealand Amendment Act 2009. It would be very difficult for members of the public searching for this legislation. Knowing that it was passed in 2011, they would naturally go past 2009 and not see that it was on that date.

The second aspect of this legislation—and this is very normal for these pieces of legislation—is that is comes into effect on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent. This is an indeterminate date because upon the start of a bill’s progress in this House, when it is tabled for the first time, the Minister tabling the legislation has little idea of how long the select committee will take in its deliberations. The Minister has little idea of the number of submissions that will be heard, the number of hours that will be taken for the committee to consider the bill, the length of the report, and, more important, how long it will take to get the bill up to the top of the Order Paper. It would be difficult to set with any precision the date on which the bill would pass and the date on which it would gain its Royal assent. So clause 2 is perfectly acceptable.

The legislation comes into effect on the day after the date on which the Governor-General signs it. Presumably that will be Mr Jerry Matepārae; he will make a fine Governor-General. This bill could well be one of the first bills that he signs as Governor-General. I am sure that he will take his job very seriously and will read the bill very thoroughly and be very familiar with it. No doubt when he comes to the Executive Council he will ask the Minister in charge of the bill some very probing questions as to why it should become public law. I see the Minister in the chair, the Hon Dr Wayne Mapp, is reading the bill very carefully as we go through the Committee stage, so that when he appears before the Governor-General he will be fully briefed and able to answer any probing questions he might be asked. I commend the Minister for diligently applying himself to his homework. We would not expect any less, of course.

Clause 3 is “Principal Act amended” and states: “This Act amends the Television New Zealand Act 2003.” I presume that the 2003 Act was passed in 2003, so I presume that this amendment bill will amend the date of the legislation to 2011. So this legislation will become the Television New Zealand Amendment Act 2011, amending the principal 2003 Act.

In the Committee stage members can traverse all that has gone on in the bill. This bill has seen quite an amount of discussion and debate but it seems that it has some fundamental flaws. The fundamental flaw in this bill is that it takes away the Television New Zealand charter. Earlier in the day the National Party members accused the Labour Party of being ideological and playing politics, but if one wants to see an ideological bent and playing politics one can find them in spades in this bill.

The National Party is opposed to public broadcasting. It believes that the market is the mechanism by which all decisions can be made, but I have to say the market is not a place where one can begin to understand the culture and the nature of a society. The market can be a reflection of it, but it is not the place where one would describe the culture of a particular society.

Labour has believed always that this country deserves good quality broadcasters, good quality productions, and productions that reflect the nature of New Zealand. It will be more expensive to produce those types of programmes, because we do not have the cost infrastructure. We have to make these programmes fresh from scratch, and incur all of the costs. It is easier to go overseas and buy productions, but those overseas productions reflect the culture in which they were made; they do not necessarily reflect the culture of New Zealand. Therefore, Labour has always believed that we have to have a television charter. We have to direct our principal broadcaster, Television New Zealand, to reflect the nature of New Zealand and its particular character.

Labour believes that National has gone backwards with this bill, just like it has gone backwards with the economy, and just like it is out of touch with ordinary Kiwis and is not particularly working for ordinary New Zealand families. This bill, which changes the charter of Television New Zealand, is a similar backwards step. Thank you.

I am happy to take a call on the title clause, commencement clause, and clause 3 of the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill. To start with the title, I think we could more accurately describe this bill as the “Final Death Knell for Public Television Broadcasting in New Zealand Bill”, because we know now that we do not have a public television broadcaster in New Zealand. The other day, when the financial reviews were being debated by the House, I had the opportunity to flick through the financial review of Television New Zealand. The organisation actually said that it did not regard itself as a public television broadcaster, and it never had. In fact, its primary motivation all along had been to be a commercial broadcaster. I think this bill moves us further down that line of saying that Television New Zealand is not going to be a public broadcaster; it is going to be a purely commercial organisation. So we should be totally upfront about that, and say that in New Zealand we do not have a public television broadcaster. We would be one of the few OECD countries that do not have a public television service.

We have a television service that is owned by the public, but that does not necessarily make it a public television service. In fact, Television New Zealand’s almost exclusive goal now is to make money. We can certainly see evidence of that in my electorate, and that is one of the reasons why I argue that this bill should be called the “Final Death Knell for Public Television Broadcasting in New Zealand Bill”. My electorate is home to the Avalon television studios as long as they continue to exist, which, based on their current standing, may not be for very much longer. In Television New Zealand’s very chequered history, the Avalon Studios were constructed in the 1970s and 1980s to be the home of New Zealand television—the home of public New Zealand television, and of public broadcasting in New Zealand. But one of the reasons that we should call this bill the “Final Death Knell for Public Television Broadcasting in New Zealand Bill” is that the Avalon television studios are scheduled to be closed. Television New Zealand, effectively, is going to abandon them. It is going to abandon all of the people who work in them. The studios will effectively end up being mothballed, because the chances of Television New Zealand finding someone who is willing to buy them are relatively low.

When I look at the Avalon Studios, I think “What a waste!”. They could, and should, be the home of public television broadcasting in New Zealand. If we had a public television network, that would be the perfect place for the network to be. It has arguably the best television studio facilities in the Southern Hemisphere. Almost everybody who has worked there or produced any television there will agree with that comment, yet the studios are not being used. They are not being used because Television New Zealand is not a public broadcaster; it is more inclined to rely on cheap, imported content, such as reality television shows that are produced not in a studio but by giving someone a camera and telling them to follow some celebrities around for a little while.

As a result, what we see on our television screens in New Zealand does not differentiate us as a country from any other country in the world. New Zealand’s identity is not reflected by Television New Zealand, any more than it is reflected by TV3 or Sky television. So the question becomes whether the Television New Zealand channels are a public television network. No, I do not think they are. I do not think they are any more “New Zealand” than are TV3 or Sky television.

In fact, another reason we should call this bill the “Final Death Knell for Public Television Broadcasting in New Zealand Bill” is that Television New Zealand has now become a content provider for pay TV. It provides an entire channel for TVNZ Heartland, which is available only to Sky subscribers who are willing to pay for it. So how could we possibly say that Television New Zealand is a public broadcaster, when one of its channels, which is made up exclusively of New Zealand content, and a lot of which is funded by the taxpayer through New Zealand On Air at various points, is available only to people who are willing to subscribe to Sky television. That is one of the reasons why we should call the bill the “Final Death Knell for Public Television Broadcasting in New Zealand Bill”.

We could call the bill the “Death of Avalon TV Studios Bill”, or the “Final Death of the Avalon Television Complex Bill”, because one of the things this bill does is make some changes in relation to access to the New Zealand Television Archive. The television archive is currently based at Avalon, beside the Avalon Studios, in brand-new facilities that are less than 10 years old. One of the things the Government is proposing to do in other legislation, which no doubt will come before this House, is to force an amalgamation between the Television Archive and the Film Archive. Potentially, that will mean that that brand-new, less-than-10-year-old Television Archive facility at Avalon, beside the Avalon Studios, will go the same way as the Avalon Studios, and be mothballed by Television New Zealand when that happens. I think that is incredibly sad.

To continue to elaborate on the reason why I think the bill should be called the “Final Death of the Avalon Television Complex Bill”, I tell the Committee that we are potentially seeing the end of Avalon, the end of the studios. The tower block—that is, the commercial office block—has already gone. The studios themselves are shortly to follow.

💬 Charles Chauvel: What will happen to Astar?

That is right. Charles Chauvel raises a very good point. What will happen to Astar’s cooking segment on the Good Morning show, which is currently produced at Avalon?

💬 Charles Chauvel: What will the fans watch in the morning?

Charles Chauvel is very concerned about that, having just been on the cooking segment of the Good Morning show. But actually all the people who work on the Good Morning show say they cannot produce that show in its current format in the Auckland studios, because those studios are not big enough. The cooking segment and the New Zealand music segment will probably disappear, because the Auckland studios are not big enough for them to be produced in. Another potential name for this bill, then, is the “Another Kick in the Guts for New Zealand Music Bill”, because the Good Morning television show, rather tragically, is one of the few opportunities for a lot of New Zealand musicians to perform live on New Zealand television. They do that on the Good Morning show in the mornings. If that opportunity is taken away from them, when “Television Auckland” relocates the last of its operations to Auckland and completely abandons the rest of the country, as Television New Zealand has progressively done over the last 2 decades, that will be yet another thing we will see the demise of.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: What about the Goodnight Kiwi?

We have already seen the demise of the Goodnight Kiwi. Of course, the Goodnight Kiwi cartoon was of the Goodnight Kiwi leaving Avalon Studios and going up the mast to be put to bed. Avalon was iconic; it was the symbol of public television broadcasting in New Zealand. I find it particularly sad when we drive past there at night now and see that the building is completely dark. When I was growing up in the Hutt as a kid, we would drive past the Avalon complex and it would look alight in the evenings. That was where all of the New Zealand television was coming from. We always knew when Fair Go was being produced in the evening, because all of the lights of the studios would be on and the car park would be full. Once upon a time Fair Go was the most popular show on New Zealand Television—I think it probably still is—and it was filmed in front of a live audience at Avalon. I had the opportunity to sit in the audience for one of those filmings. I sat in the audience for the filming of some of the game shows: Wheel of Fortune, Sale of the Century, and so on. Sale of the Century was probably not the pinnacle of public broadcasting in New Zealand; none the less, it was filmed at the Avalon TV studios in my electorate.

Game shows are another one of the things that will be very difficult to produce in New Zealand after we see the demise of those large studios that currently reside in Avalon, because Television New Zealand is not willing to back them. The broadcaster is not willing to behave as a public broadcaster, which it should do. I think that is an absolute disgrace. We could call this bill the “We Don’t Have a Public Television Broadcasting Service in New Zealand Bill”, because I think that, ultimately, that is where we have got to. We simply do not have public television broadcasting in New Zealand. I think we should be honest about it and say that we have probably not had it for several decades. I do not think that Television New Zealand has ever been, in its current corporate incarnation, a public television broadcaster. It has never been set up that way. Right from the point when it became a State-owned enterprise it ceased to be a public broadcaster. The almighty dollar became the most important thing. The studios and the head office relocated to Auckland. Television New Zealand now is effectively “Television Auckland”. Everything we see on our screens is largely produced there, and very little is produced in other parts of the country. I think that is an absolute tragedy.

Television New Zealand does not reflect New Zealand. It is no different, as I said before, to what we see on TV3 or Sky television. As we move to technology convergence, I think we could call this bill the “Bill that is Years Out of Date Bill” because, as we move towards technology convergence, the platform that the content is delivered upon is a lot less important than the content itself. Television New Zealand’s future must be in producing New Zealand content that is distinctly New Zealand’s. If Television New Zealand is only about repackaging stuff that comes in from overseas—from America, from Britain, and from Australia—it will have no distinctive features and no distinctive content, and, frankly, there will be no need for it to exist. Television New Zealand’s future must be in telling New Zealand stories and producing New Zealand content, but it is not doing that. This bill does nothing to achieve that—in fact, it goes in the other direction. Ultimately, that is why I think we should call this bill the “Final Death of Public Broadcasting in New Zealand Bill”.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. [Interruption] Good looks always win—I joke.

Actions speak louder than words, and with this Television New Zealand Amendment Bill the National-led Government shows its stripes when it comes to public broadcasting. In this bill it removes the charter, which was one of the attempts made by the prior Government to maintain at least a modicum of public broadcast ethic within Television New Zealand. I for one do not think we succeeded totally in that task, and I do not think we have heard anyone from this side say that we had it completely right with Television New Zealand, but removing the charter is going in the wrong direction, and it is part of the intent of this Government to strip Television New Zealand of its public-good broadcasting functions.

I think we should also at this time reflect on other steps that the Government has taken in that regard. This bill and the Government’s actions under it are consistent with what it is doing with TVNZ 7. I am aware that there was a proposal from Television New Zealand to extend the funding of public broadcasting by keeping TVNZ 7 running. TVNZ 7 has been producing a good number of the public-interest broadcasts being produced by or for Television New Zealand, and they are screened free to air through TVNZ 7. There were suggestions at different times that TVNZ 7, perhaps together with Radio New Zealand, could provide the basis for some good quality, free-to-air broadcasting in New Zealand. As my colleague Charles Chauvel said to me as we were chatting before I spoke, it is important that we have a public broadcaster in New Zealand that maintains a modicum of good quality, intelligent broadcasting, and I agree with that. The trend is for ever more reality TV shows, ever more imported content, and ever more pushing of the boundaries as to violence and sexual content as broadcasters compete for market share, and the dumbing down of what we feed New Zealanders, and, through that, the diminution of the standard of discourse that we have in society. So I think that broadcast television is in a poor state and getting worse under this Government, and this bill is merely part of that decline.

It saddens me that we come to clauses 1, 2, and 3 of the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill, which amend the Television New Zealand legislation, because they signal a slide towards mediocrity, a slide towards more substandard TV, and a slide to more of the same being produced on all of our television channels. That is not to say that commercial television does not have a place; it most clearly does, and, increasingly, a dominant place in New Zealand. But there is a state of change in the television industry. We hear reports that CanWest, the owner of the TV3 network and some other radio organisations, is in trouble because it paid too much in the recent—

💬 Charles Chauvel: Radio Live.

Radio Live. There was an overseas buy-out where private equity bought into those institutions and paid far too much money. They are carrying very high levels of debt. They were in such difficulty that the Government had to give them a loan in respect of their frequency fees last year.

💬 Charles Chauvel: It’s still not going to save them.

And rumour has it that that is still not going to save them. That part of the public broadcasting—

💬 Hon Rick Barker: The Government is bailing out the private sector.

Well, it is interesting that the Government did give support to the private sector there, in a way, yet it would not support TVNZ 7 when it required some assistance.

💬 Hon Member: It ran out of funding.

We hear from the other side that it ran out of money. Yes, it is true that its funding lines were originally set up for 3 years, but, of course, most Budget lines are for a limited period of years, and it was for the Government to decide whether it thought it was of sufficient priority. TVNZ 7 is very cost-effective. I think the proposals that came forward from Television New Zealand, which I understand were supported by some of the Ministers in the current Government but Mr Joyce intervened to kill—[Bell rung] Mr Chairman.

ijpThe CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): David Parker.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Very good call, Mr Chairman.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): It was the only one.

Mr Joyce intervened to ensure the proposals did not proceed, which I think was sad for New Zealand. It would have taken only a bit of vision. I think Television New Zealand was, under the charter, trying to do the right thing through TVNZ 7, which was probably the greatest innovation in public broadcasting in the last few years. I think the proposals brought forward by Television New Zealand to continue that part of free-to-air public broadcasting were worthy of support, and I am saddened that they were not supported by the Government.

But I am not surprised when I read this bill, because this bill removes, as has been said, the charter. It is, at times, depressing to so often have to be negative in this House about the legislative agenda of the Government. Most Opposition members—indeed, all Opposition members—are not in our DNA negative people. We would much rather be talking about positive things, but, sadly, it is the role of the Opposition to point out mistakes made by the Government, and this is one of them. So when I rise to speak in respect of this bill, I cannot really say much else. I thought the Green Party in its minority select committee report said it well in the first sentence: “The Green Party opposes the TVNZ Amendment Bill because it strips Television New Zealand of its charter, and its public service obligations and responsibilities.” That, essentially, is what this bill does, and that is why we oppose it. We have said that in our own words, as prior speakers have said.

It saddens me that we are seeing not only the demise of TVNZ 7 but the charter stripped away from Television New Zealand. We will see more and more low-quality reality TV shows, which I do not really think add much to society. We will see more and more people—those who can afford to—subscribing to Sky. Good programmes are at times shown on Sky, but they are not readily available to most New Zealanders, because they cannot afford to subscribe to Sky or choose to prioritise other things. They are left with reliance on Television New Zealand, and, unfortunately, what they get fed through Television New Zealand has over the decades become more populist and more about chasing ratings rather than delivering programmes that would perhaps add to society. So we are seeing less current affairs, we are seeing less documentaries—

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Fewer.

—fewer documentaries, I should say—and fewer quality political shows. The political shows that there are now are on Sunday mornings. They are not in the prime slots that they used to be in yesteryear when there was good analysis of Government policy. I can understand why the Government does not want that. Its policies do not withstand scrutiny and it would not want the public to understand how New Zealand is going backward under its watch.

I am sad that this bill will be passed tonight by the National majority, with support from either ACT or the Māori Party. That is about all I will say.

I move, That the question be now put.

I appreciate the opportunity to take a call. I believe this might be my first opportunity to speak on the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill. I will come back to the commencement date for this bill, given that we are currently debating that clause. The current commencement we are looking at is post the Royal assent. I propose, and I would be interested to hear the views of other members of this Committee, that the good people of New Zealand should get the opportunity to vote on this matter via the general election.

My rationale is that the Government has said that in terms of, for instance, its policy on asset sales, it should go to the country and get a mandate for that particular policy. I would like to see a mandate for this policy. Why? Because ultimately there is such a significant change to our national broadcaster and to the mandate it is given from the Government that I think people should be given the opportunity to vote on this change, in the same way as they are given the opportunity to vote on asset sales. There are some similarities. For instance, the Government is proposing assets for sale that deliver, I believe, a 17 percent dividend, roughly, to the Government. We also require a significant dividend of Television New Zealand (TVNZ), and have done so at the same time as we request that it fulfil its requirements under the TVNZ charter.

💬 Chris Hipkins: They’re selling Avalon.

Despite that, they are still selling Avalon Studios—another similarity to the asset sale argument.

As well as removing the charter, basically this bill ensures that the primary focus of TVNZ—it was always a focus, but the primary focus—will be its commercial priorities. The charter will be essentially replaced by a statement of functions, which will include to “(a) provide for the functions of TVNZ, the Crown entity responsible for conducting a television and digital media business; and (b) ensure that TVNZ carries out its functions and maintains its commercial performance;”. That is the purpose of the new legislation, in a nutshell. That is it. There is not much wriggle room. It is very clear that the purpose now is solely commercial. That, for me, is an absolute tragedy.

My colleagues have already pointed out the role of TVNZ as a place-shaper, and there are additional flow-on effects. TVNZ in the past has had a role in providing programming that otherwise might not be provided if we were looking at a purely commercial role, such as children’s programmes, for instance. We have seen recently, in fact, that TVNZ has sold one of its most popular children’s programmes to Sky television, which is a service that Kiwis have to pay for if they wish to access it.

There are flow-on effects that are not just about place-shaping, and are not just about what will be lost via the removal of the charter. Those flow-on effects are economic. The Government may have entrenched commercial priorities, but I think it has actually neglected economic opportunities via TVNZ as a public broadcaster. What do I mean by that? Currently with regard to the film industry the Government is fine with backing a tax incentive regime that basically means that film companies will come to New Zealand to produce their films. Why? Because there is a natural flow-on effect when producing a film in New Zealand via employment of technical teams, and of people working in computer generated imagery and animation, not to mention the flow-on effect of crews finding accommodation in places where they are filming.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Caterers.

Caterers and so on. There is a long, long list.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Key grips.

Key grips. I can see that my colleague—

💬 Chris Hipkins: Gaffers.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Good boys.

Gaffers and good boys. I can see that my colleagues are well versed in the various career opportunities in the film and television industries.

Of course, this effect is not unique to film. The flow-on effects of the screen industry are significant. Yet we do not seem willing to acknowledge that the Government is willing to invest in and incentivise film, but it is not willing to invest in and incentivise television. For instance, TVNZ 7 cost—what—$17 million over the run of its life. The flow-on effect through the screen and television industry, according to some people working within TVNZ 7, is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Television also sustains the film industry—it sustains the film industry. We are not in a continual state of foreign film production in this country. We need an ongoing industry in order to keep all of the production people that my colleagues have named in full employment in between the filming of some rather large productions. What industry does that? Television. By narrowing the focus of TVNZ—

I move, That the question be now put.

I move, That the report be adopted.