Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill

Welcome to this thrilling episode two in the short serial that is my contribution on the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill. When I last spoke on this bill, I was noting that the intention here is around a continuation of a reliable, independent public radio capability.

The statistics from Radio New Zealand’s own survey work shows that 92 percent of its listeners agree that Radio New Zealand contributes to the development of an informed society. So it has very loyal listeners who think very highly of it. I think, even more significant, though, is that 87 percent of all New Zealanders agree that it is important for New Zealand to have a public service radio broadcaster. So the work we are looking to put in place through this amendment is something that will be welcomed by New Zealanders and will not only continue Radio New Zealand but also help to strengthen and expand its capability to help prepare it for the future as it continues to embrace digital channels, as well its traditional radio.

I would just like to cover a little bit around that digital channel, because it is quite phenomenal, really, the achievements that Radio New Zealand has made in what is still, relatively, a short period of time. In its last review, as it appeared before the Commerce Committee, it advised us that it now has received 36 million page views on radionz.co.nz and thewireless.co.nz, which sounds, by any measure, a fairly phenomenal sort of growth and level of activity for New Zealand. But then we look into beyond just page views and into the number of unique users that access either of those sites. For radionz.co.nz that is 748,000-odd unique users—that is 75 percent higher than to June 2015. The Wireless gets 50,000 unique users per month.

What this is really saying to us is that Radio New Zealand’s foray into the digital channel to help to expand and strengthen its market reach is working phenomenally well for them and that the digital channels are complementing their traditional ad-free public broadcast service. That is precisely what the chair and the chief executive officer had to say to us at the recent financial review.

Some members opposite have made the point that funding has not been increased for Radio New Zealand for some time, and they have played this up as some sort of almost Armageddon-level of freeze. However, the chair was very clear, not only in this most recent financial review but also, in fact, in the previous year’s financial review, that Radio New Zealand is confident—confident—that it will meet its objectives and its targets under its current level of funding. So, quite frankly, it is to be congratulated on the work that it does.

This charter that we will put in place through this amendment is going to strengthen Radio New Zealand’s capability to deliver its public broadcasting service, as well as expand further on its digital channels, and I commend this bill to the House.

The Green Party supports this bill and, more important, we support the role of public broadcasting in creating a healthy, strong democracy. I have to say that we have a vision for a well-funded, high-quality, multi-platform public broadcasting environment where New Zealand stories and voices are seen and heard. We do not want our children in New Zealand all growing up with accents like mine just because there is a lack of New Zealand content on television or on the radio. Radio New Zealand is currently our only public broadcasting entity, and it does a great job in very tight circumstances.

I have to say that this bill, although we can support it, truly is just around the margins and is not taking the steps that we need to fulfil this vision we have of well-funded, high-quality public broadcasting in New Zealand. This bill has been languishing—you know, not coming back to the House—for a very, very long time. It was in front of the Commerce Committee in 2009. It got a single submission, because it was not that controversial. It has taken that many years to come back to this House for the third reading.

At a time of massive change to broadcasting and journalism, increasing globalisation, an age when information is more free and yet at the same time more siloed than ever before, and the public is more disengaged with our democracy, the best thing that we can say about public broadcasting—about the National Government’s 8 years with this portfolio—is that this uncontroversial bill should have been passed 7 years ago. It is really the only thing the Government has done on the positive side of the ledger when it comes to public broadcasting. We can say it has done a bit on the negative side. We have had the funding freeze for Radio New Zealand, basically since National came to power, which is actually a substantial cut to its real operating budget. Radio New Zealand has managed to still provide probably the best, most insightful critical journalism that is out there in New Zealand, despite these budget cuts. But we have seen the complete removal of non-commercial television in New Zealand, with the National Government killing TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7.

All this bill does is update the Radio New Zealand charter, which is part of the normal 5-yearly statutory review. This review started in 2005, and it is now 11 years later. Over 8 of those 11 years, we have seen the impact of the funding freeze on Radio New Zealand. I know that at the committee my colleague Gareth Hughes asked why Radio New Zealand was not bothering to ask for additional funding, given that it has this annual operating deficit of $1.4 million and further deficits are forecast, capital spending is 5 to 10 years behind, and the estimate of the real-term funding cut is in the order of $4 million to $6 million each year. The answer, according to my colleague Gareth Hughes, was that it is pointless beating your head against a brick wall.

So there it is. The Government’s approach, National’s approach, to public broadcasting is a brick wall, which is not too surprising because having an informed electorate and a broad and deep debate on the merits of policy solutions for our country is not in the interests of this National Government.

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: Now that’s arrogant.

It is simply not.

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: No, that’s arrogant.

It is not. If it were otherwise, we could have a debate about policy and maybe the Government would be supportive of public broadcasting, but it finds it easier to win elections on a few silly slogans. Government members love going on the commercial radio stations and playing up the different personalities of people in their caucus, rather than debating whether or not policies are going to achieve what they say they are. Ironically, the Government did blow $26 million of taxpayers’ money on a failed flag legacy campaign, supposedly to have a conversation about who we are in the world, but it will not adequately fund Radio New Zealand, one of the major cornerstones of our public culture. It would not fund TVNZ 7, the only non-commercial television station that we had, when that would have cost $15 million a year, but it could find $26 million for the flag referendum, where we were trying to replace—rather than have a real debate about our constitution, let us just replace the Union Jack with a silver fern to represent our love of rugby.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Come back to the bill.

The Greens believe that Kiwis deserve high-quality broadcasting here in New Zealand. No one else is going to provide it; this Government is clearly not going to provide it. But the commercial media simply is not able to deliver the level of debate and investigative journalism that is necessary to have a healthy democracy. We know that. The commercial imperatives simply will not deliver the funding that is needed for quality journalism.

Quality journalism is public good. I know National does not understand the concept of public good. It thinks that if it cannot be commercialised, it is not worth having. You can hear that very clearly—it thinks that dollars are the only evidence of something being of value, when in fact there are many things that are of value to New Zealanders that do not make money. One of those things is democracy. The argument that we cannot afford to have quality public broadcasting in New Zealand is the same as saying that we cannot afford to have elections, because it is that essential to the functioning of democracy.

This is really about choice. The Government has chosen to be a brick wall on public broadcasting, but it does find the money to subsidise smelters, oil drilling, and casinos. Ultimately, that is its agenda. If we do not fund public broadcasting adequately, then what will happen is we will not have the information that voters need to make the choices about whom they want running the country and which policies are going to best achieve the New Zealand that they aspire to have. We can support this bill. It is well overdue. It does not really make a difference one way or the other. I mean, yes, it is great that we still have Radio New Zealand. I would not be surprised if, in a fourth-term National Government, Steven Joyce got his way and we did not have Radio New Zealand—if we flogged it off and simply had commercial radio and television, because that makes it easier for National to hide the fact from New Zealanders that it is letting them down and that it is looking after its rich mates and big business and overseas multinationals. That is the agenda of the National Party.

Halleluja is all I can say. Halleluja! Finally, finally! I am not going to take my whole 10 minutes, because this Government has stalled this bill for 7 years. Seven years—it is a magic figure with this bill. Seven years ago it was reported back to this Government, and 7 years ago Radio New Zealand needed more money. So for the last 7 years there has been no more money. “What?”, I ask myself, as I notice people whining away. This bill dropped off the Order Paper at the end of last night, but suddenly it has reappeared today. With this bill, that is very quick for this Government. So what is different? What has changed?

I think Mr Hudson told us what changed—the Commerce Committee finally heard from Radio New Zealand that it has given up on asking this Government to fund it appropriately. In his contribution, it was interesting that Mr Hudson talked about how Radio New Zealand was going to embrace the digital environment and how it had met the digital challenge, and so on and so forth. No more money, of course—no more money. They do not intend to get any more money. Now that it has finally kowtowed, now that it has finally decided that there is no point in asking this Government for more money, it might just get a charter. It might just get a charter that is hugely overdue.

I think the other thing that is interesting is that, obviously, Mr Hudson has never read the incoming briefing paper to the Minister, which was put in by Radio New Zealand after the 2014 election, where it said: “We cannot do what you ask us to do unless we actually have more budget. We cannot be starved for funding in this way, and then provide the service, not just to New Zealand, but out into the Pacific and beyond that, in the way that you ask us to do it.” But does this Government care? No, this Government does not care. Of course this Government does not care.

If there was one thing that I agreed with Ms Genter on, it is that, actually, the Government hates public broadcasting—it hates public broadcasting. It believes that all broadcasting should be privatised, because that is what suits this Government—that is what suits the National Party. And it is disingenuous for the politicians sitting on that side of the House, with their track record around public institutions, to actually laugh it off. It is disingenuous. It goes from railways to housing to, finally, we believe, radio stations—airwaves. It goes on and on and on. So this is just another way of starving Radio New Zealand to the point that it either folds or this Government can say that it is not producing—that it is a Government organisation or a Government body, a public body, that is not producing at the level it should and that it would be better run by the private sector. Let us wait and see whether we see that, shall we?

In New Zealand First, we are thrilled. I am not going to take any more time. I challenge the Government members to get up, say that they support this bill, and sit down so that the bill gets through before 10 o’clock tonight. I challenge you to do that, Mr O’Connor. If you take your full call, if the Government members take their full calls, it will be an indication of blustering by this Government. It will be an indication of stalling. So if the backbenchers of the National Government get up on the orders of their whip and start taking 10-minute calls, then it will be an indication that what members of the Opposition have said is true. Just for the record, the junior whip for National has just indicated that they should do exactly that. So just for the record, New Zealand, everything that the Opposition has said has just been verified by Mr Ross.

But let us just see what the charter will have in it when we finally get this through. Will we finally see a Radio New Zealand charter that includes a requirement for unbiased reporting around political parties? Will we finally see it say somewhere inside a charter for the public broadcasting service that all political parties must be given a balanced opportunity to put forward their policies, etc., to the people of New Zealand? Will we finally see that? With the fear that Radio New Zealand is currently feeling under this administration, I think it unlikely. I think Radio New Zealand has learnt its lesson after 7 years of being told to toe the line, toe the line, toe the line. It has learnt the lesson you were trying to tell it. But Governments change—Governments change. And all Radio New Zealand has to do is hold on, because there is a change coming.

I just want to be very clear to the member who has just spoken, Tracey Martin, that I will be taking a short call, not because of her encouragement, but I do not think that my talking for 10 minutes is going to do anything for the public broadcasting service in New Zealand. This is a good bill; it is well-structured. I think, though, that there are some points, obviously—Radio New Zealand, when it came before the Commerce Committee, made it very clear that it was able to work within the financial frameworks that it has agreed to, and it continues to do some absolutely amazing work.

Really, all this talk about not liking public broadcasting is really quite odd, if not anathema, because this bill is about entrenching and making very clear the public purpose of Radio New Zealand. So I do commend the bill to the House, and I look forward to its progress into law.

I too am not going to take up too much of the House’s time, because I too share Miss Martin’s concern that we get this passed tonight. I do love RNZ. I love Radio New Zealand. It is my channel of choice, and lots of programmes within it. I am really glad that this legislation will actually give effect to the Radio New Zealand charter, which will continue to reinforce not only those great programmes but also the principles by which they are developed and broadcast. I just want to go through some of them, if you will permit.

It is actually broadcasting that is in the public interest—that is, broad-ranged, high-quality, independent broadcasting. It ensures that we have a good cultural balance, that the programmes are intellectual and stimulating, and that they may have a scientific nature or a spiritual nature. These principles promote informed debate, which is really important, particularly when there are issues of national significance to debate, and they stimulate critical thought. They are a support for us in the development of our language and culture, particularly Māori language and culture, and there are programmes that I listen to such as Te Manu Kōrihi, for example. They promote Pacific culture and language as well. Tagata o te Moana, for example, is a programme that I listen to a lot. The music and arts—Music 101—and there are lots of special interest programmes. Simon Morton is a particular favourite of mine; I like the series that he did when he had the beehives at home and also the chickens—I really enjoyed that particular series.

Part of the charter is also about providing New Zealanders and the listeners of RNZ with a sense of citizenship and a sense of national identity. And we could not have done with that more over the last few months when we have been having this debate around what the symbol of our nationhood is—whether it is one flag or another—and, really, whether that is where our discussion about nationhood should start, or whether it should be around discussions into constitutional reform.

But overall I think the overriding principle for me is about accountability: about the accountability of us as members of Parliament in the House, the accountability and scrutiny of the legislation that we write and produce, and the accountability of Government and the executive in its handling of matters of national importance. So although I am not going to take too much more time, I just want to say that I recognise that Radio New Zealand—RNZ—has a standard of excellence. This charter and this bill will put that into effect and reinforce it, and I commend it to the House.

I rise to take a call. It will be a short call—almost as short as my current haircut at the moment. It is really just to commend the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill in its third reading to the House. Just on two points—first of all, just in regard to the charter where it clearly says, as set out in clause 8(1), “to serve the public interest.” I think that is actually important. That sense of paramountcy and mandate is important to us, as are the other aspects that are there too.

The second point I want to make is that many people may not know that Radio New Zealand provides a very important role under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act of 2002, where it becomes what they call a lifeline utility. So in times of crisis and disaster it plays quite a significant role. So along with all the other aspects of what it does in regard to broadcasting—through technology and the diversity on a range of programmes—it also provides what I think is a very critical role as well.

In saying that, I do not want to be long, or prolong this, because I think that, in agreeance with Mrs Martin—and not because of her urging—the fact is that the bill has had its readings, has had its submissions, long processes of consultation, and it is time that it now actually comes into force and into law. So I do commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Like the Greens, the Labour Party believes in a well-funded, high-quality, independent public broadcasting service, and it also supports this bill.

One of the first things that popped out to me as I was going through the notes for this reading was that it said that Radio New Zealand’s funding has been frozen at $31.8 million since the 2008-09 financial year. I thought “Oh crikey, I had better just check that that is still the case.” So I gave Clare Curran a call and went and had a conversation with her and I said: “Look, you’ve said this in 2013-14—that the funding had been frozen at $31.8 million—tell me that’s still not the case.” And, unfortunately, Clare did say to me: “Yes, Kelvin, that is the case now, 7 years later.” So 2 years after those comments had been made in the 2013-14 financial review, it is still the case that the funding has been frozen at $31.8 million. In that financial review, Radio New Zealand said cost-cutting could not go on much longer and it would have to seriously look at cutting back on core functions in the near future if its situation did not change.

Reading this morning’s Dominion Post, I came across this article in the business section. It says that creeping erosion makes Kiwis poorer. This article is talking about Kiwi families, but it could equally be applied to organisations that rely on Government funding. The first sentence says: “There’s a quiet force eroding the financial lives of many New Zealanders.” It could equally say “There’s a quiet force eroding the financial viability of some New Zealand organisations.” It says: “in the name of making other government spending sustainable, some money limits on other government programmes remain unchanged as wages and prices march on, trimming spending in real terms without politicians having to talk about cuts.” That could equally be applied to Radio New Zealand. The members on the other side there can put their hands on their hearts and say in all honesty “We have not made any cuts to Radio New Zealand funding.”, and in a dollar amount that would actually be the case—but in terms of real spending they have received cuts.

The Children’s Commissioner told Parliament—now you can substitute “Children’s Commissioner” here with the “chair of Radio New Zealand, Richard Griffin” or the “chief executive officer, Paul Thompson”—about the freezing of his baseline funding since the 2010 financial year. He said: “One can only stretch a rubber band so far.” And the same applies to Radio New Zealand. You can only stretch a rubber band so far before there is going to be an erosion of the quality of the content or there is going to be an erosion of something: to the extent now that we have heard that the problem is so bad that this year Richard Griffin will not even be making a Budget bid to increase the funding for Radio New Zealand. Has he given up? I am not sure of the reason, but why would a chairperson not put in a Budget bid for increased funding for his organisation? He has probably just thrown his hands up in the air and given up all hope.

But let us not detract from the great job that Radio New Zealand does do. As I walked into the House I heard Mr Hudson from the other side talking about some of the ways that Radio New Zealand has targeted new audiences: radionz.co.nz had 1,284,171 users and 5 million page views in the month of February 2016. So in 29 days it had 5 million page views—that is almost as popular as Stuart Nash’s Facebook page; thewireless.co.nz had 83,586 users and 141,660 page views. In online audio—again in February 2016—Radio New Zealand had over 1.148 million unique downloads. That is something like 40,000 unique downloads a day. It also had 163,738 requests for on-demand audio—that is 5½ thousand requests a day. And 108,431 requests for livestreams—that is 3,700 requests for livestreams a day. So Radio New Zealand is trying to target new audiences using all the technology that is there.

Radio New Zealand is highly regarded by New Zealanders, including non-listeners, by the way. Eighty-seven percent agree that it is important for New Zealand to have a public service radio broadcaster and only 4 percent disagree with that. So 87 percent agree, and 4 percent disagree—I guess the others in between do not know. Eighty percent agree that Radio New Zealand provides a valuable service for New Zealanders, and only 4 percent disagree. So when we look at its performance against its current charter—and remember that this bill is about getting a new charter for it. A recent survey asked listeners “How much do you agree or disagree?”, about Radio New Zealand and whether they “promote informed debate?”, and 89 percent agreed that it promotes informed debate. Only 1 percent disagreed—the others are neither here nor there—but 89 percent say that it promotes informed debated. It asked whether Radio New Zealand “contributes to the development of an informed society?”, and 92 percent of respondents said “Yes”. There are over a thousand respondents, and 92 percent believe that Radio New Zealand contributes to the development of an informed society, and only 1 percent disagree. These are superb results, considering that it has had frozen funding since 2008.

In terms of agreeing or disagreeing with whether it provides “a range of programmes which reflect New Zealand’s cultural diversity”, 85 percent agree. Do they “promote and support a sense of national identity?”. Eighty-two percent agree. The one area where I think that Radio New Zealand needs to up its game—and I personally would like to see—is that they need to “balance the need to broadcast programmes of wide appeal while also broadcasting programmes of interest to minority audiences.” Seventy-eight percent agree and 3 percent disagree. And if I can put out a plea there, I would like to see more Māori broadcasting, more Pacific Island languages, more ethnic content, and, certainly, not just more programming in Te Reo Māori but also more Māori-related stories.

Radio New Zealand does an exceptional job, despite the fact that it has had frozen funding for 7 years now. This is a quote from last year’s annual review of Radio New Zealand at the Commerce Committee: “I’d say our financials are as healthy as they possibly could be under the circumstances of a budget that hasn’t been increased, in terms of Government financing, for 7 years now.” It is an appalling indictment on the Government that a broadcaster that is so popular, that does such a great job for New Zealanders—it broadcasts our stories, it promotes national identity, all of those wonderful things—has had a frozen budget since 2008-09.

The Labour Party supports this bill. It is long overdue. I believe one part of the bill is that there is meant to be a review of the charter every 5 years. I think we have missed two of those reviews, and it looks like the first review will not now be until 2020-21. This bill has been delayed too long, and, therefore, we should pass it as soon as possible. Kia ora.

Bill read a third time.