Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. I intend to move that the bill be reported back to the House by Tuesday, 28 April 2020.

The bill will address a discreet regulatory gap where commercial video on demand content, which is a growing market both globally and in New Zealand, is not currently subject to mandatory classification requirements prior to being made available in New Zealand. It brings commercial video on demand content in line with how films seen at cinemas or available on DVDs are treated. Films are required to display a label that tells the potential viewer what age or audience it is appropriate for, and flags with them that it may contain violence, sexual, or adult themes, and, more importantly, themes about suicide that have been proven to have an effect on younger audiences. The bill allows viewers to make informed viewing choices when they are scrolling through their Netflix, Lightbox, or NEON accounts for something to watch.

The bill is essential in managing the potential for harm to viewers who view or allow children or vulnerable persons to view commercial video on demand content without understanding its nature. It does this by requiring this content to be rated and labelled in the same way that films are already regulated under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act. However, only certain providers listed in a Schedule to the Act will be required to comply with the new requirements. The decision to list or remove providers from the Schedule will be made by the Governor-General upon recommendation from the Minister of Internal Affairs. The Minister of Internal Affairs will need to consult the chief censor and consider criteria noted in the bill before making any recommendation to list or remove providers from the Schedule. The principal consideration for listing in the Schedule will be the potential risk of harm to New Zealand viewers due to the provider not displaying appropriate labels under the classification Act.

Providers listed in the Schedule can comply by (1) self-rating content using their own systems that have been approved by the Office of Film and Literature Classification; (2) self-rating content using the Office of Film and Literature Classification’s online tool and resources; or (3) submitting content to the Film and Video Labelling Body for rating and labelling, with certain content to be referred to the Office of Film and Literature Classification for classification where appropriate. The ability for providers to be able to self-rate their content is something that is unique to the treatment of commercial video on demand content under the classification Act. It is a more efficient process and considers commercial video on demand providers need to maintain competitiveness in the market by being able to make content available in New Zealand at the same time as it is available elsewhere. An example of this is when the Game of Thrones episodes on NEON were available soon after being broadcast on the American HBO channel.

The Office of Film and Literature Classification has been developing a self-rating framework with industry, which will be ready to roll out once changes come into force in January 2021. The bill sets out a staggered approach to implementation. I believe this is necessary given the changes specific providers will need to make to their own systems in order to comply with the new requirements. If the bill is passed by July 2020, then providers will have six months to negotiate terms and conditions with the Office of Film and Literature Classification and upgrade their systems if necessary. Providers will have to rate and label all new content from 1 January 2021, and older content, which is content already available on providers’ platforms before 1 January 2021, will need to be rated and labelled by 1 July 2021. However, commercial video on demand content that has been labelled under the Broadcasting Act regime and displays broadcasting code classifications or programme information will not need to be relabelled. This recognises the other existing regime for media content under the Broadcasting Act, which was developed with a focus on New Zealand community standards.

As stated before, this discreet change adapts the classification Act to address commercial video on demand content and ensures this content displays New Zealand ratings and labels that are readily familiar to New Zealand viewers. I propose that a period of four months is appropriate for select committee consideration. The bill is short and makes a discreet change to the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993. I commend this bill to the House.

💬 Melissa Lee: Madam Speaker—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Madam Speaker, thank you very much. I jumped the gun there a little bit. It’s a pleasure to actually rise—I will signal now to the Minister and to the House that the National Party will be supporting this bill to select committee only at this stage. There are some concerns that we have, and me and my colleagues will actually put some of them down.

But I have to commend the Minister of Internal Affairs. Considering the fact that there is a wider media content review happening by the Hon Kris Faafoi and also the Māori sector review that is actually happening, I’m slightly confused as to what the rush was for this Minister to have a very narrowly focused bill brought to this House for us to debate, literally the second day before we close for Christmas, rushing it through so that we are supposedly reporting back on 28 April. It’s not even six months, and most people who are actually in the industry perhaps are on holiday, and Parliament doesn’t even return until February. I just feel that it’s a little rushed, and I just urge the Minister to have a little bit of leeway in terms of the way that our submitters will have some time to submit to select committee and to review some of the concerns that we actually have.

The objective of this bill is to reduce the potential for harm for consumers from viewing inappropriate content in commercial videos on demand. As a parent, when my child was growing up, I was always very concerned about some videos that he might actually consume on television or on DVDs, and I would always check the ratings that were on the box—whether it was for general viewing or parental guidance that was required for the content. I think that as my son grew a little bit older, I sort of stopped doing that. You know, I wanted to make sure that he knew what he was actually watching. I always reminded him about the classifications that the videos actually had, but knowing young children, they want to go for something slightly older than they are. At age 16, I think he wanted to go for something that was for 18-year-olds, and trying to convince my son not to do a video game that was rated 18 was a major fight in my household, to restrict my child to not do R18 video games. I think it was rated because of the violent nature of the video. So there were actually a lot of arguments in my family. I’m sure that it is like that, actually, everywhere up and down the country, and that is one of the reasons why we want to make sure that we have consistent labelling of the ratings and the classifications. I think it is a good thing, and that is one of the reasons why we are actually supporting this bill.

Having said that, I guess one of the reasons why we oppose—well, why we are concerned about it; and I hope that the submitters will actually address some of these concerns that we actually have—is the issue of establishment of criteria and process to identify less regulated providers. It’s in the second page of the explanatory note of the bill. This is actually about the Schedule that the Minister, in consultation with the chief censor, creates—the people who are able to actually have content in New Zealand. I guess one of the things is that according to the Schedule, or the proposed Schedule, it does not list some of the content providers on different platforms that many young people actually go to. I’ve actually alluded to the Minister that there are many content providers that we haven’t even looked at. I think, hopefully, the submitters will actually bring that awareness to our select committee.

For example, there are anime platforms that are actually very violent and have very sexual content that our young people could potentially get at but haven’t even been included in it. And potentially commercial videos on demand could be our broadcasters like TVNZ. They haven’t actually been included in the list, and I think they need to be included in this.

One of the things that—hopefully, my colleagues will actually address some of the other issues, but I think having mandatory classification of all content has been a clunky process. Having actually run a film festival for the Korean community—I run the Korean film festival every two years as part of the Korean Cinerama Trust—one of the issues that we’ve always had is the mandatory classification of every video, or every film, that we wanted to run during the film festival. When content has already been classified in other countries, I think we need to look at how we actually share that classification in terms of the levels of violence or the content. But when the censors want to view every content that’s going to be shown, let’s say at a film festival, sometimes the process takes too long, and we ran the risk of not being able to have the film classified on opening night. That is a major delay.

The other concern is that if the regulation is too much, sometimes, I think, we run the risk of having content providers geo-block New Zealand. These are some of the issues that we will actually traverse during select committee.

There are quite a few things to actually go through, but I’m sure that we’ll nut those things out during select committee. We support it to select committee, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand in support of this bill, and I’m reminded of the words of a former Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Sir John Key, and I liken it to that member’s speech, saying that that contribution is a Walkman in an iPod era. She made reference to a broader review in the broadcasting space where I think that this is much needed and needed now.

I say that with respect, because we know that in this particular space it’s ever evolving, it’s ever changing. If we were to wait for a far broader review, which I know is under way and is being led by the Hon Kris Faafoi, and also the work being led by the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, then I’m afraid that it will be far too long. Far too many eyes will see programmes, films, documentaries, or whatever they might be, that aren’t classified appropriately in order for parents and for viewers to make the right decision. So I support the Minister of Internal Affairs in her time frames that she’s indicated in her contribution on this bill. I look forward to supporting this bill as it continues in the House, and, just as importantly, upon its conclusion, I also look forward to the great viewing ahead for the future. Tēnā koe.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on this bill. Just in regard to the previous member, Peeni Henare’s, comments regarding my colleague Melissa Lee, I think it’s important to understand that the reviews that are taking place do have the potential to override some amendments that this bill could put into place.

However, suffice to say, I am pleased that we are supporting this to select committee. I think it’s going to be a very interesting debate. Look, as a parent myself, there have been absolute times when I have had concern about what young people do stumble across—and not only stumble across; seek out. I do think that in this debate, what we’re going to hear from parents is that concern that, actually, sometimes when you put a classification on a programme or a movie it actually is the thing that attracts people to it.

But, that aside, I do think that there have been programmes that have been available without any warning or description that we would all hold serious concern about. One of those, of course, was the series 13 Reasons Why and the issue that that created in normalising people taking their lives. I think all of us would hold significant concerns about that. Some of these films depict life as we know it or life as other people and countries know it, and you can say they are educational, but sometimes I think people prefer not to be educated in such matters, and there could be an opportunity, I think, for New Zealand to have some deep consideration about these matters.

So can I commend the Minister of Internal Affairs for her concern and also look forward to what the select committee process will enable in terms of inviting submissions from the broader community right across the board. I think this is something that New Zealand needs to consider and discuss. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Young people in New Zealand are exposed to an incredible variety of influences and pressures and media to an extent that generations past have not necessarily been. Now, we can’t be unrealistic or prudish about these matters, necessarily. Young people have always been curious about finding different types of material and informing themselves about the world that is around them. But what this piece of legislation does is address what is a fundamental gap within our system for ensuring that people have got good information about what the age appropriateness of content is in these particular media. Any Parliament worth its salt, and any Government worth its salt, will always be ensuring that the regulations that we have keep pace with technological changes. The reality is that over recent years, an increasing amount of the content that young people view is through these on-demand providers, and we’ve got a very, very obvious loophole.

This is a very sensible piece of legislation. It, simply, addresses a gap. We would expect, and our laws expect, that if content comes through other forms of visual media—if it’s on the television—that there will be a process for ensuring that the age appropriateness of that content is known by people who are watching. That is not the same if it comes through these kinds of media.

So this is a sensible piece of legislation. It’s also important in terms of ensuring that people can make good decisions about what kind of content is appropriate. I firmly commend it to the House and look forward to the discussion that will ensue at select committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think we’re all in agreement that something needs to be done. The question is: what is the something, and will it work? One thing with this bill: it seems to have been quite rushed in the process. And yet the Minister had a whole year to get started on this and elected not to and then has rushed it through, to a point where we have some serious doubts that this will be actually as effective as we think—particularly the gaming, videos, and so on and programmes that aren’t captured in this. There is a list in the bill, in the Schedule. The problem is this is such a fast-moving world that providers pop up all the time. So to have something in a Schedule like that, we need the flexibility to make sure that that can adapt, and adapt very quickly. I’m not confident that that will happen.

The clunky process, having bureaucrats involved, always—as my colleague Melissa Lee mentioned about film festivals having to go through the process, this has happened on a number of occasions, with these film festivals being almost held at ransom because they can’t get their content that they want to show actually classified in time. The last thing we want is for this process to mess with the Kiwis who are law-abiding and wanting to show quite harmless content, who are being held up by these processes.

So I’m sure that the select committee will deal with a lot of these processes—not sure it’ll all work and be able to be knocked into shape enough, but that remains to be seen. In the meantime, there is an overarching review going on, by the other two Ministers mentioned earlier, which may completely negate this bill and it may need repealing as part of that process. So we support it in principle. Let’s just see if it’ll actually do what it says on the tin.

Thank you, Madam Speaker—pleased to stand in support of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill. The Green Party supports this bill. Opposition speakers have criticised the Minister of Internal Affairs for speed, but the Minister has developed this bill after targeted consultation. That always takes a bit of time, but it is useful in ensuring that legislation is well formulated. So I think that criticism is misdirected.

We are pleased to support it because of the huge growth in these commercial on-demand services: 77 percent of New Zealanders now use these streaming services, and it recognises the need for people to be able to have information on the type of content that can be viewed, particularly for parents with children, and young people who may be vulnerable to, especially, films about things like suicide. So this is filling a gap, and because of that vulnerability it needs to be filled as quickly as we can.

I think what the bill is doing in providing for a self-rating system is ensuring that the system is efficient and as cost-effective as possible. In ensuring that there is a Schedule of providers who are required to meet the requirements of the legislation—that has been clear. That Schedule can be amended, as the Minister noted. In providing for staged implementation so that new content has to have the labelling on it from January 2021 and that providers have to address their back catalogues from July 2021 and have those complied, that is allowing time for the industry to implement the requirements of the legislation, and it is, at its heart, trying to manage unnecessary harm to people in New Zealand.

So it is a small bill, but it is a good bill. Like others, the Green Party will be interested in the submissions to select committee, because, as Stuart Smith noted, there are problems with the regime at the moment, particularly for some independent film makers, those wanting to provide and sell videos of independent films and not being able to get their classifications through cost-effectively, that being quite a high cost barrier. That is slightly wider than the scope of the bill, but it may be that this bill is an opportunity to address these issues with some of those smaller independent producers to help ensure that they get classifications as well but it’s not a really heavy cost burden on them. So I encourage those people to actually make submissions to the select committee. But the Green Party supports this bill and commends the Minister for bringing it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for an opportunity to talk on the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill at its first reading. It’s a bill in which there seems to be a problem which the Minister of Internal Affairs is trying to rush a solution for through Parliament. It seems to be about four months to rush something through Parliament and make some legislation. There is a problem. There is content which is not currently being classified, and this bill does seek to provide information to parents, to children, to young people so that they can make informed decisions over what they are watching or what they’re allowing their children to watch, and that is a serious issue. I think it’s something which we all take seriously in this House. I note that the Government does have a wider content review taking place which is looking into all of these issues, and here today we are debating this bill which seeks to, essentially, put in place a stopgap, a half measure, which will make some improvements but will also have some unintended consequences.

One of the points I’d like to make is over the fact that this is, essentially, a piece of legislation which will be outdated the day it is passed. It allows the Minister to be able to update through regulation the list of content providers which will be able to self-regulate and put in place the classifications, but then as technology changes, as new providers come in, the Minister will have to, in consultation with the chief censor, update those regulations. So, essentially, what we’re seeing here is a piece of legislation which will be outdated the day that it is passed into law.

In my view, this is something for which the Government should be looking at a more platform-neutral approach on how to deal with this issue, rather than a list of platforms which will be constantly changed as new platforms and new providers come on to the scene. So we support this bill at this stage, but we will be very interested in the submissions which come through—also just noting the fact that the submission period will be very brief. The select committee period will only be just over four months, and this, as a serious issue, will not provide as much time as this may need for people to be able to make those submissions and to have that serious consultation which is required. We support the bill to its first reading. Thank you very much.

We now have a split call. I call Jamie Strange.

Thank you, Madam Speaker—appreciate the opportunity to take a call on this bill. It was only a couple of days ago when my wife and I were having a conversation—

💬 Alastair Scott: Too much detail.

—around what our children were accessing. Yeah, we do talk from time to time, which is good. We were having a conversation around what our children were watching on TV, and I believe they were watching Netflix. We were thinking back to when we were children—and I’m sure some people in the House will certainly be able to relate to this, that, basically, TV was very regulated, and there were set times when, as children, you would have programmes on TV for you. So, for example, weekdays between sort of 3.30 p.m. and 6 p.m., and those shows—

💬 Alastair Scott: Play School.

—yeah, yeah, Play School, Fraggle Rock—were for children when they got home from school. The news was coming on at 6 p.m., so there was that set period of time and it was clearly regulated. People knew what they were watching. The other time was Saturday morning: What Now, other shows like that. Look, we could go on with a number of shows, but I’ll let other speakers maybe share their stories.

But the key point that I want to make here is that we live in a completely different environment, and this environment, brought about by video streaming, basically means two things. One is that children watch a show and then at the end of the show, it goes straight on to the next show. So the ability to binge-watch is something that wasn’t around previously. From a personal point of view, I think that that has some challenges, that ability to binge-watch, for children and also for adults as well. Then the second point, which this bill addresses, is the aspect around clearly knowing what the content is and what the rating of that content is.

There is a point that hasn’t really been teased out, and I would like to touch on that, that this policy, this piece of legislation, was developed with the industry, which is a fantastic way to develop legislation. It was developed with Netflix, Lightbox, NEON, and others within the industry. The Office of Film and Literature Classification has been developing a self-rating framework with industry which will be ready to roll out once changes come into force in January 2021. The bill sets out a staggered approach to implementation, which is necessary given the changes specified providers will need to make to their own systems in order to comply with the new requirements. So it’s important that we note that the industry is on board, and I’d like to acknowledge the industry and I’d like to acknowledge those groups that I mentioned—and no doubt there were others who were involved in that consultation—because it’s a good model for legislation.

So, look, just to summarise: the situation has changed, and it’s important that we move with the times. From a personal point of view, I’d probably like to hark back to how it was, but the reality is the situation has changed and so legislation like this is very important to provide clear communication both to the children and to the parents. I commend this bill to the House, and I acknowledge the work that the Minister, the Hon Tracey Martin, has done on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. “’Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the House, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”—so the poem goes. Well, this is sometimes referred to as the House. I wouldn’t call any of my parliamentary colleagues creatures, or even a mouse. That would be unparliamentary.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Excellent.

I believe a rodent metaphor has been used before in this place relatively recently and didn’t go down well. We won’t try and swallow any dead rats of that nature, but suffice to say there’s a lack of stirring in the sense that no one seems to be heckling too much. I’m sort of testing that theory right now, but there seems to be at least unanimity as far as the content of what we’re discussing goes, the objective of the bill that’s in front of us, which I’ll remind myself is the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill. So it is that I rise on this side of the House, as we have been, and indeed with our colleagues opposite, supporting the general intent of the bill and being curious as to the detail of the content, which is a matter that can be discussed a bit more at select committee and understood in that forum.

I think probably the only points that I would pick out, in that admittedly quite high-level kind of way, are around the desire of the bill to prevent the viewing of inappropriate content. The key way that it looks to achieve that is by emphasising labelling that is consistent, and by consistent—we can have a reliable system, a system that can be relied upon, and, actually, the explanatory note I think is quite sensible in emphasising the need for informed decisions. So that’s obviously key to a person being able to decide for themselves or, I suppose, in the context of a young person, have their parent decide with them or for them what is appropriate, and, of course, without the right labelling regime, that’s impossible.

Others have spoken about the need to have a regime that makes sense across different formats, maybe even different media, and I see that that’s something that’s addressed in the bill. I look forward to hearing more about it in due course, because, as you know, we’re supporting it on this side at least to select committee and possibly beyond. So we look forward to the rest of the conversation. I thank the Minister of Internal Affairs and others who have worked upon it to this stage. Thank you.

Thank you, Te Mana Whakawā. It’s an absolute privilege to speak on the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill. We’ve just had Harmony in the House, that’s why I look very Christmassy. I just want to acknowledge the speeches from across the floor there in terms of—one would think that they are not supporting this bill. One would think that they’re not supporting this bill, but I challenge the members across the floor: had that Government, when they were in Government, done something for the last nine years, maybe we wouldn’t be talking about this. Maybe we wouldn’t be talking about the Walkman in a DVD world. Maybe we wouldn’t be talking about the iPod in a mobile phone world.

Well, I want to commend the Minister of Internal Affairs—

💬 Simeon Brown: Talk about the bill.

—I’m getting to the bill; let me get there—for her leadership in this catching up with technology, because that’s what we are actually doing. We’re catching up with the inactivity in the last nine years. What the bill will actually do—the objective of this bill is to reduce the potential for harm to consumers from viewing inappropriate content. That’s what it will do. The bill will amend the Films, Videos and Publication Classification Act of 1993—1993, that’s a long time ago—and it’s to clearly address the identified regulatory gap that identifies—and I just want to talk about a few requirements that it suggests to do—English is my second language, so I’m really honoured and proud to be able to speak English in this House. Now, the requirements for specified commercial video on-demand providers to label content before it’s available in New Zealand—that’s what this bill is trying to do. What the bill will also do is it will establish a set of criteria and processes to identify the list of regulated providers. So that’s what this bill will do.

I want to come down to the point where it actually talks about updating functions of the Classification Office. So the bill will update the functions of the Classification Office to ensure that the new requirements for commercial video on demand—we’re no longer under the DVD, Walkman era—content are clearly within the scope of this operational work.

I just want to cover three points if I may, to summarise it quickly. So the Clarification Office will have the following functions and powers: one is providing an online rating tool that specified commercial video on demand providers may use to rate and label content they may make available. The other two points I wanted to cover were appropriate self-rating systems and reviewing and monitoring the operations and outputs of both the online rating tool and any self-rating system.

I just want to acknowledge the members across the House and, in unison with them, I commend this bill to the House.

Oh, thank you very much, Madam Speaker. A very simple way to assess bills like this Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill is simply to ask: what is the intention, how effective will it be, and what unexpected or unintended consequences might occur if Parliament was to pass a law such as this?

The intention of it is set up pretty early. In the explanatory note it says, “The objective of this bill is to reduce the potential for harm to consumers from viewing inappropriate content.” Well, anyone vaguely familiar with the internet and the way that people access content and video content in the modern world knows that there is zero chance of this bill being remotely effective, and the reasons for that should be intuitive. The most harmful content out there is content that will never be viewed or touched by any New Zealand Government regulator, but is freely available to anybody who wishes to view it. There are literally millions of videos, probably billions of videos now, on YouTube. They are being uploaded at a rate faster than any New Zealand Government department could ever seek to classify them.

And that’s a benign site. That’s without considering some of the websites I was going to mention, and I looked over and I saw Dan Bidois, the member for Northcote, grinning as he anticipated me mentioning those sites. And there’s Chris Penk, the member for Helensville. He gave a smirk as well. And there we have Tim Macindoe from Hamilton East or West—who knows? He’s also grinning, the King’s College old boy. He’s grinning at the thought of those websites.

There’s a lot of websites out there that will never be anywhere near within the reach of the New Zealand Government. So we can say pretty early on that you’ve got an intention of stopping people viewing harmful websites and video content that may be streamed and having the harm reduced by being able to view a standardised classification system. That’s the intention: reduce harm by giving standardised classifications to video content online. And we also know that it’s going to be completely ineffective, because the overwhelming majority of content and particularly the most harmful will never be classified by the New Zealand Government.

Then we move to the unintended consequences, which are legion. One of them is that an outfit such as Netflix might have a look at this legislation and say, “Is it worth our while to comply with a New Zealand specific regime to enter that market?” I suspect Netflix will, because they’re a big outfit and they make a lot of money here in New Zealand. But one of the unintended consequences is that some outfits that currently stream to New Zealand will either stop servicing the New Zealand market or be blocked. So the potential is that there’ll be some—not the really bad sites, not the really good sites—in the middle that will actually abandon the New Zealand market as a result.

Another is that domestic producers of content, those that stream in New Zealand, who pay their wages here, who pay tax, and who are domiciled here, will have no choice whatsoever—there’s a one minute bell, Madam Speaker; oh, I can keep going—about whether or not to comply with these regulations. So one of the unintended consequences is that New Zealand content providers who have to comply will be put at a disadvantage vis-à-vis foreign content providers that New Zealanders can view but who do not comply with these laws, and those are the ones that the New Zealand Government will never manage to regulate.

So, in summary, the ACT Party opposes this piece of legislation. It’s another example of poorly conceived legislation that will not be effective in achieving its goal, but will have negative consequences that will actually reduce the welfare of New Zealanders in total. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, it’s a pleasure to rise and be the last National speaker in support of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill.

Firstly, since it is Christmas next week I do just want to take time to acknowledge you, Madam Speaker, and I hope you have a good Christmas break, as well as the members in the House. I do hope you will get a bit of time with your family and a bit of Netflix as well. I can certainly recommend some good Netflix shows over the break. I’ve just finished watching this Netflix show called Dark. I would rate it about an R16, so I think everybody except Simeon Brown would be able to watch it. But I also have just finished watching The Irishman and that’s also a good film on Netflix as well.

But to the bill, and, look, we’ve heard from a range of speakers on the side of the National Party tonight about why we’re supporting this bill through to select committee. We do just want to make sure that it is equitable between our online world and the physical classifications that we already have. So we’re supportive of the intent of this bill, in particular because of the fact that online and on-demand streaming platforms have risen so much throughout society and will continue to do so. It’s really important for New Zealand that we have the right sort of classification framework in there to protect our young New Zealanders, in particular, from harmful content.

So we have traversed a lot of issues on this side of the House. Of course, we’re keen on the select committee process. It is a shame that it is possibly going to be shorter than we would like, but we do want to traverse some of the issues around why we don’t support the bill in select committee; in particular, there’s a number of industry groups and industry players that don’t support the intent of the bill, so want to hear from them. We also are keen to get a sense of the media content review and if there’s any recommendations that come out of that, and that may be contrary to the bill and the intent of the bill itself.

I don’t want to rehash some of the issues that we’ve discussed on this side of the House. I simply want to commend this bill to the House and in my, possibly, last contribution in the year of 2019 I wish everybody a very merry Christmas. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and speak in support of this bill. But I actually just wanted to begin my contribution by addressing some of the points made by a previous speaker, David Seymour, whose contribution I listened to very carefully. But increasingly, the longer he spoke, I realised that he hadn’t read the bill, because he spent most of his contribution talking about the fact that this legislation wouldn’t be effective; it wouldn’t actually get to what it was aiming to do because we wouldn’t be able to control and regulate content on a number of random websites that he alluded to and also YouTube. But that’s actually not what this bill aims to do at all, so I’m not too sure where he was coming from.

This is actually quite specific. This bill addresses a specific regulatory gap where there are different requirements as it stands for commercial video on demand content, because outfits like Netflix and NEON are not subject to mandatory classification requirements before content is made available here in New Zealand. Like potentially many others, I watched a show sometime back called 13 Reasons Why. And I remember at the time that Netflix came under fire because in the first season, from memory, there was no actual requirement—well, there was no requirement. That’s what we’re fixing now. But there was no classification about the content of that show, which dealt with some real themes and subjects that are important to young people today—themes like sexual violence and suicide. The Mental Health Foundation, from memory, came out and said that parents should actually sit down and talk to their children about these issues before they watched the shows or before they talked to others at school about these themes, because for many people it can be triggering. They are heavy topics. They are important topics. But the whole point of this bill is to make sure that parents have the information they need so that they can have those conversations with their children.

So while this is a very specific fix that this bill proposes, it is an important one, because I suspect all parents would agree that these are important topics that they need to talk to their children about, but they can’t do that if they don’t know that these are the topics that content will discuss or will show. They can be quite graphic at times. So really, all this bill does is to make a specific fix that is important, that will allow for informed decision-making. And perhaps before David Seymour decides to not support this bill, he should read it first. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

I move, That the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by Tuesday, 28 April 2020.