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 third time.

This bill will ensure that commercial video on-demand providers listed via a schedule display clear labels on the movies and shows that they make available in New Zealand. It will support New Zealanders so they can make informed decisions about what they choose to watch for themselves and for younger members of their families. Before this change, picking a show or movie to watch was like picking from a box of unlabelled chocolates: you never knew what you were going to get.

The bill amends the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993. It will require listed providers to comply with new labelling requirements set out in Part 3A of the Act. This means that listed providers will have to display a label on their content. These labels will have a rating that recommends the suitable audience for the show and a warning for any mature themes like sex and violence. New Zealanders will be familiar with these labels. Commercial video on-demand providers will have two options to meet the new requirements. They can either choose to follow the current process for films or they can choose to use a self-rating system that is approved by the chief censor. The new requirements will only apply to providers listed in the schedule to the Act. This reflects how these services are accessible by a considerable number of New Zealanders. However, the bill also provides a transparent process for when the schedule needs to be amended. This will be done through an Order in Council and consideration of specific criteria for any significant new entrants to the market.

The bill does not aim to stop or prevent people from watching movies online. It makes it efficient for listed providers to label content, so there should be no delays or blocks to content being made available in New Zealand. The bill is an important step toward supporting New Zealanders, especially younger people and their families, to make better-informed viewing choices. It is also very important to ensure that the new labelling regime is workable for industry, listed providers, and regulators. The updated commencement provisions will give officials enough time to undertake detailed consultation to make sure that the new processes work. It will assist all parties to get it right. Officials will also need to work closely with industry and the sector to develop and test a funding regime for the new labelling processes. The new funding regime needs to be fair for both regulators and listed providers, as our classification system needs to be sustainable and appropriately funded. The bill enables this detail to be set and prescribed in regulations.

This upcoming work for regulations may not be straightforward or black and white, so it is good to know that it will be done collaboratively so that we can all work through any shades of grey. I’ve acknowledged that significant work remains to be done in relation to modernising our media content regulation system, but this bill moves us in the right direction. It will help New Zealanders make informed choices about what they are choosing to watch on streaming services for themselves and for their children and younger family members. It is about minimising the risk of harm to New Zealanders by making sure that these shows or movies display adequate information so they can tell the good from the bad and the ugly.

I’d like to thank the Governance and Administration Committee for their very careful consideration of this bill. I would also like to thank the Department of Internal Affairs, the chief censor, the Classification Office, and the Parliamentary Counsel Office for the important work they did to get this bill to this stage. I would like to thank those who submitted on the bill. The intention of this bill is recognised by all parties, so thank you for your support for the bill. I’d like to thank whoever wrote this speech to work in as many titles of movies as they could inside this document. I’m pleased to commend the bill to the House.

I shall make a contribution that will last From Here to Eternity. Now, just to be very clear, National will support this bill. We do actually support the intent, and that is to seek to have a broader catalogue of content available for New Zealanders to consume, while looking at how to keep New Zealanders, particularly our younger New Zealanders, safe. So we will support this bill, as we have done through the process.

The reservations that we do have are around some elements which we understand the intent of but are not yet able to have been resolved, such as how onerous either the existing system would be, given the volume of content on these platforms, or, indeed, what the self-assessment might mean in terms of the processes they have to go through to achieve that, and, of course, because it is yet unknown, the funding model.

So exactly what that will mean—ultimately, the provider either has to swallow that cost or pass it on through an increased subscription, and there is always a risk. There is always a risk because the reality is New Zealand is a small market compared to so many others, and a provider might decide, whether it’s just burdensome or expensive, to tightly curate content so that New Zealanders might end up with a bit less than they could otherwise have. That’s something that we have to trust now to officials to get right. There was a previous bill, which I’ve just referred to in passing, which did raise the point that sometimes people in policy parts of Government can be a bit disconnected with what the public think, and I think there’s a challenge here to make sure that doesn’t happen in this instance, because no one is arguing with the intent behind what’s happening—just ensuring that it doesn’t have adverse results.

Another area which was raised but they wouldn’t dwell on too much but is a relevant item, particularly after recent global events, is ensuring that the practices and the self-assessment don’t, I would say, inadvertently begin to censor or curate elements of history, tastes that we might consider now to be very poor taste—old cartoons are an example, not just cultural references but also, some people might say, in terms of violence or modelling of behaviours. It’s important that we don’t see ourselves curating and censoring our history, but instead, to the extent that any assessment is required, that it’s practical and reasonable, and if it’s marked, it’s marked appropriately, which I would say is what did happen overseas. An initial reaction to global activism was some elements of history were removed and then re-established with some tag system. So we wouldn’t want what we’re doing here to lead to a censorship of history, and we trust the censor but we also trust parents, given the right information, to make the right decisions, particularly for our children.

So in conclusion, we support the intent. There is stuff that needs to be worked through. Some of us are less fond of regulation-making powers than others, but, look, as long as we get it right, hopefully we can strike the right balance, so we will commend this bill to the House.

I commend this bill to the House.

I rise to support this Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill. Obviously, this is a good bill, and the Governance and Administration Committee actually spent some time considering various provisions and changes. In the end, we believe the bill has been improved. So I thank the committee. I thank, particularly, Melissa Lee, the spokesperson for National, and I thank the Minister of Internal Affairs for her constructive approach towards some issues. This is a good bill.

Now, there’s a common understanding that we have a responsibility to try to reduce the potential for harm from viewing these commercial videos on-demand. This has been a growing industry, particularly after this COVID-19 stuff. We have seen the dramatic growth in terms of online viewers. So it is important for us to have a consistent policy towards identifying and labelling the content of these commercial videos on-demand. Now, we did have some kind of regulation, but we did not have a very well-developed or up-to-date regulation in terms of regulating this particular area. This bill is quite a big step forward towards better regulation of online content. It also updates the functions of the Classification Office to ensure that the new requirements for commercial video on-demand content are clearly within the scope of its operation or work.

Also, the bill replaces the definition of “film” in the Act to make sure that it will clarify that it includes the commercial video on-demand content. So the bill itself has made improvements in several areas, and for that reason we say this is a good bill.

But, on the other hand, content regulation is a major issue. It’s very broad. The bill itself is focused on a certain area, a certain part, and, therefore, there is actually more work to do. We believe it is important or it is necessary for us to have a broader review of the media industry, particularly to have a holistic approach towards this particular issue, to make sure that we are able to deal with not only just the commercial video on-demand but also issues relating to other areas to make sure that we have a better, more comprehensive understanding towards the regulation of the content. So this is an issue that should be resolved in the future. Although, while we agree that this bill itself is useful in terms of regulating content, we believe there is a broader issue that we need to deal with.

We also believe that the Office of Film and Literature Classification did a good job in terms of setting up a pilot project that is for self-classification. That is a useful tool, and the select committee actually had a good briefing from them, and we think they made a good contribution in that area. Overall, we believe that this is a good bill, and we support it. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare i tēnei rā whakamutunga mō tēnei wiki, tēnei wiki mahi. Kei te tautoko au i tēnei pire ki Te Whare.

[Greetings, Mr Speaker, on this day, the final day of the work week. I support this bill to the House.]

💬 Hon Member: Well said.

Not only well said and short in the Reo, and I appreciate what the member Tāmati Coffey said, but I thought as—I don’t know—a return gift, I won’t speak for too, too long, but I probably will, anyway. This is—you know, we’re parliamentarians.

Hey, look, I’d say this is a sufficient bill—I mean, a number of my colleagues have said it’s good. So as not to be too heavy on Minister Tracey Martin, I think she’s doing the right thing. This is a very fraught space, to make sure that that which is offensive, wrong—ethically, morally, or otherwise—is blocked, particularly when we’re thinking of children. But it’s always that difficulty of when you begin to move into the spaces where, actually, it’s just objectionable to a group of people in society because they believe something’s outdated or inappropriate. So you’re into that sort of free speech side of things, and that’s some of my—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: But we’re just labelling it, Simon. We’re not blocking it.

Oh no, we know it’s labelling. The Minister is quite right that it is just around labelling, but even there, there’s just a few issues.

But, as I say, it’s a sufficient bill. I think it’s something which this side supports, because we do want to see it progress. We do want to make sure that legislation is modern, and, obviously, there’s the ongoing streaming services. So we’re pleased with that.

But I do, as somewhat of an advocate of free speech, just have a little bit of a concern that classifications on, particularly, elements of the past will kick in. I think the Minister would appreciate that there’s a bit of an allure out there at the moment in certain sectors that wants to ban everything that certain groups define as offensive to them. Our history is what it is, and sometimes the best thing that we can do is view in the full sunlight and learn from it.

So I wouldn’t want to see the system used in that way, and I know it’s not the Minister’s intention. With that, which is now a longer speech than intended—and, unfortunately, I can’t even think of any good movie puns at this time of the day—I commend the bill to the House.

The Green Party supports the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill. I have no puns on film titles, but I do commend the Minister and the work that Melissa Lee had done previously. We have Netflix with $15 billion worth of original content each year, and we have a voluntary system which isn’t working, and this is a move to ensure that we have a proper rating system that follows the one that is used for films in New Zealand and has descriptions in terms of consumer warnings. This bill is making sure that that happens for commercial video on-demand products to ensure that consumers, when they’re watching them, know what they’re watching. So I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I, too, commend this bill to the House. The labelling requirements are useful. The more information the consumer has to make a decision, the better. If you can’t try before you buy—that would be the ideal—at least you will have a very clear understanding of what is in the video or the film that you’re about to view. As the Minister said, that’s a good thing. You can distinguish between the good, the bad, and the ugly. Whether it’s a colour coding or a star rating like we do with cars, for example, to understand the safety of the car, that’s good. That provides the consumer with more information before they even need to get in and try the car, for example. So maybe—I don’t know—it is a good idea to have a distinction between the good, the bad, and the ugly. I mean, good? Bad? Ugly? [Gestures at parties around the Chamber]

So that is a good thing. The more information we have, the better, for the benefit of the consumer, and I commend the bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.