Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I present a legislative statement on the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 10 November 2022 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there’s been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

I’m excited to introduce the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill today. The creation of this new entity will strength the delivery of New Zealand’s public media services for future generations. That is our key objective: that public media in Aotearoa New Zealand is strong and that it endures. With increasing levels of misinformation around the world, a rapidly changing media landscape, and declining commercial revenues projected, New Zealand needs strong, independent public media more than ever. It’s critical to the functioning of a healthy democracy. We need a public media entity that can inform, entertain, and educate in a uniquely Kiwi manner. We need strong, independent journalism that holds Government and those in power to account. We need all the people and voices of Aotearoa to be represented not just on our screens but in the development and delivery of our public media content and services. We need a public media entity with the flexibility to meet audiences where they are, utilising the platforms New Zealanders are choosing. We need a sustainable funding model that ensures our public media doesn’t just survive but can thrive in its pursuit of public media outcomes.

This bill provides a foundation to deliver exactly that. It will create Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media, which builds on the best of RNZ—Radio New Zealand—and Television New Zealand. It will keep what audiences currently value, but it will be focused on future possibilities, and we will be better placed to take those opportunities. Both TVNZ and RNZ are providing high-quality content and strong, independent journalism. They have professional and dedicated staff who are taking on the challenge the media sector currently faces. However, they were set up for a different world, one that was focused on traditional linear broadcast methods within the constraints of their existing legislation. Though they have done what they can to change, modernise, and adapt to meet the significant challenges facing the sector, a change is needed, and this bill sets the foundation for Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media to flourish in the future.

Current audiences will still be able to enjoy the same services they do now via linear TV and radio, with current commercial-free offerings remaining commercial-free. What’s critical is that new audiences, those not engaged with current public media, including our young people, will also be catered for. Underserved audiences will have a better chance of seeing and hearing themselves and finding content that engages them. This is not an aspirational idea but a function the bill requires the entity to provide for to ensure our system is fairer, our culture better reflected, and all New Zealanders are being represented. I want to be clear that this means there will be a variety of content, just as there is across TVNZ and Radio New Zealand now. Some will have mass appeal; some will be more niche. And we need it to be available to people on the platforms and technology they’re now using—so, on TV and radio and smartphones and laptops and streaming services and in any other ways that might develop.

The bill establishes a single multi-platform public media entity. The entity will be an autonomous Crown entity with complete editorial independence. I’d like to touch briefly on some of the main features of this bill. Editorial independence has to be at its core. New Zealanders must have confidence in this entity’s ability to provide an independent voice, hold power to account, and be a trusted source of news and information. The bill also recognises and respects the Crown’s responsibility to give effect to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It sets out the charter under which the entity will operate to ensure it delivers benefits for all Kiwis. The charter takes a principles-based approach to set clear expectations. The entity will be held to account on the delivery of its charter. We want to see collaboration. The entity will not work against or in isolation to the rest of the media sector and has a broader obligation to collaborate. It will be a mixed funding model, which makes the entity more sustainable and ensures we get the most out of the Crown’s investment.

Crown funding has been substantially increased to provide funding stability and certainty: an extra $109 million in Crown funding. Finally, the bill will also provide transitional arrangements. These will see RNZ and TVNZ staff, assets, and contracts transferred to the new entity when it is formed next year. This bill makes me excited for the future of public media in New Zealand. The possibilities of Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media are endless when it has its audiences at heart, a consistent focus, and flexible, modern legislation. Kia ora anō tātau.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to, first of all, acknowledge the Minister who has brought this bill to the House, the Hon Willie Jackson, and congratulations, once again, on him taking on the role of Minister of Broadcasting.

This bill actually does exactly what the Minister wants. It is very simple. It, basically, gets rid of TVNZ and RNZ—two very loved entities in New Zealand—and creates a new public media entity. However, I don’t think it actually does what the Minister hopes. The Minister hopes that this is going to be aspirational and bring about trust in the media sector. I think it is probably very helpful if we go to the genesis of how this bill actually began. Before I do that, I’d like to sort of mention that Aotearoa New Zealand public media is not exactly something that inspires or creates an imagery in one’s mind of amazing entertainment or amazing news or a trusted news entity, which we hope that the new public media entity will be—and I hope there will be a name for the entity; I’m not quite sure how that’s going to be achieved.

The explanatory note of the bill, basically, says that it seeks to strengthen the delivery of public media services to New Zealanders by establishing a new public media. Yep—this bill actually does that. But it goes on to say that the media landscape is changing rapidly: the trends are of increasing competition around the world in terms of where people are actually getting their news or entertainment or sport. It’s actually changing: people are not going to the traditional linear television or radio that they used to listen to and watch; they’re going to streaming services, they’re going to other—I won’t name all of them, but things like YouTube. Young people are forever watching YouTube, for example. They go to social media to get their news.

Over the years of COVID lockdowns, over the last couple of years, the trust factor in media has actually gone down dramatically, and part of the reason was the Public Interest Journalism Fund and the very fact that there was a perception that the Government was giving media a kind of a bribe. So media should not be trusted because they were literally being a mouthpiece for the Government. So how will this new public media entity—which, effectively, as the Minister actually said, what was non-commercial will still stay non-commercial, what was linear television will still remain linear television, what was digital will still remain digital. So what is the new vision for this new entity? What is the challenge for this new entity to provide for the vast majority of New Zealanders, who are hungry for new New Zealand content?

Considering the fact that this genesis comes from the former Minister of Broadcasting, the Hon Clare Curran, who actually began the process thinking that we needed a change—she wanted to turn RNZ—Radio New Zealand—into a television station as well. I always used to think that Radio New Zealand does radio well; it doesn’t quite do TV very well; we already have an existing TVNZ that does it very, very well. The commercial imperative that TVNZ has provides the Crown with money where they actually profit from their enterprise. And I’m just wondering why the Minister is turning this new entity, ANZPM—let’s just call it that; Aoteroa New Zealand Public Media is quite a long thing—into an autonomous Crown entity. Why the change, Minister? What an autonomous Crown entity actually means is that, and I quote, it “has to give regard to Government policy when directed by the responsible Minister”.

If that is the case, how will the public trust this new entity to be a step removed from Government policy or the dictation by the Ministers to do whatever they actually want the media to do. Where will that trust factor go? It is already down. I can’t imagine it getting any better as a result. So I wonder if the select committee could consider potentially making this an independent Crown entity which perhaps says that it means that it is generally independent of Government policy, or something that is actually independent of the Minister dictating to the entity what to do. I know the Ministers are not supposed to dictate what kind of content the entities are supposed to produce, but the thing is that there are so many different ways: the Ministers actually appoint the board members—there is influence there. I think that anything that we can actually do to remove the Government hand from the news media and the new public media entity would be a good thing.

The other aspect of it is that I read this bill and it was very straightforward that it gets rid of the two entities, all of the assets, and everything in it becomes the new entity. So in that aspect, it is actually very straightforward and very simple. But the thing that I could not understand in this bill is the very notion that when Radio New Zealand, a big entity, and Television New Zealand—TVNZ—a bigger entity, merges, comes together, to create one, there’s not going to be a single redundancy. Are you kidding me? Has anyone ever seen a merger where there are absolutely no redundancies? Well, it looks like the Government’s actually starting a trend. They merge two big entities and they are thinking there are not going to be any redundancies. Well, good luck. I would like to see that actually happen, but I feel very, very sorry for the two entities who actually are going through a very stressful time, because this has been going on ever since the Labour Government came to power, and, for five years, they have been wondering what their entity was going to be—whether it was going to be “Radio New Zealand Plus”, whether it was going to be a merger, and all that. In a way, finally, there is a new entity, and, apparently, all of your jobs are safe, so, in a sense, maybe you should actually breathe a sigh of relief.

The other aspect of it is that one of the reasons why sometimes I actually question the role of charter—there are charters and there are charters. When we were reviewing the Radio New Zealand charter recently in the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, we weren’t going to get an opportunity to review it, because this merged entity legislation was going to come to the House, and I felt that because it was legislated, every five years the RNZ Charter had to be reviewed and we needed to actually do our duty as a Parliament to review it.

But, you know, we were told that charters are aspirational. And when you consider the fact that the business case that this merger is a result of, the business case where numerous consultants and numerous working groups and people have actually worked on this—which literally cost the taxpayers close to $20 million—which was given before even the 2022 Budget, this is an aspirational document, the charter, and it doesn’t give any prescriptive discussions or, I guess, a hope from the Minister or wishes of the Minister of how the charter or the entity should operate to create the kind of media entity that the Minister hopes this will be. It’s like when we actually got rid of the previous TVNZ charter because it really did nothing apart from lip service—this almost sounds like it.

There is going to be six to nine board members appointed, and, among them, two will have Te Ao Māori and tikanga Māori understanding in order to be appointed to the board. I think, you know, when you actually consider the fact that we have a cost of living crisis, we have a Government who spends $327 million to create a megastructure and has given no indication as to how the entity may make $306 million over the next six years—that is $50 million a year—by tying their hands behind their back. I’m not so sure if this is going to work. I oppose this bill.

This broadcasting bill is bringing in the biggest shake-up to media in 30 years. It’s really timely. We’ve seen with the change in behaviours of people moving from mainstream platforms to digital platforms that we need to be able to have fit for purpose media and platforms and public media. We’ve also seen the destruction and the polarisation that can happen when misinformation is broadcast and when people get into vortexes of algorithms and so on. There is an urgent need at the moment to protect public media. The business case has been put together by a panel of media experts and is being led by two Ministers, the former Minister, and now the current Minister, Willie Jackson, who both know the broadcasting landscape really well, and that’s really important.

I just want to respond to the previous member Melissa Lee’s comments about the journalism fund. What an easy thing to bag. It’s such an easy thing to criticise, to say, “Oh, the funding’s come from Government, therefore it is just propaganda.” But, actually, what about the private sector and the market forces that are at play there; the hero, villain paradigms; some of the political influences on those media? The research shows that, actually, the public do trust the public media more than private media—in fact, in New Zealand, the trust in news has gone up to 48 percent from previous years, and that is 10 percent more than in Australia and the UK.

There’s much more I could say, but I commend the Ministers for tackling this really important issue. Media is a cornerstone of democracy. It is one of the four estates of power. It is often the last bastion of justice, overseeing the whole political and judicial process. Public media is now more important than ever and there has been great care taken by this Government to ensure that it is not the Government but an independent board that will design how that is delivered. I commend the bill to the House.

There was one point that the member who’s resumed her seat, Ingrid Leary, has made that I can agree with, and that is that independent media is extremely important. It’s a cornerstone of our democracy. That’s why it actually needs to be independent. I don’t think that the sort of charter and the sort of rule-making that this Government has shown itself capable of doing, particularly around the public media fund, otherwise known as the media slush fund of $55 million a year, is actually something that we could say is indicative of independent media. We’ve seen blog-sters getting it, we’ve seen it all the way through, and we’ve seen a recurring theme of control of the media, and this bill will not lessen that. In fact, it will increase it, because instead of having two publicly owned entities, in TVNZ and Radio New Zealand, it will now be one. So there is actually another removal of another source of information.

I don’t agree with the previous speaker that this is the biggest shake-up in media that we’ve seen. The biggest shake-up in the media is actually social media, and there’s a reason that people go to YouTube; there’s a reason that people go to social media. It’s that there is now a general distrust of the mainstream media information. When the member cited—what was it?—48 percent of people who replied to a poll said they trusted the news, well, that’s not 50 percent, or 58 percent, or 100 percent; it is actually 48 percent. It’s less than half. That is actually a damning indictment on the fact that mainstream media has lost a lot of credibility, and particularly during the last few years. It has been incumbent on social media to provide alternative views. And it actually gives me almost the chills to hear the member speaking about misinformation. Well, I’ve heard a lot of misinformation this week in the House. I’ve heard misinformation on mainstream media, on Radio New Zealand, on Television New Zealand, other media, attacking and saying what the National Government would be doing around certain laws. Well, that’s just absolute garbage, and they know that, and yet they still repeat it, and that’s your mainstream media for you.

When we look at things like, for instance, Radio New Zealand, how many people now listen to Morning Report, people under the age of 30? How many people under the age of 40 listen to Morning Report? In my office, I might have coined the phrase “Moaning Report”, but that’s actually because most people want to have a more upbeat view of the world, and they want to be able to see about all the wonderful things in New Zealand, including our wonderful environment, our mostly lovely people, and our opportunities that we don’t have in many other parts of the world. And, yes, they might be wanting to complain about the current Government, but generally most people in New Zealand are a pretty content lot in terms of their acceptance that we have a three-year election cycle and that they can actually do something about it if they don’t like it. They don’t have to riot; they can just go off and wait a few years and sort it all out. But does this bill really come back to what the purpose is, which is creating this new, fit for purpose—I mean, looking at Moaning—Morning Report, I should say; I correct myself. Morning Report on TV is not going to do it. Does this mean that there is no more Morning Report? Does this mean that we won’t have to have that? That’s not that bad, I suppose. That’s a good side! But is there going to be something worse? What is going to be the result? Does that mean we’re not going to have breakfast TV—absolute trivia that gets popped out on that?

Who are these people that people mostly trust in the media? Well, actually, Mike Hosking. I find him good to listen to in the morning. I find him good to listen to, and the thing is he has the ability, and the people who pay to listen to him—in other words, the commercial providers—can tell him they don’t like him, and he loses his job if they don’t like him. That’s not something that this new entity, at the vast cost of over $300 million, is going to do. I mean, who’s in this?

I just heard before that nobody is going to be made redundant in this merger. Actually, Melissa Lee has said that she’s not sure that that could possibly be true, but I think she’s possibly wrong. Yes, nobody will be made redundant; in fact, more people will be employed to service the new entity, because they absolutely could not bring any discipline that the private sector would. When we look at most mergers and acquisitions, they actually fail, and they fail when we take two dysfunctional organisations and put them together and then expect that, magically, a better culture and work environment will result from that. It doesn’t work like that. Two negatives will not make a positive; they will make another negative, and that’s what this will be.

And we like to think an idea of Clare Curran’s might actually have had its time—a long time ago, possibly, and it didn’t go very far. Now it has come back again finally, after—what?—five years of talking about it, into this new thing. And we’ll always remember the Carol Hirschfeld - Clare Curran thing about this, which Melissa Lee did a very good job of highlighting. Then, apparently, this is going to be truly independent. Oh really? A board appointed by this Government? I see even the working group thing—whatever it is they call them these days—setting it up. There’s so much vested interest in there—so much vested interest in what’s going on. It is really important for people to remember that media, if it wants to be relevant, has to be modernised. This is not modernising it. It has to be something that people want to watch. When people who are 30—40 even—get their news off Aljazeera, or some of us a bit older than that also, and other overseas—

💬 Hon Member: Sky TV?

—yes, Sky TV, and all of those; the BBC, even—it’s because we actually want to have real stories, like actually news, not trivia, not what somebody’s child did today, not what somebody wore today. I don’t care about that. I don’t think many people do. What I do want to know is what’s going to happen to our country, what’s happening in the economy, what’s happening for opportunities, what’s happening in technology—you know, really interesting stories.

Is this going to deliver it? You look at the charter—no. The charter that this Government has put through in their public media fund—aka the slush fund—what that has actually done is even more trivialise the media. Look at the rubbish that we see in Stuff. Look at the rubbish we see in the New Zealand Herald. Look at that. And, yes, there are some shiny examples of brilliance that we see, with people like Anne Gibson and a few people like her, but when we have the sort of nonsense that we see as media, where are they looking at some of the big issues that the Government could be confronting? When are they asking about child poverty? When are they asking about housing? Why are they not putting the blowtorch on the Government? Why are they always putting the blowtorch on the Opposition? It’s very hard for people to say that there is any independence in the mainstream media, currently paid for by the taxpayer. And the only way to get it—and I’m pleased that they’re going to be able to, apparently, now sell some commercials. Good luck with that! It’s really important, though, that people understand that—why should they be able to sell commercials and still get backed up via the taxpayer? I don’t understand that. They’re competing on an entirely unlevel playing field.

And I know that the Labour Party is all upset because they think it’s a brilliant idea. If it was so brilliant, why didn’t they try it five years ago? It shouldn’t just be because it was the Hon Clare Curran’s.

💬 Dr Deborah Russell: Let Clare Curran go.

The member Deborah Russell suggests that I let Clare Curran go. Well, I certainly have, and so did they. That’s fine. She’s a lovely human being, but let’s just focus on this.

💬 Dr Deborah Russell: Move on—move on.

Move on? All right, I’m moving on. This is a ridiculous bill. It is a solution looking for a problem, and the problem in this case is the fact that the mainstream media, particularly those owned by the taxpayer, the public sector—New Zealanders have left them. And the reason that they’re leaving them is because they’re no longer seen as relevant, because they’re not seen as unbiased, because they are seen as being, basically, puppets to the Government, and when they consistently and totally go down those lines, they’re going to continue to lose more people. If they’re not relevant now to 20-year-olds or 23-year-olds or 26-year-olds or 36-year-olds, they’re not going to be relevant in another 20 years’ time.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Times they are a changing, and we’ve got to change with them. Now, back in the 1990s, I actually worked for TVNZ and worked on a show called McPhail & Gadsby. I’m sure we’ve all heard of it. Glad they’re not around any more, but that’s OK. But I used to be the production assistant, I used to go down to a tobacconist’s—Cerritos Tobacco—and get the newspapers on a Saturday morning. They were the newspapers from every single city and town around the country. I’d deliver them, and the writers would go through these newspapers and figure out what the great stories and what the great gags of the coming week were going to be on their TV show.

Now, that tobacconist no longer exists. Many of those newspapers no longer exist. Things are changing, and this piece of legislation, working with our media to be ready and fit for a coming 21st century, is what we need. I commend this bill to the House.

E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Listening to the contributions in the House this afternoon, I couldn’t tell the general public what this bill actually does, bar the contribution earlier from the Minister outlining precisely what this board and the disestablishment of Radio New Zealand Ltd (RNZ) and TVNZ is and the creation of this board. In fact, we’ve heard contributions talking about the preferred morning shows and talkback radio hosts from Opposition MPs and we’ve heard some really confused contributions where we’ve heard that, on the one side, they want more Government influence over the types of content that New Zealanders receive and, on the other side, that they want less influence over the types of content that the public are receiving. We’ve also heard a lot of talk about younger people and what younger people want. Whilst I am not, necessarily, all too young any more—I’m now 28 years old—

💬 Damien Smith: You’re over the hill, Chlöe!

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —I came into this place when I was 23—Matariki birthday, Damien Smith. So, to that effect, I am still the youngest in this House, and I don’t think that I can do the job of representing all people across this country, but I can offer some hope of a perspective to that effect.

So to bring it down to what this bill actually does—which would be a novel contribution in this debate this afternoon!—the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill, effectively, disestablishes RNZ and TVNZ as they currently exist and sets up this new entity.

All of us seem to agree that something has to be done, but there doesn’t, unfortunately, seem to be all too much agreement or consensus on what it is that has to be done. I implore members of the Opposition to stand up and talk about the kinds of vision that they would like to see, because they agree, seemingly, from the contribution of their spokesperson, that they want to see something happen in this space and that things are changing, and I’m not quite sure if they want more or less public funding, but, none the less, something has to happen. Therefore, I’d like to hear a positive vision for what that would be or what that might look like.

That is why the Greens will be supporting this through to select committee, because, while there are quite a few questions, actually, that still need to be answered, and we think that there is a good place to do that in select committee, I think that with the likes of, for example, some pretty vague phrasing in the legislation around the likes of “predominantly” free-of-charge content out there—what does “predominantly” actually mean? Are we leaning more towards a TVNZ model or are we leaning more towards an RNZ model? We do need to work through those specifics with members of the public. I dare say that members of the public might have some more coherent contributions than members of Parliament in this House today.

I’d also just point to the consistent point raised by members of the National Party who speak about the $55 million COVID-19 fund. The speaker who spoke just before—the Hon Judith Collins—was raging about the fact that bloggers got it. Again, I think, therein is yet another example of where the National Party seem relatively confused about where they want, perhaps, more editorial control from the Government, but then, on the other hand, they keep saying that they want less. So, again, I’d really implore them to add some clarity to their debate, because, I think, that that would ultimately benefit the process of this bill through Parliament and shaping up what this media institution looks like.

There’s also been a lot of discussion about trust, and trust in institutions. Trust in democracy is one thing; trust in our media institutions is another thing, but, of course, they are interrelated. I might say to those that are pointing out that trust in our public media is declining, trust in this Parliament has not been very high for a very long time now.

To that effect, when we’re talking about media and talking about the kind of content that media produces, we’re talking about a mediation of reality, we’re talking about the fact that we have broadcasters and journalists who are representative of those of us across this country who then go out and choose what stories to report on, and, in doing so, choose the people to speak to, to help to tell that story, and, in choosing those people to speak to, they then choose what quotes they take from those interviews. Whilst all of us would like to say that in a perfect world that entire process is free of bias, of course that’s not the case in reality. All of us come with bias. All of us come with ideologies. All of us come with a belief system that is informed by our life experiences.

So if we want to talk about building up trust in our media, then we need to talk about building up representation in our media. By representation, I’m not just talking about people’s characteristics of ethnicity or religion or geographical background or what have you; I’m also talking about representation of different viewpoints, which, I think, is something, hopefully, that members of the National Party would agree with. I think that that’s the kind of feedback loop that we’re trying to get to here: that with greater representation, you, in turn, get greater engagement from the general public, and then you get that feedback loop of engagement, representation, and then potentially action on the things that people want to see. That, of course, feeds into and is a component part of the health and the strength of our democracy.

So, I think, again, as other speakers have also raised, this is, again, fundamentally, about the sustainability of our news media, particularly on the point of funding. Again, I’m yet to see a clear viewpoint from the National Party about whether they want to see more or less funding for public interest journalism; I’m not quite sure where the Government sits on this one either. So I’d like to see it more clearly articulated. Again, these are the things that the Greens want to see fully worked through, through that select committee process.

I also think that it’s really important that we do start to unpack the reality of sustainability of public interest journalism, because whilst the National Party were talking about things that they want to see more of in the news, the likes of these upbeat views, the reality is that there is always a tension between what some of us are going to see as important for the sake of people to understand what’s happening inside of our democracy—for example, the Election Access Fund Bill, which, I think, was one of the best pieces of legislation passed through this place in recent years did not receive anywhere near as much coverage as, for example, the likes of the cannabis referendum debate. That, again, goes to, perhaps, some of those tensions between the things that are controversial and the things that are important—of course they’re not mutually exclusive but, once again, it raises the reality that members of Parliament should not be interfering in the types of content that a public media is producing. Again, I think that that really goes to the heart of contributions from the National Party, who do not quite seem clear on whether they want more or less intervention or dictation.

Which takes us to the point of the charter. The National Party have consistently raised that they think that there are issues within the charter, that they think that there’s problems with the fact that the current charters of our media institutions are aspirational. So they seem to want more dictation and more control from the Government but then they simultaneously seem to want less. So, again, I implore them to offer a clear vision; on the same hand, I ask the Government to be clearer about how all of those interfacing parts around the likes of, particularly, how funding may operate in the future and whether we err more towards that RNZ model or more towards that TVNZ model.

Just finally, as other contributors to this debate have also raised, the social media question is still outstanding. There has been a lot of discussion about the fact that we now get more and more of our news from social media; this, of course, is largely determined by algorithms and therefore means that sometimes we might not see things that are fundamentally important to, for example, engaging in our democracy, but we are more likely to be fed things that the algorithms think that we want. So what that takes us down to is: how does this Aotearoa New Zealand public media entity engage with and participate with social media? So you have this kind of tension between that public and that private space, but then also with social media. I’d say that this very much aligns with the work that’s being done by a number of Ministers at present on the potential for greater regulation of social media, which of course is not just a domestic issue but one internationally.

The Greens support this bill going through to select committee. It’s really important that we flesh out what our vision is for the future of public media in this country. But, again, I think that those core questions remain outstanding. Thank you.

Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure on behalf of the ACT Party to stand today and present our vision about this madcap Labour scheme, and we hope Chlöe does not get cancelled by this new entity, because that would be a shame for the young people of Aotearoa, and we’d need to bring the Hon Judith Collins on at night to talk sense into the nation.

First Kris Faafoi and now Willie Jackson want to merge RNZ and TVNZ. Kris couldn’t see it through, so Willie’s picked it up, and he’s got the mantle. I wonder if Kris saw what a mess this was all about to be—

💬 Tangi Utikere: Point of order, Mr Speaker. There’s an expectation that members referring to current or former parliamentarians use their full name, and I’d invite the member to do so.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Absolutely correct. I have noticed that creeping in quite a lot and the dropping of the honorific as well, so I will encourage the member—in fact, I will instruct the member—to use the correct names when he’s addressing the House.

OK. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today, we saw what it was about. ACT believes that the provision of media isn’t the role of the Government, especially with broadcasting Minister the Hon Willie Jackson highlighting that at the core of this, democracy has changed. ACT would apply the mixed-ownership model to this entity, and we’ll give you the reasons why: because this is a poorly defined merger. If the Government is going to do it, it’s got to do it right. We already have a somewhat functional public media, and this bill is not doing it right.

The former TVNZ CEO Kevin Kenrick said, in 2019, that the business case for a new public entity would need to be focused on substance—substance, Mr Speaker. Now, I’ve had a look, and I regret to inform you that I can’t really find any in this framework. Big platitudes are, unfortunately, no substitute for substance.

So what is Minister Jackson proposing? Let’s chuck all the shares of Radio New Zealand and TVNZ into a big Crown entity pot, add 38 million bucks and a woke agenda, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. Three hundred and twenty-seven million has been allocated to this merger at a time when Kiwis are coming to grips with the cost of living crisis, and inflation, for the Hon Mr Hipkins, is caused by money supply, large money supply, going into the economy, and this is another example where savings could be made.

To counteract Ms Leary, the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund has increased public concern about what is happening in terms of democratic media. So what does the Government do? It decides to double down. The Hon Kris Faafoi got up and said, “It’s digital content. We need more streaming to keep up with Netflix. We can’t let the people stream if we don’t merge.” That sounds reasonable, right? Loosen up the focus so the public media can get on with the times. Well, the last I checked, the TVNZ OnDemand website was live, and it still is.

I asked my esteemed colleague Sam Purchas to check too, and he said, “Yeah, they’re already streaming. It’s great—and have been for a while.” Not only that but they must be printing money on demand with the number of ads they’re running. TVNZ states, itself, that it remains focused on ensuring digital growth outpaces any declines in broadcasts. They’re already doing it, but the Minister wants to spend $38 million to let them do it. So this rationale is clearly nonsense. Secondly, I think the Minister may be labouring under some misconceptions if he thinks that this merger is magically going to make our public media the new Netflix.

So what are we dealing with here? We’ve got RNZ and TVNZ. TVNZ seems to be doing pretty well. They’re turning a profit: 15 million bucks in 2022—in fact, after achieving a record result the year before. Radio New Zealand, not so much. This one seems to be hanging out—50 million bucks in a hole. So why wouldn’t we just let TVNZ keep getting on with the job? They’ve been doing OK, and I think that if we start getting to why Labour is so excited to merge them, it’s because they love to see successful and the profitable kneecapped with financial burdens. Merging RNZ and TVNZ is like trying to put an anvil on an athlete.

I can see Minister Jackson is just so thrilled at the thought of TVNZ’s financial performance being anchored down. In fact, that whole side of the House seems horrified to see anyone turning a profit—except for themselves, that is. They’re turning a record profit every year. It’s a great business model: where your customers don’t give you whatever amount of money you declare, they get locked up.

So it’s no wonder, with the tax and drive philosophy over on that side of the House, the Government keeps turning record profits from hard-working Kiwis and they’ve figured out they can just keep writing bigger numbers on productive New Zealanders who owe them. All Kiwis are worse off under this Labour Government. They’ve let inflation get out of control, which negates recent payments to consider tax cuts.

💬 Dr Deborah Russell: Come back to the bill.

I’m coming back to the bill. This Government is happy with this business model. They don’t understand that this is how value is created in society. It’s not how the world works. Most businesses can’t do it that way. This new public media entity seems to have lucked out, though. The TVNZ board might be a bit concerned about what’s going to happen when Radio New Zealand moves in. But to the new board: fear not. You’re not going to have to boost revenue to make up for the sudden $50 million liability, says the Cabinet paper. This new entity would not be expected to maximise its commercial revenues. This is the Labour dream. So how is the Minister going to ensure he gets value for money out of this? I don’t think value for money has even crossed this Government’s mind and certainly hasn’t under this framework. They’ve appropriated 38 million bucks, the $390 million just to establish this new entity, and ACT says that’s a waste.

This is a mouthful of a name as well. And let’s hope there’s a contest and that the people of New Zealand are included in the naming rights of this entity, because we have two very trusted brands, as has been stated before. Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media, ANZPM—I thought ANZPM was John Key. That’s where he ended up, wasn’t it? And it’s a touching tribute for Willie to name this after him, and I never knew you were such a fan of John Key! Or perhaps Willie’s angling for a spot on the ANZ board one day, too.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Another reminder about the names.

Back to the merger. No one on that side of the House can answer what they’re going to do with this, but we can see what’s motivating it. They want to push their ideology or, as we now call it, “democracy has changed” approach. They’ve never forgiven National or ACT for scrapping the TVNZ charter in 2011 and I think they’ve been holding a grudge ever since. They’ve copied and pasted the charter and dialled up the ideology and dialled down the reasons. Strangely enough, things almost looked promising for a bit with the new public media entity. But the Cabinet paper now says it must demonstrate editorial independence, impartiality, and balance, particularly in delivery of news and current affairs. But they seem to be a bit confused over that side of the House. New Zealand on Air’s document Te Tiriti Framework for News Media says that we live in a society that perpetuates racism and inequalities for news media. It’s not simply a matter of reporting fairly but of constructively contributing to Treaty relations and social justice. I wonder if the Minister will ask his new State media to reject this advice from New Zealand on Air. If impartial imbalance, particularly in the delivery of news or current affairs, is so important to him, he will have to.

So this Labour Government is just obsessed with pushing this co-governance agenda. Two of the board members must be appointed in consultation with the Minister for Māori Development. I’d love to see these two conversations between the Minister of broadcasting and the Minister for Māori Development! I’d like to think it would be just Willie Jackson himself angrily—sorry, the Hon Willie Jackson himself—muttering to himself about David Seymour being a useless Māori. One great ratings programme would be to have Mr Jackson on TVNZ with Mr Seymour to debate co-governance, but his party won’t allow him, and that is a shame for the outstanding broadcasting potential that that could have.

The other four to seven members of the board are appointed in agreement with the Minister of Finance, and we all know that’s quite worrying. So we have this merger. There’s no justification. Perhaps if this merger had been clearly set out as a modernisation and streamlining of services, we could have got behind it. And $340 million later—no justification—raid Radio New Zealand, TVNZ, who were doing pretty good jobs in different ways, seemed to be making a bit of money, now seems to be spending a lot.

I’d like to be clear about the content of the bill. We wish Simon Power all the luck. Even if he’s the CEO of TVNZ, because he doesn’t know what the Politburo plan is either. We will be opposing this bill and it’s not a good deal for the taxpayers of New Zealand.

It is an honour to take a call and support the first step in delivering public media service reforms that will make wonderful changes and enable our public’s media to thrive into the future. We’ve heard, actually, that TVNZ has already been able to innovate and live stream, which is great, and I want to reflect on that a bit more in a moment. But I also heard from the other side of the House that our public media services are not inspiring, and I also want to respond to that.

The new structure and improved investment will make it easier to continue to innovate. Public broadcasting is always changing. We’ve heard about the move to on demand and capturing and sharing on multiple platforms. This is not new. Bruce Mason wrote a play—The Pohutukawa Tree—which was a stage play, and it got recorded at Broadcasting House in 1960; the first step to on demand, because you could only actually go and see it live until it was recorded. And multi-platform—not just on stage but on radio, and it has, of course, been turned into a movie since then. And it did give access to a wider audience. I know that, because it remains a magical performance that I used to cherish sharing with my students and my theatre students in a secondary school.

People say, “Oh, people only watch things on YouTube.” Well, the magic of closing your eyes and listening to a radio play and hearing our stories, our voices, our languages, our accents coming through, and those treasures that Radio New Zealand and TVNZ have been able to do over the years will be able to be done even better into the future. So I commend this bill to the House.

Members, this debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 26 July 2022. Pō mārie.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 4.55 p.m.