I will strongly support legislative changes such as proportional representation, limits on campaign spending and full financial disclosure in local elections to help achieve that goal. As a public transport advocate, I am concerned that we still have not accepted the well-proven lesson that building more roads only creates more traffic and more congestion. All the signs are that the truly successful cities in the 21st century will be those that have clean, fast and efficient public transport systems. And as a Wellington MP, I look forward to the day when we will finally lift the designation on the inner city by pass which has been there for 40 years, and invest the money saved in a state of the art public transport system. As someone who has worked for many years in the New Zealand film and television industry I am distressed by the standard of New Zealand television.
Studies show that many children spend more time watching television than they do in the classroom.
Watching our state-owned television, children will see more images of Los Angeles than they will of their own suburbs and communities. They will absorb the values and the mindset of compulsive consumerism, and a violent and predominantly American view of the world, but little else. TVNZ needs a new mandate, a new vision, a new Charter and a local content quota -so that we can tell our own stories, hear our own voices and celebrate our own, unique identity. In a broader sense, my hope as we enter the millennium is that we can move away from rampant consumerism, greed and violence and find a way of living rich, fulfilling lives without destoying the environment that sustains us and gives us life, or the other species we share the planet with. Mr Speaker, we humans are but one among the ten million or more species which inhabit the Earth.