Hipkins ChrisHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I just couldn't help myself; I'm irrationally excited about this bill. I have to tell you I think NZ On Air do an amazing job. We should remember about the history of NZ On Air—of course it came from the broadcasting fee. NZ On Air was the way we used to distribute the proceeds from the broadcasting fee before the broadcasting fee was done away with.Once upon a time if you owned a television set you had to pay a broadcasting fee and that broadcasting fee was collected up and it was used to produce New Zealand content. Then I think it was the National Government that actually did away with the broadcasting fee and shifted that into general taxation so that New Zealand content on our TV and radio was to be funded through general taxation rather than through a dedicated broadcasting fee.Since that time successive Governments have taken measures and done everything they can to ensure that as much of that money as possible is spent on producing quality New Zealand content. We want to make sure that the money that goes into broadcasting actually makes New Zealand content rather than getting sucked up in bureaucracy. That is one of the reasons why this bill fails at the first hurdle. It wraps up more resource in a red tape bureaucratic process. It means less money will get spent on producing content in the first place.The last National member who spoke I can't remember who it was made the point that it won't be too difficult because all of this data's already available. In which case if the data's already available what's the need for the red tape for this new regulatory requirement? Because that's effectively what this is: a new regulatory requirement to report something new. What's the point of it if the data's already publicly available and can already be used to inform decision making other than simply to add unnecessary regulation?But then I thought Aha! It's OK though because I heard Simon Bridges say that for every new regulation the National Party introduces they're going to abolish two." So when I heard this bill was up I rushed down to the House and I grabbed a copy of the bill because I thought there's going to be two more regulations that are going to be abolished in this bill.So I looked at the bill and I read it and I read it again and there is no bonfire because not only does this bill introduce a new regulation but it doesn't take any regulations away. So that promise lasted less than 48 hours—Kieran McAnulty: Worst bonfire ever.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: That's right. That is the worst. I mean they're not even in Government yet and they've already broken their big promise to set a bonfire of regulations because they're already trying to introduce new regulations from Opposition. That's quite an amazing feat that on the same week that they promised that they were going to be reducing regulations they are now trying to progress a bill through the House that would increase regulatory requirements and bureaucracy.So let's turn to the provisions of what those regulations would involve New Zealand On Air doing. So basically they're going to have to collect data on television ratings online view clicks or counts radio ratings other viewership tracking data and a breakdown of the associated costs for the programming funded. All of this information would be available anyway. You may have to pay for it OK but it's already there. That data is available to those who wish to purchase it. So why would New Zealand On Air need to pull that information together if not for a pointless bureaucratic accountability compliance-focused exercise that would add nothing to the quality of broadcasting in New Zealand. It will do nothing to increase the hours of programme content that it produced—in fact it could do the absolute opposite of that—and it will result in them spending more money on producing more reports and more paperwork and less money doing their core job of producing quality New Zealand content.So I have no hesitation in saying that the Government and the Labour Party party in the Government will not support this ridiculous bill. It's a waste of the House's time. It's a waste of the Parliament's time. National should be focused on honouring their promise to reduce regulation and they could do so by withdrawing the bill."