Lee Melissa: Television New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Lee Melissa: Television New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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MELISSA LEE (National) 
: 
 I would call that the nail in the coffin of a terrible speech but I would like first of all to welcome that member back to Parliament again. Actually the kicker was to quote a submission saying that Labour had failed in its broadcasting policy and that National has to fix it. 
The Television New Zealand Amendment Bill amends the Television New Zealand Act 2003 and there are three main areas of focus. Firstly the bill replaces the TVNZ charter with a more generic statutory requirement—for the television company to focus on being a successful company without the burden of the charter obligation. Several speakers have actually talked about the charter and how it is supposed to be a wonderful thing. I tell Miss Louisa Wall the new MP who has just joined us in Parliament that she should not listen to the rhetoric of her party. She should not listen to the propaganda of her party which comes from people who do not understand what public broadcasting is about or who do not even understand which programmes were in fact funded by charter money. 
Speakers before Miss Louisa Wall actually said that we will lose Asian Pacific and disability programmes; Miss Wall apparently said that. Where are the programmes that were funded by the charter? The disability  
Attitude  
programme  
Tagata Pasifika 
 and  
Asia Downunder 
—all of the special interest programmes people have talked about here—were funded before the charter was available. Charter money never went into those programmes. 
The charter money going does not actually mean that public broadcasting or local content will suffer as a result. The $15.1 million is going from charter programming to the New Zealand On Air Platinum Television Fund which has funded some of the very very good-quality current affairs and documentary programmes so far. It is my belief that New Zealand On Air is fulfilling and will continue to fulfil its mandate to put New Zealand on air—not overseas on air but New Zealand on air. The charter-obligated funds transferred will only boost the quality and quantity of programmes in the future. We already fund $230 million out of New Zealand On Air to put programmes on radio and television. There is $81 million worth of contested funds for television programmes. I do not understand where the Opposition is going with this issue about losing local content. 
Let us talk about television. Television is very expensive to produce. Under these difficult economic times where would Labour find the money to produce television with all local content? Where is the money? Where is the money? The second aspect of the bill frees up TVNZ to be more than just a television company. Traditionally TVNZ had to function only as a broadcaster. However with the advancement of technology and this superhighway of the internet TVNZ has had to change its functions and its business model to be a more broader-scope multimedia company working on a multimodal platform. TVNZ Ondemand as my learned colleague Katrina Shanks said has had 1.4 million unique hits on its platform. It has been a very popular platform as well for Kiwis overseas who want to keep track of news and programmes from home. For people who cannot be home to watch traditional television then the internet the online option and time-shifted viewing have become very popular through MY SKY and TiVo. That is an example of how viewers’ demands are quite different to those of the bygone era of terrestrial television. It means that TVNZ must change to adapt to the changing appetite. 
The third aspect of the bill which took up significant time in the select committee was about archive programmes—programmes made before 1989—for rescreening. Some concerns were raised that TVNZ would simply count those as local content programmes and not commission new ones. The public demands new programmes; even when money was not available for the charter TV3 commissioned local content because people demanded it. But having said that in this fast-paced world we live in I think it would seem a real shame to lock up the old programmes never to be seen or enjoyed ever again. I would not mind taking a little nostalgic trip back down New Zealand’s history with some of the programmes to be unlocked; I would welcome that. I commend this bill.