Coleman Jonathan: Broadcasting Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Coleman Jonathan: Broadcasting Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:645;Page:14781] 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
: 
 Well that was a really interesting contribution from Trevor Mallard because he probably spent a good 3 minutes talking about the Opposition spokesperson on broadcasting. I really think that when a Minister goes so far off the topic during what is supposed to be a third reading ministerial speech it shows that either he does not know what he is talking about or he is severely rattled. Trevor Mallard really went off the script there. I mean he started in a boring monotone reading out the stuff that officials would have given him this afternoon. Then with a little bit of interjection Mr Mallard lost it completely. That is vintage Trevor Mallard—he loses it; he is out of here. 
But what was really interesting during the Committee stage of this bill was the fact that Trevor Mallard assured us that after this bill was passed there would be further legislation. And that was the big mistake he made because we know that the legislation he is talking about will involve some heavy-handed regulation. The fact is that Labour has put out a consultation document through the Ministry for Culture and Heritage that is a review of digital broadcasting. It has laid out lots of options and it is a couple of hundred pages long. It will be of a lot of interest to journalists broadcasters and politicians but not of much interest to the general public. But it is really a Trojan Horse for what the Minister wants to do which is to regulate broadcasting heavily. 
Labour has a real problem in broadcasting: it has a failed broadcasting policy that has really shackled Television New Zealand (TVNZ). Basically with the charter TVNZ can be neither fully commercial nor fully public. It is caught in the middle and its finances are getting a lot worse. This Government has managed to halve the value of TVNZ. Steve Maharey managed to cut the value of TVNZ by half and if he had had another term as Minister I reckon he would have got it right down to zero. So really the next election will come as merciful relief for this Labour Government in terms of broadcasting because it is flat out of ideas. It does not have any ideas. This digital review is basically a bottom-trawl for ideas which the Government will throw back up and push through in legislation. Trevor Mallard has been quite open about that. 
National is supporting this bill as we have heard today. It will bring funding arrangements into line with newly developing technology. Trevor Mallard was right: he talked about fragmentation and convergence. That sounds like the Labour caucus which is fragmenting and then converging to the right of the party. But there are some major technological changes and this bill will mean that Te Mangai Paho and New Zealand On Air will be able to fund content for new platforms. When the Broadcasting Act was passed in 1989 we basically had only radio and television. We have moved into a completely new age and people are getting their content from the Internet they are downloading things and they are able to watch things on platforms such as mobile phones. The funding arrangements will mean that those broadcasting funding agencies can fund content for those new digital platforms. 
But an interesting point is that National members are very keen to make sure that anything that receives public funds is available free to air to all New Zealanders. If content for a mobile phone platform will be funded for instance we would have some concerns if that were a pay-per-view service. So there may be one or two things that need ironing out but in general we are very keen for the funding arrangements to reflect the new technology. 
One thing that is an issue is the TVNZ charter. As Richard Worth said I think in the second reading the problem with the current charter is that it is just a bunch of aspirational statements with no concrete measurable goals. That is causing a problem because it means that the charter is essentially meaningless. The Government has had a review which has rehashed the wording of the charter and it is being brought back before the Commerce Committee but it will not make any difference. There are still no measurable goals. We have to ask ourselves in relation to the TVNZ charter whether there is any difference between what is on our screens now compared with the time before we had the TVNZ charter. The basic reality is that there is no difference. There is absolutely no difference. I mean what is charter programming? People at TVNZ can say that it is absolutely anything.  
Dancing with the Stars  
is supposedly charter programming. So I think we need to get to an environment— 
Hon Georgina te Heuheu 
: It shouldn’t be. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Well it should not be; it is nakedly commercial. But we really need to have some transparency around where public broadcasting funding goes and we need to have a charter that is actually meaningful and that provides some concrete measurable goals. Clearly there is a need to look at what is happening in broadcasting. 
I think we can say—quite succinctly—that Labour’s broadcasting policy has been an absolute failure. What we have is the State broadcaster basically going down the drain. Labour has eroded the value of the State broadcaster. We now have new FreeView channels which are getting $104 million of public money. There is no certainty that they will survive commercially because if those TV6 and TV7 channels are to succeed they will have to draw audiences across from TVNZ. That will be a problem for TVNZ because there will not be any advertising on those two new digital channels. So there is an environment where audiences will be sucked across to the new channels and Television One and TV2 audience numbers will be dropping. As a result of the audience numbers dropping the advertising revenue will drop TVNZ’s revenues will drop and the bottom line will continue to deteriorate. This is the result of broadcasting policy under this Government. 
So just to come back to where we were I say that National does support this bill. As I say it brings the funding arrangements into line with modern technology but it raises some serious issues. This bill illustrates where technology is going in broadcasting and that raises a whole raft of issues around the sustainability of TVNZ and how it will continue to remain financially viable. It also brings up the point of the terrible burden the charter has saddled TVNZ with. Basically we have a Labour Government that has failed New Zealanders in terms of broadcasting. It has been a case of poor stewardship of public broadcasting and poor stewardship of public money and it is time for change in this field. In summary National is supporting this bill but there are real challenges in broadcasting ahead. The real danger is that as Trevor Mallard has said Labour is very keen to get in and regulate this particular sector and it will do so under the guise of the review of digital broadcasting. Thank you.