Hipkins Chris: Television New Zealand Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Television New Zealand Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:674;Page:20014] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I take a slightly different approach to many of the members who have spoken on the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill this evening because I do not necessarily see the Television New Zealand charter as the panacea for quality public broadcasting in New Zealand. I do not think it ever was. I do not think Television New Zealand (TVNZ) has been a public service television broadcaster for quite some time and I do not think that we have seen the quality public broadcasting television content that New Zealanders should be able to expect for a very very long time. I think that is a real tragedy. 
What I am concerned about however is the direction that we are going in with public television broadcasting in New Zealand. To some extent we seem to have just given up on the idea altogether. I will give the House a really good example of that and that is TVNZ Heartland. It has 100 percent New Zealand content and relies on content that has been built up over a number of years quite often with taxpayer subsidies through New Zealand On Air. Some great television programming is available on TVNZ Heartland but only for those who can afford the Sky television subscription. Increasingly what we are seeing—and we are seeing it with Kidzone24 as well—is that TVNZ is producing some good local television but only for those who can afford a Sky television subscription. It is not a public broadcaster it is not a free-to-air broadcaster; it is increasingly becoming a content provider for Sky television. 
I think the real question we have to ask ourselves is whether the role of New Zealand’s public service television broadcaster is to simply provide content for a pay TV service. Sky television arguably is the most profitable television broadcaster in the country yet TVNZ—the State-owned public television network—seems to be increasingly focusing its attention on providing content for the most profitable television operator in the country. I do not think that is right. I do not think that the charter was perfect I do not think that we got all of that right. I think there were definitely some improvements that needed to be made but this bill goes the other way. What it does is it abandons any notion of public television broadcasting in New Zealand and says “Let’s just focus on making a buck.” Well actually the best way to make a buck would be to put all of TVNZ’s content on Sky television because Sky television is profitable. TVNZ is profitable at the moment but with the way technology is going and with the increasing market dominance of Sky television that may not necessarily be the case for much longer. 
With the segmentation of the market the platform will become a lot less important than the content. What we are seeing with the content the New Zealand - made content—often paid for by NZ On Air or through TVNZ’s previous charter funding—is that that content that has been built up over those years is now available only if people can afford a Sky television subscription. I do not think that is right. I think New Zealanders have paid for this content and they should be able to watch it. This bill frees up the content prior to 1989—frees it up for whom is the question I would ask. Does it free it up so we can get even more of those New Zealand stories and that New Zealand content on Sky television where people have to pay to watch it? That would be a concern for me. If it frees it up so that we can actually get it on free-to-air TV on the FreeView platform so that all New Zealanders can see it that would be absolutely fantastic. 
The real question we have to ask ourselves is what TVNZ will be in the future. If it will simply be another commercial TV network providing nothing that is any different from what one gets on TV3 Prime TV or Sky television then we have to ask what the fundamental purpose of having TVNZ at all really is. If we are going to have a distinctive New Zealand television service then it needs to reflect New Zealand it needs to tell New Zealand stories and TVNZ does not do that. In fact what we are seeing from TVNZ at the moment is an abandonment of anything south of the Bombay Hills. 
In my electorate we have the Avalon Studios which are widely recognised as the best television studios in the country. The technology at Avalon Studios is the best most up-to-date technology that is available. Anyone including TVNZ’s current management in Auckland will admit that the studios in Avalon are world leading. The people who work there are fantastic. I pay tribute to the staff who work at TVNZ’s Avalon Studios who in a few months’ time will find themselves out of work as TVNZ abandons the rest of the country and focuses all of its content on Auckland and produces all of its content in Auckland. It will simply abandon the rest of New Zealand. Pretty soon the only way a person will be able to be on television if he or she lives outside of Auckland will be if that person is on the news because the rest of New Zealand’s television content is being produced in Auckland and I think that is a real shame. 
What is even more disastrous is that those absolutely fantastic studio facilities at Avalon now will simply be abandoned because TVNZ does not seem to have any credible plan to sell them as a going concern. What TVNZ will do is to wait until the Racing Board’s current lease on the studio facilities expires wait until the lotteries stop doing the lottery draws there and then it will try to sell the studios. In other words it will try to sell empty TV studios with no customers. Well nobody will want to buy that. TVNZ is dragging its heels and it is dragging out this process and part of the reason is that it does not want its competitors to get hold of the facilities. 
TVNZ does not have a plan to sell them as a going concern—it does not have any plan—so the most likely thing is that they will just become another empty lot in the Hutt Valley for a property developer to buy. Frankly we have enough of those in the Hutt Valley as a result of this Government closing just about every other Government department or agency in the Hutt Valley. We have enough of those already; we do not need another one at Avalon when we have perfectly good TV studio facilities that have in the past produced some of the best New Zealand television content available. 
Finally I pick up on the points made by Te Ururoa Flavell from the Maori Party. I think he raised some really legitimate concerns about who we see on our TV screens. Is Maori culture an identity reflected on our TV screens? I would argue actually that Maori do quite well because they have the Maori Television Service and I believe that the television service is far closer to being a public television broadcasting service for New Zealand than TVNZ is or has ever been—certainly as far back as I can remember. I think the Maori Television channel does an absolutely fantastic job of providing quality public content. It does so at a relatively low price. It is not highbrow television as the members opposite would think. It just reflects New Zealand; it is genuine New Zealand content. I think that is what New Zealanders want to see: a public broadcaster. They want to see TVNZ delivering that service. It should not be on only Maori Television. It should actually reflect all of New Zealand’s many cultures identities and communities and increasingly it does not. 
I think that is an absolute disgrace. I think all New Zealanders should be able to see themselves reflected on screen because if we do not and if we simply say to TVNZ “Just be like any other broadcaster; import as much content from overseas as you want to.” then what we are saying is that will be the end of TVNZ effectively. There will be nothing to differentiate it from anyone else and it probably cannot do it as cheaply as other commercial public broadcasters can do it. In fact a lot of the content produced by TVNZ at the moment is very similar to the content on TV3 but TV3 produces it at a cheaper price. If one looks at the overhead cost of TVNZ news for example one sees that it is actually much much more significant than the cost of producing TV3 news yet the volume is probably about the same for both. 
The question we have to ask is: if we will not have TVNZ as a public content broadcaster what is TVNZ going to be? If it will be just another commercial broadcaster what is the point of having it? But you see the thing is I suspect that is where this Government is going. I suspect that it will come back to this House maybe in the next term of Parliament if it gets the chance if it gets re-elected—which is looking slimmer by the day—and say: “Hang on TVNZ is no different from TV3 and no different from Sky television so let’s just hock it off and add it to the list along with all the energy companies and everything else. Let’s just hock it off.” I think that is exactly what the Government is intending to do. It wants to make TVNZ look and feel as much like a private regular commercial broadcaster as possible so that it can be hocked off. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: Are you part of the coup team? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: There is no such thing—there is no such thing. None of the Government members seem to be willing to engage in the real issue of the moment which is why we do not have a public television broadcaster in this country. It does not have a vision for public broadcasting. It does not want to see New Zealanders represented on New Zealand screens. It does not have a plan. This is another example of where it does not have a plan for pretty much anything and as a result New Zealanders are suffering. 
I conclude my remarks simply by saying that we have an opportunity here. We have an opportunity to draw a line under everything that has happened in the past and institute something that is about genuine public broadcasting in this country. The Government has missed the opportunity to do that. Instead what it is doing is simply turning TVNZ into just another set of broadcasters that people will have to pay money to watch and I think that is a disgrace.