Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRadio New Zealand Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 29 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9999. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Radio New Zealand Amendment BillThird ReadingDebate resumed from 17 March.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Members when we were last debating the third reading of the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill Kris Faafoi was speaking and has 5 minutes remaining if he wishes.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Thank you very much for giving me some extra time. I thought I had less than that but I will take that gladly.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): We are stopping at 10.KRIS FAAFOI: OK I will take that into mind. When I was interrupted—I think it was on 17 March as the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill was getting into its third reading—I was talking about the funding freeze at Radio New Zealand. There was quite opportune timing with a story on the Fairfax website Stuff this morning that highlighted the changes in some of the costs of the new Checkpoint show. In amongst some of those costs—which I think are fair enough given the changes that they have made there—there were some comments by Richard Griffin the chair of the Radio New Zealand board and Paul Thompson the chief executive of Radio New Zealand that I think speak to some of the issues that we have had on this side of the House with the funding freeze at Radio New Zealand.If I can I will just read from that story: “Paul Thompson and chairman Richard Griffin told the Commerce select committee in February [that] Radio NZ would not seek extra funding in the May 26 Budget after accepting it is not a priority for more Government cash.” The story says that “They had not ‘given up’ on getting extra funding but it was ‘pointless beating your head against a brick wall’ Griffin said. Even preparing a plan to ask for more money cost money. ‘We have a plan but it is not based on putting up a proposition in this Budget round. We [will] have a plan … the Government and Treasury are already looking at [it] and hopefully buy into [it].’ ” But if you look at the track record I am not sure whether their plan will be a priority for this Government.Radio New Zealand has had a funding freeze ever since Dr Coleman was the broadcasting Minister and then Craig Foss was the broadcasting Minister. I would hope that Amy Adams as the broadcasting Minister—who out of those three I think understands the broadcasting industry the most especially the challenges that that particular broadcaster has—would have seen fit for some kind of new vision for Radio New Zealand. But instead of a new vision for Radio New Zealand we have seen a new normal for Radio New Zealand and that is a funding freeze. For the last 7 years it has had absolutely no increase in its funding whatsoever but it has been tasked with taking on a challenge that every other media outlet—whether it be traditional print traditional radio or traditional television—has been asked to do and that is to manage the convergence of those technologies coming together.In that speech on 17 March I said that I did not want to delay this bill any more so it is painful to stand here and talk about some of these concerns that Labour members have because we actually want this piece of legislation to pass. But it is absolutely our duty to point out that if we want to have the kind of country and the kind of democracy that we want then we in this country have to start taking seriously the funding of Radio New Zealand and the journalism that it is well-known for. And that certainly cannot happen when you have got a Government on that side of the House that has an attitude that says: “We do not care about Radio New Zealand. Just do what you have to do but you cannot do anything that challenges the way you do your business without any more funding.”It is absolutely imperative that it is given more funding because at the current stage we are looking at more lay-offs while we are asking this entity to do much much more. I do not think that is fair on the current staff and the current management. It is certainly not fair on the millions of New Zealanders who see it as a very important piece of our public broadcasting environment—especially given that Television New Zealand has become extremely commercial—where they rely on information from Radio New Zealand being unbiased up to date informative and inquisitive in the way that they want their news and current affairs to be.I will not take up too much more of the time of the House other than to talk about our concern that the priority of this piece of legislation is such that it has again been put last on the Order Paper today. So I am here again finishing off a day with an interrupted speech in an interrupted debate on this piece of legislation because the Government just pushes it to the back. I wonder when this piece of legislation will ever get passed if this Government keeps on making it a very low priority.BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise in this the third reading of the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill in what I fear will be a short episode 1 in the short-run serial that will make up this call in no doubt two parts. So fundamentally we arrive at this part. This bill will receive its third reading in short order and it is part of National’s commitment to improve and deliver better public services. Within those public services—and the Government reported on these just very recently showing extremely good improvement across a range of services aimed at delivering better outcomes for Kiwis and better outcomes it might be added for the same or even less Government expense. Now within that suite of better public services it also includes the continuation of a reliable independent public radio capability.Interestingly when I looked at the statistics provided by Radio New Zealand in its recent annual review for the previous financial year it noted that the survey work it had undertaken shows that 92 percent of its listeners agree that Radio New Zealand contributes—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair.Debate interrupted.