Stewart Barbara: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Stewart Barbara: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:613;Page:10268] 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First will not be supporting the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill. We do not believe that the charter of Radio New Zealand needs to be modified in this way. We believe that the charter is being reviewed principally to ensure that it is a model of political correctness in every way. The bill is very short—only 1½ pages. We want to know how the bill will advance the lot of New Zealanders or the lot of National Radio. The bottom line is that it will not. I also want to know how many New Zealanders get their spiritual and ethical beliefs from Radio New Zealand. I would say very very few. It would be a sad society if that was how people obtained their spiritual and ethical beliefs. We have all heard that we are a multicultural society so I must ask: whose beliefs will be broadcast more than anybody else’s? I know that the Minister said it will be very generalised but I would hazard a guess that not many cultures in this country would consider that their beliefs were the same as everybody else’s. New Zealand First questions the value of this focus of the charter. 
In September I read a  
New Zealand Herald 
 report on Radio New Zealand’s continuing loss of listeners even with its flagship morning programmes. It reported an 8 percent drop in the number of listeners and the figures released show that for the first time the number of Radio New Zealand listeners has dipped below 500000. All in all this is quite a morale-damaging time for Radio New Zealand. I would like to know how much of this can be attributed to the charter. It is interesting to note too that Radio New Zealand does not take part in the usual ratings surveys used by the commercial broadcasters. Instead it uses an independent survey programme that measures its performance against the charter. The  
New Zealand Herald  
actually said that Radio New Zealand was really pleased with the report that showed it had a drop in the number of listeners and it said that the drop in the number of listeners was not even statistically significant. Any decrease in the number of listeners is significant. It is far more difficult to get people to turn back on to a station once they have turned off than it is to keep them on. People move on. There may be a small percentage that comes back but a station does not usually get back the whole percentage that was lost. We all know that Television One experienced that with the news some years ago. 
The addition of the words “spiritual and ethical” into Radio New Zealand’s charter shows the extent that the Government is prepared to go to be the most politically correct nation in the world and one must question why. This political correctness has come at a high price a very high price indeed for Radio New Zealand and that price appears to be the continuing loss of listeners. New Zealand First believes that there should be free and open communication and that the role of the Government particularly when it comes to radio broadcasting should be confined to essential regulatory matters—because there are some matters that do necessitate State invention. I must say too that to be the most politically correct nation in the world does not excite the majority of New Zealanders. It does not do anything for us. Radio New Zealand has operated quite successfully in the past without this prescriptively politically correct charter. We would like to see further growth in the development of Radio New Zealand programmes. Perhaps the money that has been spent on this could be spent on developing new programmes or having new equipment. I must say that Radio New Zealand has got some really good programmes. I do listen to them and I would like to hear more of them. I think this bill enforces impossible compliance challenges on Radio New Zealand and makes it difficult for Radio New Zealand to measure its performance. New Zealand First is not going to be supporting this bill.