Stewart Barbara: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Stewart Barbara: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12255] 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 It is a great honour to follow a contribution like that of Mr Gallagher. It is not often that we see a contribution like that to the debate from the Government. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill and to tell Mr Gallagher that New Zealand First will not support this bill despite his rendition. We believe that this bill is a backward step for broadcasting and we can see no good reason for it at all. New Zealand First does not believe that the charter for Radio New Zealand needs to be modified in this way at all. We believe that the charter has been reviewed principally in order to ensure that it is a model of political correctness in every way. The bill is totally ludicrous. There is not even a definition of “spiritual and ethical” development. The bill is a mere 1½ pages in length and was not even changed by the Commerce Committee—including those words “spiritual and “ethical”. I wonder how many definitions of “spiritual and “ethical” development we will hear from Radio New Zealand. We all have our own definitions so there will have to be many definitions. Even if the broadcaster goes 24/7 it will not meet everybody’s needs in that way. 
New Zealand First believes that this bill is an absolute nonsense and a waste of parliamentary time particularly under urgency. We have spent far longer on debating this bill tonight than it took the select committee to consider the bill. I see that the select committee took only 14 minutes. That really makes one wonder how important this bill is particularly as it has languished on the Order Paper for months—since April 2003. It really does make one wonder. Will this bill change the lot of New Zealanders? No not at all. How many variations of spiritual and ethical belief will we hear from Radio New Zealand? We do not know that. There is an infinite number of such beliefs. How will this bill advance the lot of New Zealanders? It will not do so at all. This bill basically raises far more questions than it will ever answer. Also what are the delivery outcomes for ensuring that the charter is met? It will be difficult for Radio New Zealand to even work out whether it has met the requirements of this legislation. To be fair to the people of New Zealand all people’s views have to be met but the reality is that those views are all so diverse that that is an impossible challenge for Radio New Zealand to meet. It is interesting to note too that we see those dimensions creeping in to all parts of our legislation. 
This is a very sad day for Radio New Zealand. It is sad to set up an organisation to fail despite its very best attempts. This charter is so wide and vague that it will not work. It is a balancing act at the very best of times. It reminds me of this statement by Winston Churchill: “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” That is what Radio New Zealand has been lumped with tonight. We know for a fact that the number of Radio New Zealand listeners is decreasing and we would be really interested to hear—and we have not heard this tonight—how the words “spiritual and ethical” in the charter will reverse Radio New Zealand’s disastrous ratings. The charter appears to be of no value in that regard. What have we seen since its introduction? We have seen a revolt. People do not want to be told what their spiritual and ethical values are. They do not want to follow through on the charter and they have voted with their fingers by getting up out of their chairs and changing from listening to that oh so totally politically correct radio station. It does not matter what is put in the charter. It will not help Radio New Zealand at all because it cannot meet the requirements of the charter. 
Clause 3(4) provides in new paragraph (d) to be inserted in section 7(2) of the principal Act that surveys will be commissioned annually of “persons who are members of its current audience to establish whether those members consider that the quality and quantity of its services are being maintained in accordance with subsection (1)” and new paragraph (e) goes on to add “surveys commissioned from time to time of persons who are not members of its current audiences.” Just from what I have heard tonight I believe it will be far easier to carry out surveys in terms of paragraph (e)—“... commissioned from time to time of persons who are not members of its current audiences.”—than it will be to survey people who are actually listening to Radio New Zealand. We agree with the implementation of surveys; that is one of the few parts of the bill that we agree with. But then we must ask why the surveys are not carried out like those carried out on other broadcasting stations. The State broadcaster definitely has a totally different set of rules for its operation from anybody else. 
This bill is appalling for Radio New Zealand. The bottom line is that Radio New Zealand cannot be all things to all people. We can see that from the number of listeners who are dropping off—who are not listening to Radio New Zealand. That is absolutely appalling. If it were a private radio station we would see many changes. Heads would roll. The indicators of such a loss of audience would inspire some sort of action on the part of the directors of a private station. But do we see any action being taken by Radio New Zealand? No. It appears to be accepted that Radio New Zealand is required by the charter to provide programmes that other radio stations do not provide and that many of those types of programmes will never generate a large number of listeners. 
Does anybody really care about the loss of the listeners? It does not appear so. When we read the performance targets of Radio New Zealand we find that they do not inspire the confidence of any New Zealander with a goal of losing no more than 10 percent of the previous year’s listeners. How long will it take before nobody listens to Radio New Zealand? If it sticks with that target its audience will be halved within 6 years for a start. The loss of listeners is a big indication that there is something very wrong with the public broadcaster and the charter will not correct that. There are impossible compliance challenges for Radio New Zealand in the charter. In fact any organisation would be extremely brave to take this type of charter on. 
The bill is not really about changing the role of Radio New Zealand. All we are seeing as the previous speakers have mentioned is a tinkering with the charter by adding the words “spiritual and ethical”. A large amount of money has been spent on implementing the charter. It would have been far better spent on modernising the equipment so that people could get a better level and quality of broadcast rather than tinkering around with “spiritual and ethical” considerations. 
New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. We do not like to see organisations being set up to fail.