Kedgley Sue: Television New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Television New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18686] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I will particularly focus on the new section 57A “Making archived works available for public viewing” which is to be inserted in the Copyright Act by clause 14. I will pick up from where Clare Curran left off. It is fantastic that some of the wonderful programmes made by Television New Zealand will be made available for public viewing. 
I worked at Television New Zealand myself and made a number of programmes over a number of years and I worked there in the days when it genuinely was public service television. Then we had commercials on some days then they were allowed every day except for Sunday and then slowly we went into full commercialisation. But I had the privilege of working there when it was genuinely a public service broadcaster. Fantastic programmes were made then that New Zealanders would dearly love to see. 
But will New Zealanders see these wonderful archived materials on Television One or TV2? No they will not because from now on the sole criterion for whether Television New Zealand will screen a programme on Television One and TV2 will be the ratings. It will be how many ratings and what advertisements programmes will attract. Television One and TV2 will not screen these wonderful programmes because they will not rate like some of those blockbusters from America. The reason only 17 percent of the content on TV2 is New Zealand content is that quite frankly it is a lot cheaper to import blockbusters from America those action programmes than it is to make New Zealand programmes. That is why we will see fewer and fewer New Zealand programmes on Television One and TV2. These channels will basically become not only commercial television but also foreign television. We will have two New Zealand - owned channels—that is until such time as the Government sells them—screening commercial foreign content. 
What we will not see on Television One and TV2 is the wonderful archival material that was made at a time when Television New Zealand was able to focus on the public interest and when Television New Zealand was able to make major current affairs programmes such as Brian Edwards’ programmes. For many years the whole nation sat watching these current affairs programmes and they were influencing the debate in New Zealand. Where are the in-depth current affairs programmes on Television New Zealand? Well sure we have  
Close Up 
 but the constant mantra of  
Close Up  
is: “I am sorry we have run out of time.” The current affairs issues of the day are all dealt with in 2-minute—or 5-minute if they are later—segments and people are constantly having to wring their hands and say that they are sorry as they have run out of time. 
Unfortunately the wonderful archival material that would show us what public service television can be like and what it is like—the wonderful documentaries—will not be shown. When I worked at Television New Zealand there was a whole documentary department that did nothing but make fantastic documentaries like  
Pioneer Women 
. Wonderful archival material is sitting there in the Television New Zealand archives and it will never be screened on Television New Zealand because Television New Zealand has no public service obligation. It now exists solely to make money for the shareholder. It will screen programmes only if they can maximise advertising revenue so the whole point of having these wonderful archive materials and of allowing their copyright to be waived so that they can be screened on television is missed unfortunately. It is ironic but in the same bill is the reason why those programmes will not be shown on Television One or TV2 the publicly owned television channels. Those channels will now be solely commercial and they will be worried that those programmes will not rate.