Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Media and Communications): Well thank you Madam Chair and members for your insights and questions. A good summary of the situation by my learned colleague Paulo Garcia and questions from the Greens and the Labour Party.Look I think the only point I'd make at the start is that I think it's widely agreed that parts of the media industry across the country and indeed across the world are struggling with the very rapid transition in the way that people get their news and their information—because it's blindingly obvious to everybody that people's habits have changed dramatically over the last few years in the way that we collect our information what we look at on screens and how we gather the daily information that we get. But it's been varied and so radio continues to go relatively strongly and commercial radio continues to be relatively strong in this country. So that element of the broader media setup is responding 30 or 40 years after its projected demise when TV killed the radio star; actually radio continues to do relatively well. Print and TV media have had a more challenging environment of late particularly because of the drop-off in revenue from advertising. And that is largely as a response from competition from online offerings. It's also a reflection of the relatively difficult trading environment that we see across the country as a result of frankly—and I don't want to get off-piste—a very difficult economic environment that we've inherited as a new Government where we've had low growth. So people have been struggling with the cost of living with inflation and higher interest rates. So people don't have as much money to spend at the moment. And that's why this Government has this overwhelming priority of focus on economic growth rebuilding the economy getting inflation under control and restoring higher incomes putting some money back in people's pockets. And so the media context just like every element of business will benefit from that to the extent to which we as a country succeed. And so—Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order. Unless I'm mistaken there is no Minister in the House. Oh there's a Minister in the chair of course.CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Yes there is.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well thank you for that interruption. I was giving a survey of the situation and so as a new Minister I'm obviously working my way through the process of meeting as many people in the industry as I can. And so particularly next week as we move into a recess I'll be working my way through the many industry groups because—look I think there are two challenges: as well as the economic sustainability of parts of the media which is continuing to be challenging although I have every confidence in the ability of the many businesses operating in this area to adapt. Over the last few weeks where we had very difficult times of retrenchment and redundancy—particularly in some of the TV and Newshub—we're already seeing some new options being developed. And so we as a Government of course don't want to get in the way of that and to confuse that in any way.But another challenge of course across the broad media landscape that is a challenge—again which is a global one—is around trust issues. We're conscious that looking back over the last period the Government did make investments into the various funds and that frankly is challenging because people do worry about that and what impact that has on the media trust situation. So for any changes or any ideas we're considering in the context of the media we have to be very mindful of the impact that that has on perceptions. And so we're very mindful of that.I can't remember actually the questions that were asked by the Minister Jackson but I'm sure he might relitigate them further on. I've moved on. But we certainly do want to work collaboratively with the sector. And the broader issues that we're dealing with or trying to respond to is what if anything can the Government do to even up the playing field I suppose between local providers and international ones and also to ensure that New Zealanders still have access to the New Zealand productions New Zealand stories on their screens. We have obviously made a significant investment as a Government on that in three ways through the New Zealand Film Commission and funding through the film industry through NZ On Air and thirdly through to Te Māngai Pāho which has a particular focus on te reo. And we make significant interest investments on all those things and they need to be seen in the whole and we'll continue to do that. And so we have those levers to pull. And so I'm very focused as a Government Minister coming into this to ensure that we're getting good returns and good value for money and good results from that investment and also that New Zealanders continue to be able to see their stories online and on their screens.Obviously a longer-term issue is that there's been a very a big change in New Zealand's habits in terms of what they're watching and we've seen the rapid development of online streamers—Netflix being the largest but a number of others. And so there is an open question: how can we ensure that those big companies continue to invest and invest in New Zealand production and New Zealand stories? And I don't want to certainly over promise on that area but we've certainly got to have those conversations and to see if we can improve the current situation.So that's some of the issues. Looking back in terms of the annual review I am mindful of the fact that we've had over the last year $19.6 million spent by the previous Minister on his failed merger of TV and RNZ and so we're mindful of that and we don't want to be making those sorts of mistakes further down the line.