Bishop Chris: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 20 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3478. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): It is a pleasure to take a call on this important bill. I think members will agree that there is consensus across the House that the bill is sensible. Members opposite have I think fairly raised some concern about the length of time it has taken to pass this bill. Of course the bill was first introduced I think in 2009. Yes indeed; its first reading was on 4 June and it was referred to the Commerce Committee.I think that members opposite cry crocodile tears when it comes to complaints about the length of time it takes to pass bills. Members in general may be interested to learn the names of a number of bills that were on the Order Paper in 2008 when National took office. We had of course the Education (Establishment of Universities) Amendment Bill. It was first introduced in 2006. There was no progress under Labour. We had the Oaths Modernisation Bill and the Rail Network Bill and there was a real doozy the Conservation (Protection of Trout as a Non-commercial Species) Amendment Bill. It was first introduced in 1998 under the last National Government and it made no progress in 9 years under the Labour GovernmentBrett Hudson: Nine long years.CHRIS BISHOP: Nine long years—thank you very much Mr Hudson. So I think that those members cry crocodile tears about it. But regardless of the time it has taken to get to this point it is an important bill that we are progressing.I also want to make a few points in rebuttal to Clare Curran’s speech last night. I was—privileged is slightly the wrong word. I was present in the Chamber to hear her contribution to the debate last night. There were a few odd remarks that I want to pick up on in rebuttal. The first thing is to point out that the major thrust of some of the criticism in the first part of her speech seems to be based on a speech that Tony Ryall gave in 1993 presumably as a Government backbencher about Radio New Zealand and one quote he had given in 1993. It seems to be drawing a slightly long bow to criticise current Government policy in 2015 based on a comment from a member who is actually no longer a member of Parliament when he was a Government backbencher in the previous National Government. So I think that Clare clearly was struggling with her material if she had to go right back in the archives to 1993. I suggest to the Labour Party research unit which is clearly listening to this contribution to the debate that it needs to do its homework better.The second thing I want to mention about Ms Curran’s contribution is her comments about the Television New Zealandcharter. The Labour Party is very proud of the famed Television New Zealand (TVNZ) charter. The reality is that the TVNZ charter was a debacle. TVNZ turned up at the Commerce Committee in 2007 and in response to a question about its commitment to Māori broadcasting said that the Police Ten 7 show was an example of its commitment to Māori broadcasting—Police Ten 7. That is how it got away with fulfilling its mandate under the charter. It got given free money by Steve Maharey and the other Ministers of Broadcasting under Labour to basically reclassify existing commercial programmes like Police Ten 7 and say that that was its commitment to public service broadcasting.Actually the National Government took an enlightened policy to the 2008 election. We said that rather than give TVNZ $15 million of free money let us unshackle it from its dual mandate let us let it do what it wants to do anyway—be commercial—and let us give that $15 million to New Zealand On Air which will be medium-neutral as to where that money goes. In other words New Zealand On Airwould select the programmes. A programme could be on TV3 it could be on TVNZ or it could be on a variety of other platforms. Increasingly in the modern world it is actually through digital and New Zealand On Air has now got a digital media fund which is a world first. It was an enlightened policy and we think it has actually made for much better delivery. It has unshackled TVNZ from that mandate.The other mistake Clare Curran made was to say that National has made TVNZ commercial. Actually that was done by the fourth Labour Government in 1989 when it deregulated the broadcasting sector and allowed TV3 to enter the market. In fact you could arguably say that TVNZ has always been commercial because only 1 year after the inception of television in New Zealand in the 1960s we had ads on television. Clare Curran suggested in a tweet last night that one of the problems with television in New Zealand is that we have ads during prime time—ads during prime time. So the Labour Party broadcasting policy at the next election is going to be very interesting. It will be interesting to see the Labour Party’s commitment to the abolition of advertisements on TVNZ during prime time. That will be a slightly odd policy but it will be in keeping with its general modus operandi when it comes to policies which is that it has got no idea how to pay for things and it has no idea about the actual policies it is trying to pursue. So we are looking forward to that broadcasting policy.This is an important bill. Radio New Zealand makes an important contribution to the life of this nation. It is something that I and many New Zealanders listen to. In 2014 Radio New Zealand’s live cumulative audience was 484000. Increasingly it is moving into the online space. In 2013-14 there were 3.5 million podcasts downloaded. I have got many friends around the world and I know that many of them like to download the Radio New Zealand podcasts of Morning Report Nine to Noon and Checkpoint and listen to them when they wake up in the morning in the United Kingdom or America or wherever they are and keep up with the news from New Zealand because it is a very good source of information and the podcasts are well produced.Increasingly the Wireless which is the youth-oriented website that Radio New Zealand has set up has grown in popularity as well. I have had a couple of friends who have worked for that website and it does produce good content. One of the things people used to talk about back in the 1990swas a youth radio network—that New Zealand needed a triple j like Australia has which would be an advertisement-free radio station. I know that Neil Finn the musician and a few other people were very very keen on a youth radio network.Actually to be fair I used to be an advocate for a youth radio network as well. I was once a youth parliamentarian and I advocated for a youth radio network in my question in the Youth Parliament’s question time to the Minister of Broadcasting Marian Hobbs. Despite the fact that it was apparently Labour Government policy at the time she gave me the brush-off.People used to talk about having a youth radio network but I think that now people would generally agree that the way technology has evolved for the Government to fund a dedicated commercial youth radio frequency would probably be a retrograde step and that actually the way of the future is something like the Wireless website something like the youth-oriented website that is associated with Radio New Zealand. Actually the Wireless was a finalist in the category of best site in the Canon Media Awards of 2014 and Radio New Zealand continues to do well at the New Zealand Radio Awards as well. That is no surprise because as I said before it fulfils an important role in the cultural and social life of this nation.With that in mind it is important that we amend the Radio New Zealand Act 1995 because we need to update the Act and make it clear that the revised charter text makes for a stronger statement about its role as the public broadcaster and makes sure it is more accessible to the general public. There is also an update requirement for a 5-yearly charter review.This is an important bill. Radio New Zealand continues to play an important role in the cultural and social life of this nation. I commend the bill to the House.