Franks Stephen: Television New Zealand Bill — In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Television New Zealand Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:606;Page:3818] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I appreciate the call and I recognise there has been a considerable amount of debate on this matter. I wanted to explain the amendment I have proposed to clause 31 and the way in which it relates to the amendment proposed to clause 33. I recognise that the Minister in the chair inherited this portfolio some way through the progress in the development of this matter It is obvious that the bill has a series of prohibitions constraints and procedures built around the idea that there is political impartiality or neutrality in the State broadcaster. But there is nothing that actually states that the State broadcaster should be impartial or neutral and there is nothing that states that there is a positive role for or a positive responsibility on the political masters of this body to protect its integrity and its reputation for neutrality and impartiality.  
So what I have tried to do with that amendment is to pick up on some of the passages in the parts of the bill that we have already gone past and in particular the references to the charter to the functions and objectives where the board of Television New Zealand is given the role of deciding what the appropriate weighting is and to indicate that so far as politicians are involved they can positively uphold neutrality and impartiality. So the proposed amendments to clause 31 are two new subclauses which are simply general directions. If they are agreed in those terms they will be the only places in this bill where the words “impartial” “political impartiality” and “political neutrality” appear. They should not constrain the board. They should not be a problem because the Minister was at pains to assure us before the break for dinner that he expected and intended this body not to be subject to political direction or influence. Those words would be a signal and a statement of the objective that the State broadcaster should be impartial and should be politically neutral. So the idea in those two subclauses is to state what others may see as implicit to be a safeguard.  
For example in appointing board members I would see there to be no reason not to appoint someone who has a strong political background but it would be wrong to do that where the person was appointed to a board where there was no counter to that. So the idea would be to make sure that we had strong vigorous characters with firm ideas about where to go but that a balance was created. That should be an instruction. I admit that it is imperfect. It is very hard to enforce. It is patching at the last minute but there would be an indication that the Minister’s exercise of powers would uphold the tradition that we really need for an enduring arrangement for State broadcasting. It must be seen to have political neutrality.  
If it is to endure past the next change of Government then we need to give it this kind of surrounding. At this stage in this bill putting it into a qualification to the Minister’s powers is a statement of what is intended. I do not know whether there has been enough time for the Minister to consider it. I would very much appreciate if the Minister had amendments to it or if the Minister wanted to qualify the wording because there has been so little time. I would be very happy to accept amendments. But political neutrality and impartiality should have been built into this bill. They do not appear anywhere. This is a very late fix for it but it is a fix. If there are problems with that fix we should hear what they are because it is a statement of what I think most New Zealanders would think is the obvious. The references in subclause (5) and draft subclause (5) to the functions and objectives and to the weighting reflect parts in subclause (3) where at the moment it is left up to the board to weight the various conflicting or competing objectives as it likes. All it has to do is try to tell Parliament and the people how it has decided to weight them. There is no reason the board could not weight them in favour of a strong pacifist party; or if it wishes it could choose to weight them in favour of an anti-abortion party or any other current ism because at the moment there is nothing that requires the board to be objective and neutral.