Lee MelissaMELISSA LEE (National): Thank you Madam Chair—finally. I feel like I've been jumping up ever since this debate began. I'd like to greet you: kia orana e Maine Vaa Tuatua. Hopefully the pronunciation was acceptable. I would like to take the opportunity to speak briefly on the vote for the social development and housing sector and some members in this committee would actually wonder why I am standing up to talk because I don't normally belong to the Social Services and Community Committee. However it is in the Vote Arts Culture and Heritage appropriation where broadcasting was classified and because I belong to the Economic Development Science and Innovation (EDSI) Committee and considering the fact that broadcasting has had a lot of interest we were expecting the Minister of Broadcasting Communications and Digital Media to turn up. Indeed she did but she refused to discuss broadcasting because it was given to the Social Services and Community Committee. So I was astonished that the Hon Clare Curran would not discuss it. I know that there are some members in this House who belong to the EDSI select committee who actually previously when Radio New Zealand turned up the Minister—we would have an opportunity to ask the Minister about the Estimates and the delivery that she has not done properly. Anyway—Hon Tracey Martin: But it's the wrong estimate so why would one turn up anyway? MELISSA LEE: That Minister is asking if it was the wrong Estimates. Well I was actually in the EDSI select committee when that Minister turned up and was asked the questions about the ethnic communities and she couldn't answer that either. Anyway I digress. This is actually about the arts culture and heritage appropriation which belongs to this Estimates debate. It is actually about broadcasting and I'll get to it. The Minister in her shining brand new ministerial role actually promised so much. It was in the Labour Party election manifesto that they would deliver $152 million—that is actually $38 million a year for the next four years. And—Hon Tracey Martin: Wrong Estimates. MELISSA LEE: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I keep getting an interjection from that side suggesting that this is the wrong Estimates. It is actually Vote Arts Culture and Heritage which I can speak to in this Estimates debate. CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): To answer your point of order we are just double-checking that you are in the right Estimates—MELISSA LEE: That is the whole point Tracey. Hon Tracey Martin: There's no broadcasting. CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! Order! If you are speaking to arts culture and heritage then you are in the right Estimates. We're just double-checking that the Estimates regarding broadcasting come within that Vote. MELISSA LEE: It does and that is the whole point. CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Carry on. Carry on until otherwise notified. MELISSA LEE: Thank you Madam Chair. Where was I—the $152 million that this Minister promised to deliver but failed to because she literally only delivered less than 10 percent. It was $15 million. She actually took to Cabinet $152 million. She wanted $152 million for the broadcasting sector but she delivered only $15 million and she established a bureaucracy a ministerial advisory board to dish out or actually to decide if we needed a public media funding commission—another level of bureaucracy.The ministerial advisory board is actually costing taxpayers $1.5 million and they have decided for the Minister where the money is going to go: $4.5 million to Radio New Zealand $4 million to New Zealand On Air $6 million between Radio New Zealand and New Zealand On Air and $500000 for the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. But the thing is that the Minister wanted RNZ+. She wanted Radio New Zealand to have a brand new TV channel—a complete TV channel—and she thought she could do it for $4.5 million.That is just ridiculous. It just shows how completely out of touch she is with her portfolio and that she has no concept of what broadcasting is actually about. She is absolutely ridiculously out of her depth to think that she can actually produce a brand new television channel with that kind of budget. There is no way RNZ+ will ever come to fruition.