Coddington Deborah: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Coddington Deborah: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
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DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 There is only one radio programme worth listening to in the mornings and that is Newstalk ZB especially on Tuesday mornings at 8.15. It is the most informed political comment in the country. 
Katherine Rich 
: Who is the host? 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: My colleague has asked who the people on it are. They are the Hon John Tamihere and myself. So I plead guilty. I might be the only person in this House who does not listen to State radio in the mornings. I listen to Newstalk ZB. 
Do members know why private radio stations do not need a charter? They do not need a charter because they actually adhere to the objective of this charter which Radio New Zealand does not adhere to. They are objective and they are independent and that is because they participate in industry surveys and they get the message very quickly very sharply and very painfully—because it affects them in the pocket—if they are not delivering what the customers want to hear. I would argue that the news services of Global News or Newstalk ZB were more objective and fairer and had more voices of dissent than State-owned radio. 
I did not get to have another call in the Committee stage but I wanted to continue talking about this report that two former directors of Radio New Zealand Dr Denis Dutton and John Isles put their names to. It was a survey of feature programmes on Radio New Zealand. It was a very fair survey. It did not seek to establish whether there was bias in Radio New Zealand; it just sought to establish whether there were enough diverse voices and whether as a public radio it was reflecting the voices of the public. As Sue Kedgley has so rightly pointed out it is owned by every taxpayer in New Zealand and through Parliament its adherence to the charter is scrutinised. This report roundly recommended and concluded that Radio New Zealand at the moment is not adhering to its charter. 
The Minister of Broadcasting has done a number of things that compromise Radio New Zealand severely so I do not blame the people at Radio New Zealand for this; I blame the Minister. In May 2003 the Minister held a function on the premises of Radio New Zealand and he said to the staff that they “had every reason to feel nervous bullied and uncertain under the previous administration”. State-owned broadcasting should be robust enough and independent enough to survive a change in Government—and there will be a change in Government to the centre-right. Radio New Zealand must be robust enough to sustain that. If people like Martin Gallagher who gave one of his rare but welcome vein-popping speeches— 
Simon Power 
: It was his maiden speech. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: It was a wonderful speech. He was passionately declaring his loyalty to save public radio. If that is the case that broadcaster must be able to sustain a change of Government. The Minister has been compromising it. He said: “Under the National Government Radio New Zealand struggled against political reluctance to maintain its funding and through public pressure and its own lobbying managed to secure the continuing existence of two networks. Many of you here will have taken part in those battles because you know that public radio is worth fighting for.” I question the wisdom of the Minister of Broadcasting allowing Radio New Zealand to be used for the delivery of such an overt political message. It is questionable especially when concerns of political bias are levelled at that organisation. 
The Minister’s theme that public radio is under threat from its political opponents does appear to have currency with the broadcaster. The broadcaster has clearly been influenced by the Minister to take his views on board. The website asserts that this is “a time when the whole concept of public radio is under attack”. The Radio New Zealand statement of intent for 2003-04 declares under the heading of “Strategic Issues” that the institution of Radio New Zealand was “eroded” during the 1990s and needed “rebuilding”. There is not a lot of wisdom in the State broadcaster putting issues like that—a criticism of the previous Government—on its website when it is required to be independent fair and unbiased. It is expressing a clear political and philosophical view. That is why I believe that it is not adhering to the charter at the moment that is why I do not think we should be adding anything more to the charter and that is why the ACT party did not support this amendment to the charter going in the Statutes Amendment Bill. 
Ms Kedgley seems to miss the point there. She said that we are whinging on about the State being secular. Well those issues of spirituality should be required to compete in the marketplace of ideas with their own funding and support and not be supported by taxpayer funding. That is the point we make. Statutes Amendment bills are meant to be used for non-controversial issues and we have seen from the debate tonight that this issue is far from non-controversial. 
The survey that Dutton and Isles authored and commissioned showed that the voices of some sectors of the public are not aired on public radio. There are no voices of market liberals for instance. There are very few voices of the centre-right. There are a few voices of the conservative-right but certainly if one considers market liberals—the voices of freedom the voices that are pro-capitalist—one finds they are never heard on public radio. Public radio is not representing a large number of the community out there and probably that is the sector of the community contributing most to the taxes that fund public radio. 
I say that if this Government is serious about protecting public broadcasting and if the Greens are serious about protecting public broadcasting then they have to face up to the fact that it is not as glorious wonderful and perfect as they think it is and that it needs to be a robust and independent organisation that is already sticking to its charter rather than more things being put in the charter and it being put under even further pressure and set up to fail.