Faafoi Kris: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3432. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Can I just point to some of the opening remarks that the Minister Amy Adams made in her speech saying that the intent of this bill from the Government the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill is to make sure that Radio New Zealand is relevant and futureproofing Radio New Zealand. Futureproofing and keeping Radio New Zealand relevant has been such a priority for this Government that this piece of legislation was referred to the select committee in June 2009 and it has languished on the Order Paper through the 49th Parliament through the 50th Parliament and it has got to the stage now where the Government has got hardly anything on the Order Paper so this massive priority in public broadcasting has all of a sudden found its way back on to the Order Paper and it is getting its second reading. Some of the names on the select committee—some of the members in this House would not even know who they are. It is two Parliaments ago. This is how much of a priority this Government is making over public broadcasting.Such a priority this Government has made over the last 6 years that it has frozen the budget of Radio New Zealand. Can I just at this point make a disclaimer and actually thank Radio New Zealand and the staff of Radio New Zealand for the work that they have done under increasingly tight financial conditions. They as the Minister has said are having to tread new waters. The technology is changing and I will talk about that later but Radio New Zealand has got to the stage where it has at a select committee said it has got to the bone and it cannot make any more cuts. So that is the reality of the priority that this Government has given public broadcasting.Let me say as someone who has actually worked in public broadcasting here and overseas—I have not had the pleasure of working for Radio New Zealand—that I do not want Radio New Zealand to be strong purely for political purposes for the Labour Party. I think Radio New Zealand should be strong because there needs to be an independent journalistic outlet that questions people from all around this House. It should be coming after all of us regardless of which side of the House we are on. If we have done something wrong or done something unpopular then we need independent journalism that will take people like us to task. It is absolutely—Hon Judith Collins: Absolutely.KRIS FAAFOI: Thank you very much. Thank you Judith. She is going to switch her vote and come over with us. This is a done deal.Having independent media is very important and we support this bill because it sets out a charter that began its life under a Labour Government. But what has happened over the last 6 years is that although it is nice to have a charter the cold hard reality is that this current Government has starved Radio New Zealand of the funding to be able to do some of the things that are in this piece of legislation. That is one fact. My former employer Television New Zealand (TVNZ) which probably is not happy with me since I have become a member of Parliament because of the criticism that I have poured on it has moved from an institution that used to have a charter and a dual remit of being a public broadcaster and a commercial entity to basically becomingpurely a commercial entity. I say on the record now that at a select committee hearing not so long ago I asked the chief executive of TVNZ whether it saw itself as a public broadcaster any more. He basically said: “No we’ve got a mandate to make money. That’s all we care about. That’s what we’re going to do.” On that side of the House that might be OK but on this side of the House we do care about some of the tenets of public broadcasting and one of those is making sure that you are a participant and making sure that constituents or Kiwis can participate in the democratic process.I was shocked last week to see a headline in the New Zealand Herald where basically TVNZ said it did not want any part to play in party political broadcasts any more. The New Zealand Herald ran that story and then on the Friday it ran an editorial saying that it agreed with TVNZ. But the devil was in the detail there because basically it wanted the money that is spent for those party political broadcasts to be spread far and wide like to its own newspaper and its own websites. So there is a bit of behind-the-scenes stuff going on there.But I actually think that TVNZ as a State broadcaster and the likes of Radio New Zealand do have an important part to play in a democratic process whether that is making sure that constituents voters can get the information that they might want in order to make up their minds on who to vote for or making sure that there is strong journalism in New Zealand. I think that what we are seeing at the moment is that it is a very interesting time in journalism. With the possible cancellation of Campbell Live and with other changes in journalism things seem to be getting dumbed down. I am a realist as well. MediaWorks is a commercial entity; Radio New Zealand is not and also TVNZ is not. So I think there is an onus on State-owned or public broadcasters to make sure that they are delivering a decent standard of journalism in New Zealand. And because of the way that technology is changing and we are seeing a lot of merging of media companies at the moment—you will see the New Zealand Herald and RadioWorks come together to make New Zealand Media and Entertainment—the standard of journalism is changing. I think that that is a real threat to democracy in New Zealand and to accuracy preciseness in journalism.So we need to have a standard bearer and I think that Radio New Zealand and I hope one day TVNZ in some form of public broadcasting guise might be able to play this role. But that is not going to be a reality under the current Government because public broadcasting just simply does not seem to be a priority for it. Let us look at its track record in other areas. TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7 which were set up by the previous Labour Government to make sure that State broadcasting had a space in the digital media were cut off by Jonathan Coleman a previous National broadcasting Minister.I do not hesitate to agree with the Minister that public broadcasters have to change their game. I do not watch much TV either these days. I have got an internet connection; I watch Netflix. I watch what I want to watch and when I want to watch it. But we need to make sure that New Zealand stories are told and are in that sphere and if we do not have a Government that supports the likes of NZ On Air supports the likes of TVNZ and local broadcasters and local content producers and supports Radio New Zealand then we are going to be in serious danger of having all this content from around the world coming into New Zealand and not having any of our own stories to tell. When I grew up back in the day there were lots of New Zealand faces and lots of stories—Hon Member: Like what?KRIS FAAFOI: —it was so long ago—out there whether it be children’s TV or whether it be documentaries or whether it be factual programmes as well.Hon Member: Under the Mountain.KRIS FAAFOI: Under the Mountain—no Terry Teo and things like that and Video Dispatch were very important when I was growing up.But I think that if we are going into this digital age and we do not have a prioritising of New Zealand content then I think future generations of New Zealanders will miss out. We will not have New Zealand stories on air. We will not hear our voices on the radio. We will get stuff piped in from overseas. Essentially changes in technology mean bigger pipes and you can get things faster. One of the first things I said last year around the changing technologies around broadcasting was that you can have a bigger pipe but if you are still sending sewage down it it is still sewage. Our viewers and our listeners do not want sewage coming in from overseas. We want good stuff—good stuff—that is New Zealand made is our stories our own voices and our own people and our diverse communities in New Zealand to make sure those stories are being told.This piece of legislation in a way is good because it started under a Labour Government that said there needed to be a review and a charter for Radio New Zealand. There needs to be a review every 5 years. We have already missed one and we are likely to have the second miss because of the lateness of this piece of legislation coming through the House.So it kind of irks me a little bit to hear the Minister over there saying that they want to futureproof Radio New Zealand and make sure it is relevant. If they really cared about it—and let us be honest and let us cut to the chase they do not—they would have done this a long time ago and they would not have cut the budget of Radio New Zealand. They would not have sold off TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7. They would not have made TVNZ purely commercial. But it is quite clear that this Government does not care about public broadcasting.