Burns Brendon: Television New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Burns Brendon: Television New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18283] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I would like to talk about a wide range of issues relating to the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill but I cannot let pass the comments from the member for Te Tai Tonga in support of this bill and how it will serve Maori interests. I note that the charter provisions that this bill replaces which gave effect to a wide range of programming interests including the issues of minority groups and Maori are simply replaced in this bill by the requirement that TVNZ “carries out its functions and maintains its commercial performance.” How that serves the interests of Maori is absolutely beyond me. It is a joke to say that this bill serves the interests of Maori or any other New Zealander. 
When I took on the broadcasting portfolio 2½ years ago I took the trouble to take out a video of a film I had watched many years earlier as a young man called  
Network 
. It starred Peter Finch as a television anchor in America who was sacked because the ratings of the channel for which he was a frontman were falling. On the last night that he was on air he went mad the ratings soared and he was kept on air by the new marketing executive on that channel as the ratings climbed and climbed. The network brought into the news hour people such as “Sybil the Psychic”—who I suppose was some latter-day equivalent to Ken “Moon” Ring—and the programme got more and more bizarre as this madman fronted it. Finally in the coup de grâce the television executives ordered the assassination of that news anchor to really put the ratings through the stratosphere. 
That is what this bill is about. It is a portent of where we are going with television in this country. It is a disgraceful bill. It will lead to an increasingly disgraceful TVNZ. It comes from a Minister who has absolutely no clout in Cabinet and it shows in this bill. It is from a Government with an agenda to dumb down TVNZ and prepare it for sale in any second term of a National-ACT Government. If we thought Paul Henry was poor—if we thought his comments about the previous Governor-General not being a suitable Governor-General were poor—well watch out because there will be one hell of a lot more of that coming down our TVNZ channels as a result of this bill. As I said at the start the only requirement that TVNZ will have from here on as a result of the passage of this bill is to ensure that TVNZ maintains its commercial performance. 
I think back to one of the earlier incidents involving Mr Henry when the head of news and current affairs at TVNZ tut-tutted slapped him with a wet bus ticket and said that he was a naughty boy but he rated. We have another parallel to this bill in respect of the actions of TVNZ and TV3 against the Broadcasting Standards Authority. The authority tried to suggest that a programme airing on TV2 one of our State broadcasting channels called  
Hung 
 which showed a man performing oral sex upon a woman might not be worthy of broadcasting on the State channel and TVNZ and TV3 ganged up against the Broadcasting Standards Authority because they did not want any constraint on their commercial objectives. If someone tries to put up a Maori programme against anything with that kind of content the viewer will lose big time and Maori interests will lose big time. They will not gain any audience share in a broadcasting environment where the only requirement of the State broadcaster is to coin it and to make a 9 percent dividend for this Government. There is no other requirement compunction or limitation upon it. All the broadcaster has to think about is the money it will make for the Government. 
It is an appalling set of objectives for any Government in a Western democracy to say to its State broadcaster that it does not give a damn what it does as long as it makes money. It is an appalling indictment on us as parliamentarians. We are living in a democratic system. We must have a broadcaster that is not driven solely by commercial objectives. We should have a broadcaster that needs to consider the issues of balance fairness judgment and propriety and not simply the question of whether a programme will rate and make more and more money for the Government because that is what the Government is telling us it wants. This is an indictment of this Government. It absolutely symbolises the Government. It says everything about this Government because it comes down to commercial performance. That is the only measure that counts for this Government. It is an appalling indictment upon it. This is an absolutely disgraceful bill. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I would like to hear what the member is saying so I ask members to please calm it down. Interjections should be rare and reasonable. Cross-exchanges are not acceptable. Comment on what the member is saying is fine. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: This bill is an absolutely appalling indictment of this Government and the approach it is taking. It is replacing the TVNZ charter which required the State broadcaster to consider a range of issues and concerns such as minority interests Maori interests people with disabilities and people who wanted to see programmes that were not driven by commercial objectives. The Government has simply told TVNZ not to worry about any of those considerations; all it has to do is make as much loot as possible. As I have said if we think we have seen the worst already in respect of our State broadcaster we have not really seen anything yet. I will also say in respect of this bill that it is part of an agenda towards the privatisation of TVNZ— 
Hon Members 
: Oh! 
BRENDON BURNS 
: Well Ministers and members opposite were denying they would have any privatisation but suddenly in the last few months it has become clear that yes we will see the sale of State assets to 49 percent after any election that the National and ACT Government is likely to win. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: All energy companies. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: I say to the member for North Shore that with his departure and with the elevation to Parliament perhaps of Don Brash the prospects of TVNZ being privatised have just increased because there is already not much restraint in respect of that party opposite. If Don Brash is elected to Parliament we will see TVNZ put on the blocks very rapidly. And it will probably be sold to the mates of that Government who have already seen the abandonment of a review of competition in broadcasting that was desperately needed. The Crown Ownership Monitoring Unit of Treasury actually told the incoming Minister in his briefing papers that the value of TVNZ was being eroded by Sky and its increasing dominance of the broadcasting market in New Zealand. But what did that Minister do? He actually turned down the advice of the officials and said that his Government did not need any review of broadcasting because it was working perfectly well. But what is happening now? The market share of Sky continues to grow. 
FreeView was established by the previous Labour Government with channels 6 and 7 to make sure people had an alternative to the increasing commercialism of TVNZ. We had two non-commercial channels which gave people an opportunity to have something a bit more high-brow than  
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. But what has happened? TVNZ 6 has been turned into a youth music channel and TVNZ 7 is being abandoned from the middle of next year. That is the prescription for broadcasting that this Government is following—if it don’t make a quid it ain’t got no value. I say to members opposite that they need to think very carefully about this bill and what it prescribes because if you live by this you will die by it and you will have the whole situation emerging of an increasingly commercial TVNZ and you will suffer from that as much as members on this side of the House— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I thought I had indicated to the member that he cannot bring the Speaker into the debate. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: My apologies again Mr Deputy Speaker—my apologies. Ministers and members opposite will be the people who pay the price as much as members on this side because where there is an increasingly dominant commercial environment then there will be a price to be paid. We have already seen the dominance of Sky in the last year. A year ago this month I think it took on the TVNZ Heartland channel using material paid for by New Zealand taxpayers who cannot even see it on their channels. They have to pay their coins to Rupert Murdoch to watch TVNZ content that was paid for by them in the past. That is a portent of what is happening. That is the future of broadcasting under this Government. There will not be anything made for TVNZ that does not have a commercial return. The independent producers know that the future is very bleak for them because they will have to compete with that increasingly commercial content drawn from overseas. It will be sexed up so that people will view it and how on earth will a good documentary screen in that sort of environment? Why would TVNZ put one to air in a slot at a time people can actually watch it when they can buy  
Hung 
 and other programmes at a tenth of the price from overseas? The content will be sexed up to maximise the audience increase the revenues and pay the 9 percent return to the Government. That is what this is about. Alongside the $43 million sweetheart deal with MediaWorks that is the portent of what this Government is about in respect of broadcasting. This bill is an appalling bill and it is a disgraceful bill. We as parliamentarians who are at the forefront of democracy should stand against this bill.