te Heuheu Georgina: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
te Heuheu Georgina: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12239] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I want to make some introductory comments about the reason for this bill and the nonsense of its introduction into the House which the Minister of Broadcasting did some time ago now. It has been on the Order Paper for some time and clearly has not been urgent. 
The Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill largely deals with additions to the charter and places further responsibilities on Radio New Zealand when in fact the charter itself has not been around for very long and the public broadcaster has had trouble delivering on it in any event. The title is fair enough but the National Party opposes the bill. We see no good reason for the Minister to have introduced it particularly at a time when the broadcaster was in a state of dysfunction of declining audiences and of budget blowouts. At one stage the organisation was being described as so dysfunctional that internecine warfare was going on. Yet the Minister had the temerity I would say to bring in this bill to create an impression that all was well—when in fact all was not well—and that this broadcaster could take on more responsibilities. We will come to that as this Committee stage proceeds. 
The bill is only a two-page bill. On the face of it one might think that as it is only two pages maybe it is not very important or controversial yet in its own way it is very controversial. That is another reason why in my view the Minister ought not to have brought this bill to Parliament. Late last year there was a conference that brought together public broadcasters including visiting broadcasters from overseas to look at the place of public broadcasting. The place and role of public broadcasting are under scrutiny worldwide. Surely it would have been better and more appropriate and would have made more sense for the Minister to take the findings of those discussions and to put more effort and time into clarifying the role of a public broadcaster particularly in a multilayered multicultural society such as ours and in an environment where New Zealand listeners are spoilt for choice through commercial radio. The bulk of the population now is in the 18 to 35-40 demographic so how do we get a public broadcaster to cater for the listening aspirations of that age group? How indeed do we get a public broadcaster to cater for a wide range of listenership? This bill adds more obligations to Radio New Zealand’s current responsibilities. How does it manage to do that when the role and place of the public broadcaster internationally are now being scrutinised? 
We are here in urgency to debate and no doubt see the passage into law of the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill—not with National’s approval however. The Hon Steve Maharey in his thinking I guess decided it was necessary to add in more obligations. The legislation is controversial in that the charter is now amended by the insertion of the words “spiritual and ethical” which add to the obligations already on the broadcaster to deliver a very wide range of dimensions in a multilayered multicultural environment.