Faafoi Kris: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9023. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): I will avail myself of the opportunity to complete the speech that I began on 1 July 2015. I guess that shows you the priority that the current Government has given public broadcasting. I will come back to the background to the bill which will outline a pretty sorry tale of neglect and delay from the Government. Because we are taking all parts as one question I did want to take the opportunity to point out that broadcasting Radio New Zealand and how we get news out to people has changed considerably.A sign of that happened in the very suburb I live in Tītahi Bay this morning where the mast that once carried the radio signal of Radio New Zealand out to New Zealand and further afield was felled. It has been up there for decades and is part of the landscape in my neck of the woods. Now it is no longer because at 9 o’clock this morning someone pushed the button some explosives went off and the radio mast that once stood there proudly as a beacon for all the locals to know exactly where they were at a particular time of night is no longer there. I guess that is a real signal that happened today that broadcasting as we know it has changed is changing and will continue to change. I think that is why there has been some disappointment on this side of Chamber as to the delay of the passage of this piece of legislation through the House.A part of this legislation ensures that there is a 5-yearly review of Radio New Zealand its functions and its operations. One of those reviews was to happen in 2010 but that review has not happened because this piece of legislation has languished on the Order Paper. If you do the maths you will see that another review of Radio New Zealand its operations and its functions should have happened by rights about this time or late last year but that also has not happened.So that is the sorry tale of public broadcasting under this current Government. I think it shows just another example of its delay and neglect of public broadcasting when you put it into the context of what used to be and what is now no longer. I am pointing towards TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7 which were the two digital channels that were started up by our other supposed State broadcaster Television New Zealand (TVNZ) back in my days at TVNZ actually. I think it was 2008 that those channels were started.TVNZ 6 was a real loss because of the content it had for our children. It was free to air. It had mostly New Zealand content of a New Zealand feel. It was educational it gave our children a sense of what it was to be a New Zealander at a young age and it had good content. But unfortunately because of the overall attitude of the Government that has gone and we are debating the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill which has been delayed.I look to the quite substantive Supplementary Order Paper in name of the Minister Amy Adams—Supplementary Order Paper 94. The first substantive note in its explanatory note mentions the change in the commencement date: “Clause 2 is amended to substitute a new commencement as the date in the clause has passed.” So there you have it. The first lines of the explanatory note within Supplementary Order Paper 94 which the Minister has put forward admit that the commencement date has passed. It has not just passed though; it has passed by a good 5½ years which I think is a reflection of the Government’s priority around public broadcasting.I did want to point to what I think is a substantive provision within Supplementary Order Paper 94 and that is the inserting of new section 8AB in clause 5. That is around commercial-free broadcasting. I will take the liberty of reading this just so that those at home either listening or watching or watching this on the internet later can be fully aware of what I am talking about. New section 8AB says that “(1) The public radio company”—and that is Radio New Zealand or RNZ as we know it now—“must in fulfilling its Charter provide its services in a commercial-free manner.” But it can offer some commercial services “(3) … if the provision of the service or services—(a) is consistent with its role as a public broadcaster; and (b) does not impact adversely on the provision of its services under its Charter;”.It also allows Radio New Zealand or RNZ as we know it now to provide: “(4)(a) … media services to countries outside New Zealand other than Radio New Zealand International or any radio services that might replace in whole or in part Radio New Zealand International:”. That is essentially saying that RNZ as we know it now can provide content to overseas broadcasters and it does not matter whether or not there are commercials on that broadcaster. It is very similar to the set-up that they have got with the BBC which I also have some knowledge of working for. BBC World News which we watch to get our international news is a commercial arm of the BBC. It is allowed to sell advertising but you will not see that content within the UK because the BBC in its purest form in the UK is non-commercial. But there is a revenue stream allowed to be had with BBC World News which I used to work for.There is a good side and a bad side to this. It is good in that it opens up another revenue stream for Radio New Zealand to get funds to be able to do more of the things that we would like to see. But there is a tension on this side of the Chamber over the fact that for the last 8 years we have seen a funding freeze at Radio New Zealand and that has affected its ability to do its core services. At the select committee when asked about that by our broadcasting spokesperson Clare Curran the board chair and the chief executive have been quite frank about the fact that they have been under extreme pressure to deliver their services under the frozen budget.I will take this opportunity to directly quote them because I do not want to quote them wrong. This was at the annual review of Radio New Zealand with the Commerce Committee. The board chair I believe said: “I’d say our financials are as healthy as they possibly could be under the circumstances of a budget that hasn’t been increased in terms of Government financing”. I think they were being a little bit polite there. They went on to say to Clare Curran: “the impact of inflation has eroded the purchasing power … But we are getting to the point where those limited rations are getting more difficult to handle and I’m quite happy to go on the record about that.” That was someone in a management position talking about delivering those core functions which are in this Supplementary Order Paper—delivering good news services and good content to New Zealanders. That person is worried that his ability to do that is constrained by the fact that the Government has frozen Radio New Zealand’s budget for the last 8 years.I would ask that the Minister in the chair Nathan Guy at some stage elaborate about how the Government is going to help Radio New Zealand achieve some of the objectives within this amended legislation when that budget has been frozen. I think that is a serious challenge that the Government has put itself under. Although it has aspirations to have a strong public broadcaster it certainly has not backed up those aspirations with the taxpayers’ ability to fund Radio New Zealand.I do praise Radio New Zealand for opening up another revenue stream by using commercial means to do that. Most public broadcasters around the world do that. But I think it would also show a decent amount of commitment from the Government itself if it backed up its aspirations for RNZ or Radio New Zealand or however you want to describe it with actual funding that helped meet—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): I would just ask the member—because he has travelled widely on this particular aspect which is not part of the bill in front of him. Can he now bring himself—now he has been given some latitude—to come back to what is in front of him.KRIS FAAFOI: Thank you very much Mr Chair. I am not going to question that ruling but I think because this is a wide-ranging debate on all sections I was allowed some latitude on this issue.There has been a lack of reviews over the last 8 years. If there has not been a review in 2010 and there has not been a review in 2015 and this piece of legislation implements a review every 5 years I would ask that the Government commit in this process to making sure that there is more than just a standard review at its next opportunity—and I hope the Government will take the next available opportunity to have a broad review of Radio New Zealand. I would ask that the Government take a really good look at the functions and the operations and if I may say the funding of New Zealand. We are now two reviews out. The public and Radio New Zealand have deserved two reviews of its functions in 2010 and 2015 but because of this Government’s inability to get this piece of legislation through we have not got there.