O'Connor Simon; Tisch LindsaySIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am pleased to take a call on the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill. I have found this debate very unsettling already—not so much that I am in opposition to the member's bill but that I am in agreeance with Trevor Mallard. It is a very unsettling place to be. I am not sure how I am going to deal with that. I just want to echo in many ways what Mr Mallard said particularly around who owns sport. I think that was a very salient point; the other is the community dynamics that do come from this. It is not the absolute argument of why we should pay for television but most of us can think of those occasions when we go down to our local rugby club pub or just to our mates who have Sky Sport to go and watch.Probably the other unsettling part I notice as a fencer is that nothing in this bill speaks about the great sport of fencing.Hon Trevor Mallard: Yes it does. It's in the catch-all clause.SIMON O'CONNOR: Oh it is in the catch-all clause. That is excellent. That is probably one small bit of opposition. I look forward to seeing more fencing on television.Hon Trevor Mallard: The member is a specialist on sitting on fences.SIMON O'CONNOR: Oh no not at all. I leave that to others. I leave that to the Leader of the Opposition who sits on fences and then changes how he sits on them.I believe that this is a bill—out of New Zealand First not unsurprisingly—that has a sort of populist pandering and a romantic view of the past. Although again I do not doubt the intention and potential goodwill of the member referring back to sport as he and others thought of it in the 1970s and the way things were is just romanticising something that does not exist anymore. Society has moved on. The business models of how we engage with sport have changed.Fundamentally a lot of sports—those listed in the schedule here—are now professional. Colleagues in the House have already indicated at this early stage the high reliance that our national sports have on the revenue generated by broadcasting. We have received information from the primary codes—the likes of netball cricket and rugby of course—that a substantial amount almost half of their revenue is gained from broadcasting and that in turn is what enables them to do the development in schools that has been mentioned. It is what enables them to engage players to keep them here in New Zealand.What this bill is asking us to do because of some romantic view of the past is for the Government to get all taxpayers some of whom will not watch sport to fund that. There is no understanding or articulation that I have heard yet from the member supporting this bill Clayton Mitchell of where that money is going to come from. It has been pointed out that there is nothing free here; someone here is going to have to pay. What this bill is trying to do is to push all of that cost onto the taxpayer. Those who work in broadcasting—the most notable of course is the likes of Sky television—will tell you of the hundreds of millions of dollars of investment that it takes to do the broadcasting. It is not simply about turning up with an old camera in front of television given our requirements now. I think of even college sport. I was over in Glendowie last year as Sacred Heart College was battling it out with Saint Kentigern College. Sky was there. Again we are talking top-notch cameras camera crews and the technology to make sure that level of broadcasting is at its highest and professional level.Again we have moved on as a country as to what we expect. This is an expensive business. I think the market is managing it perfectly well at the moment and to simply bring it across to Government just does not make any sense. In so much as we got a whole argument too—if I put my health hat on—that somehow free broadcasting is going to influence obesity by having our young people sitting around watching free television it just does not make sense.Just to bring out a final point: the fundamental principle in the bill in front of me the general policy statement talks about enjoyment. The whole basis of this is that if people enjoy sport we should in turn make that broadcasting free. Well I actually enjoy watching sport and I enjoy going along to sport. I am really interested in the member supporting a bill—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry. The member's time has expired.