Kedgley Sue: Television New Zealand Bill — Third Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Television New Zealand Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:606;Page:3874] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 First of all I want to make it clear that unlike the ACT party the Green Party passionately supports publicly owned public service television in New Zealand. In our increasingly globalised world where our sovereignty our culture our identity and so forth have been steadily eroded we think it is absolutely crucial that we have a strong independent publicly owned television broadcaster that has a very specific mandate and purpose to promote our New Zealand identity New Zealand programmes and so forth on television which after all is the most powerful medium of communication.  
Frankly we think it is disgraceful that on one of our publicly owned channels TV2—the channel I might say that our young people and children watch—there is only 13 percent of New Zealand programmes and there is 87 percent of foreign programmes. This means that our children are growing up learning more about the values and life and attitudes in Los Angeles than they do about their own communities. That is why we passionately support any move that will give a new direction to TVNZ and require it to show more New Zealand programmes. It is the reason that we support the transformation of TVNZ from a predominantly commercially focused State-owned enterprise into a Crown-owned company and why we support the concept of a charter which we hope will give a new direction for TVNZ so that it is editorially driven rather than just ratings-driven as it has been for the last decade.  
The need for having a strong publicly owned television channel is all the more critical as we enter the digital era which pundits are predicting will result in increasing fragmentation of television markets into niche channels with increasing concentration and domination of the broadcasting industry by a small number of large mega-companies that own digital platforms and an environment that will become increasingly hostile and difficult for commercial free-to-air broadcasters. They will find themselves with increasing fragmentation declining audiences and so forth.  
If this is the era that we are to enter it is essential that we try to ensure that TVNZ in this risky and uncertain environment is as strong as financially robust and as financially independent as possible with a healthy income stream the ability to earn revenues from various activities and as much leverage as possible. That is why while strongly supporting the charter in this bill we are totally opposed to the last-minute amendment that arrived like a bolt out of the blue after the select committee stage had ended to split off the transmission arm from TVNZ—the revenue-generating arm of BCL that the previousMinister of Broadcasting described as a wonderful golden goose. It was the transmission arm that quietly contributed money and funding over many years. Some of that money went into New Zealand programming.  
We believe that to separate off that transmission arm will weaken and not strengthen TVNZ. It will shrink the potential revenue base of Television New Zealand eliminate the option of cross-subsidies from the transmission arm and most unfortunate of all it will make Television New Zealand increasingly reliant on advertising revenue at the very precise moment in its history when we are saying: “We don’t want you to be advertising and ratings-driven. We want you to be editorially driven.”  
When looking at this splitting off of the transmission arm the Government asked the accounting firm Arthur Andersen and Co. to investigate the case for splitting it off. Arthur Andersen contemplated this for about 6 long months. In the end that company said that there is no compelling case for separating it off because we could do all of those things that the Minister of Broadcasting said he wanted it to do under the existing arrangements. The Government wanted the transmission arm to focus on its transmission business and get on with it. That is exactly what the structure in the original bill allowed it to do. That was precisely why it was set up with a separate board to focus on the transmission business.  
Some members over here have suggested that the bill has wide support. I want to tell them what the Screen Producers and Directors Association had to say about the prospect of separating off the transmission arm of TVNZ: “We believe the split will have a catastrophic impact in the long term. It will irrevocably damage TVNZ’s potential to remain a strong national presence. We cannot see how such a move will do anything other than hobble TVNZ’s potential to deliver on charter obligations in a meaningful way.” That is what the production industry thinks about this move. The only possible logical explanation for separating it off in this way would be if one were readying it for sale. We can only assume that the hidden agenda of the Government is to ready the transmission arm for sale. 
In our view because of the way the bill has ended up with this last-minute amendment to separate off the transmission arm we have a bill that sends conflicting and indeed schizophrenic messages to Television New Zealand. It is a bill that on one hand gives and on the other hand takes away. On the one hand the bill gives Television New Zealand this new mandate that we will now have new programmes—New Zealand minority spiritual—and a new direction and requirement to make all those local programmes and on the other hand we have taken away the revenue base with which to make those programmes. We have shrunk the revenue base of Television New Zealand and made it more not less dependent on advertising revenue.  
How can Television New Zealand deliver its mandate and make more New Zealand programmes if there is no money to make them? What will happen if the advertising revenue shrinks in the next few years—as is predicted and as all the pundits say? Where will the income come from then? What will happen if a future Government removes the direct subsidy of $10 million that the Government has projected for the next few years? Frankly we like Katherine Rich think that $10 million is a tiny amount on which to base the implementation of the charter. It is a pitiful amount. But what will happen if even that pitiful amount is taken away by a future Government—as it most certainly will be if a National Government ever gets back into power? National has already told us that it will be taking away the subsidy so where will the cash-strapped Television New Zealand turn then to make all of those charter-driven New Zealand programmes?  
The other issue with which we are seriously concerned is the potential that a direct subsidy will inevitably mean political influence. At the back of the mind of the chief executive of Television New Zealand and the board will always be that nagging anxiety about that $10 million direct grant from the Government—if they come up with a programme that the Prime Minister intensely dislikes or if the Government dislikes the election coverage in an upcoming general election. In the back of their minds will always be the question: “Will we find that our subsidy will be reduced next year?”. We need only cast our minds back to 1975 when Mr Muldoon refused to raise the licence fee and made it clear that it was a way of punishing broadcasters for expressing independent or dissident views. The Government has a direct grant that we can hold over Television New Zealand—“He who pays the piper plays the tune.”—and always in the back of those executives’ minds will be that direct grant their concern about not alienating a current Government and the effect that that alienation has for the political neutrality of Television New Zealand.  
We are absolutely delighted that two of our amendments to the charter have been accepted. One requires Television New Zealand to take a leading role in implementing the code of violence. We have excellent codes on violence; it is just that they are completely ignored and no one has done anything to implement them. So now Television New Zealand has an explicit mandate not to show programmes with gratuitous violence etc. and we will be watching that very closely. The second amendment supports the independent industry in New Zealand because already the cash-strapped Television New Zealand casting around for extra revenue is looking at independent producers. It is trying to fleece revenue from independent production houses.