Television New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Television New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18759] 
Television New Zealand Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 12 May. 
Part 2 Repeals and related amendments ( 
continued 
)  
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to continue my call on this part of the bill. We were discussing issues around the archiving of TVNZ works under this part which inserts new section 57A. One of the points I want to make is that TVNZ and its predecessor have a very proud history of making good-quality public service broadcasting content. In fact I started my career as a young New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation reporter in the mid-1970s working on programmes like  
Town and Around 
 which was the regional television current affairs programme for Wellington and the wider region. Other members of the Committee may recall a similar version called  
The South Tonight 
 and in the Auckland region it was called  
Top Half 
. Those programmes sparked the careers of a number of illustrious broadcasters. That was the environment we were working in. 
But the question I want to ask the Minister of Broadcasting tonight is what access New Zealanders will have should they wish to watch any of those past archived programmes and others. I think of programmes like  
Country Calendar 
 which endures to this day. In fact it is about the only TVNZ programme that has survived from that era through to the present day with a number of permutations but still very popular. I still well remember probably its best-known episode—a spoof programme done around 1 April featuring turkeys in gumboots. This was not a visit by the National caucus to rural New Zealand. This was a programme around a spoof that supposedly this turkey farm had put all of its stock in gumboots. That is the sort of programme people still enjoy but those programmes need a vehicle. They need a channel that will screen them. Of course we have seen under this Minister of Broadcasting the loss already of TVNZ 6 to become a commercial music channel. Some of us with an interest in the broadcasting sphere thought that maybe that is the cost of being in a recession. Maybe that might be what we have to give away to maintain a non-commercial TVNZ channel and maybe TVNZ 7 might still have a future. But a month ago the Minister announced that TVNZ 7 would go off air next year and that the funding for that channel would not be renewed in any shape or form and there are even questions around whether TVNZ was asked for that funding or was trying to find that funding itself. 
We are now providing under new section 57A that archived works will be available for public viewing but I would like to ask the Minister what medium or channel TVNZ would use to put on air archived content. Those programmes have their place. People I know watch things like past British sitcoms. It is a very small stream of audience but still it is a popular subset. Of course those programmes are available only on the Sky network. What we are talking about is past New Zealand content content that has been funded by us as taxpayers by us as shareholders in TVNZ when it became a more commercially oriented company. Given that the main premise of this bill is that TVNZ shall have a focus only on commercial function—that is to make a profit—where will the public viewing of New Zealand content provided for under this bill be screened? My suspicion and belief is that although this part of the bill is making this content available for public viewing in fact it will not be for what we might consider public viewing—that is viewing available to all New Zealanders. It may be available to people who have Sky subscriptions and that leaves 2 million New Zealanders even with the predominance of Sky who would not be able to see the very content that this part of the bill suggests they will be able to see. 
The two channels that were available to show New Zealanders that sort of content are going off air or have already gone off air under this Minister. I think that is extraordinarily unfortunate. Those channels were to provide the platforms for TVNZ to have a presence in the digital age which is another essential element of this bill. We saw the creation of the FreeView platform to provide an alternative to subscription television. People had a choice. In fact we are getting shrinking choices under this bill. Even under this part which suggests there may be more capacity for New Zealanders to see some of their own content created in the past and put in the vaults out at Avalon that content will not I believe be able to be seen by at least half of the New Zealand population because the platforms they would have been able to see them on are being whittled away by this Government. 
I would like to note that in an interview the Minister gave to  
Morning Report 
 about a month ago as he was explaining the demise of TVNZ 7 he mentioned how everybody would be getting quality programming from many different sources including the internet in the future which of course is true. But we have to ask where the role for public service broadcasting is in that and whether there will be under TVNZ—an important question for the Minister—a capacity to show on the internet at least some of this archived content. Will New Zealanders be able to see that or as I suspect will we have to pay for that privilege whether via the internet or via Sky because TVNZ is simply told that its only function is to make a good dividend for the Government? The idea that the internet creates content is a bit of a misnomer anyway. Internet providers or those who use the internet tend to take content mash it up and do their own things with it. It is not actually a vehicle for creating content; it is a vehicle for relaying content most particularly. As mentioned this bill supposedly will allow New Zealanders to see their archived works in a public viewing sense but nothing in this bill spells out where that actually will be provided for. 
I also draw attention to some of the leading broadcasting academics who have written to the Minister and to the Government over the axing of TVNZ 7 which of course they saw would have been one of the prime vehicles—in fact the remaining prime vehicle—for the public viewing of archived works. But of course from next year from about this time next year under this Government there will be no TVNZ 7; there will be no channel to allow New Zealanders other than those taking out a Sky subscription to see the content they have paid for. Those academics have noted that every other OECD country bar Mexico has a public service broadcasting television channel—at least one. We like to regard ourselves as a First World nation and one of the measures of that is having—members opposite can believe it or not—a State channel at least one that has a requirement to provide a sometimes non-commercial sometimes lightly commercial and sometimes commercial channel but at least one that has the mandate to regard itself as providing more than a dividend stream to the Government. But here we are in this part of the bill looking at screening supposedly some of the very content New Zealanders have a right to see which is some of the content Maori Television is picking up in a very clever low-budget way and showing us. They are programmes like Maori Television’s version of  
It’s in the Bag 
. We can see the Maori equivalent now on Maori Television— 
Kris Faafoi 
: Sam wants the money. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: That is fine because I am not going to give him the bag. It would be unfair. But the point is that Maori Television is providing that kind of programming and we will not be able to see the original should we wish on our State-owned channel because it will not be there. We will be able to go and watch it on Sky maybe via the Heartland channel— 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I too like the previous speaker Brendon Burns will focus in the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill on new section 57A which is all about making archived works available for public viewing. It is supremely ironic that for many years there have been negotiations to allow the creation of the wonderful wonderful library of archival material made over many years while TVNZ was a public service television broadcaster. For years there have been negotiations about how we could make that archival material available on television. An agreement was negotiated to allow archival programmes to be screened for public viewing. The irony is as the previous speaker pointed out that this wonderful treasure of archival material made by public service television will not be able to be screened on TVNZ on free-to-air television because this bill will turn TVNZ into a commercial broadcaster stripped of any public service interests or obligations. It will exist to chase ratings and to return a dividend to the Government. 
This totally commercially focused new entity that Television New Zealand will be once this legislation is passed will not screen archival material because that material will not rate like some blockbuster imported American programme. As the previous speaker said we will not see that material. Having spent all this time negotiating for the wonderful collection of archival works to be screened they will not be screened or made available for public viewing. It will not be available on free-to-air television once TVNZ 7 has also gone next year. 
Ironically the only place we might be able to see this archival footage is on pay television on Sky television. It is extraordinary and ironic that Television New Zealand a publicly owned broadcaster told us recently in the Commerce Committee that its main area of growth was in developing material and channels for pay television. A free-to-air broadcaster which TVNZ still is at this moment sees as its main raison d’être the making of channels and programmes for pay television—for Sky television. Quite clearly as I have mentioned before in this debate the agenda is to move away from free-to-air television in New Zealand—just as we are now moving in this bill away from public service television—to pay television and commercial television. It is ironic that this will happen. 
It is interesting that Brendon Burns said that he worked in regional television for TVNZ. I did not know that. I too worked in regional television in TVNZ when it was a genuinely public service organisation. When I worked for TVNZ for 2 or 3 years on  
Eyewitness News 
 etc.— 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: Did you? 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: —yes—there was a significant current affairs department there was regional television and there was a whole documentary department. Documentaries were screened every week and watched by a very large segment of the population. Some of the highest-rating programmes were documentaries. When we look 20 years later at what Television New Zealand is today we ask where the documentaries are. Where are the New Zealand - made documentaries? Where is the current affairs television—the in-depth current affairs television? 
Unfortunately Television New Zealand is but a shadow now of its former self. In this bill it is stripped of all its public service obligations. Under this bill it is a nakedly commercial organisation. 
PESETA SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I am pleased to take another call in the Committee stage of the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill and to talk to the section with regard to archived works. I will revisit what I see as being the critical issue in this bill—that is the issue of the public good. We have talked about that in relation to a number of issues a number of subjects throughout the discussion. 
As we know this bill has two main intentions. The first which Labour fundamentally opposes is to remove the charter and replace it with a minimalist statement of functions. The second is to create the scheme that has been talked about tonight so that those publicly funded works—those very important publicly funded works; the works that are part of our cultural heritage and the identity of who we are as a nation—that were made before 1989 and that are now held in the TVNZ archive can be made available for rescreening. That scheme was called the archived works scheme. I say—and it is important that I do get the chance to say this in this debate—that that scheme has some merit. There was a very interesting discussion in the select committee about this issue. In fact much of the discussion concerned how to make the scheme possibly work. Unfortunately the other major part of the bill which is the removal of the charter was just unacceptable—absolutely unacceptable—and it meant that Labour could not support the bill. 
I will talk a little bit about the archived works scheme and what it represented because it is worthy of some discussion particularly giving credit to the number of submitters and the discussion had with them and the notice the select committee took. The select committee did a lot of work on this issue and I acknowledge the work the officials put into this bill. 
The archived works scheme was described as proposing and enabling a rescreening of those works that to date had been unavailable for reuse because of the need to negotiate with the multiple contract holders. It is important to take this seriously because it was about seeking to find a balance between the public-good objective—I will say that again: the public-good objective—of releasing those works for current and future generations to see and acknowledging the rights of those who were contracted to work on those programmes. 
There were 48 submissions; 16 of them were essentially pro forma submissions but there were a number of important submissions from different agencies. Those agencies took this issue quite seriously and as a result of that discussion the select committee made a number of changes to the bill in its report back to the House. I will briefly touch on them in order to give weight to the work the select committee did. In those changes the committee recommended that the definition of “archived work” be changed to make it clear that it would apply only to works made on or before 27 May 1989 for which TVNZ owned the whole copyright. The select committee also recommended that not only must archived works be screened free to the viewer—I will repeat that: free to the viewer—but they must not be screened between the hours of 6 p.m. and 10.30 p.m. on any day of the week on Television One and TV2. That provision was essentially about making sure that profit was not being gained from that screening. 
The rights of persons with an interest in archived work were to cease. The select committee recommended it be made clear that the cessation of rights of persons with an interest in archived work would apply only to the contractual rights in copyright under the Copyright Act 1994 and that oral and performers’ rights would remain unaffected. The select committee also recommended that the fund must contain a sum determined— 
JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Mr Chair thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to Part 2 of the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill. I will follow the lead of a number of speakers before me and concentrate on new section 57A which relates to the rescreening of archived material. 
There is a wealth of archived material in the Avalon Studios vault; I have been there myself. I think it is a good thing that New Zealanders will have the opportunity to see some of the material that has been locked away in that vault for some time and also that there will be a framework set up to ensure that those who may have claim to royalties should their work be rescreened will be able to do that. 
As my colleague Clare Curran said the legislation is very specific as to what is considered archived material. It includes programmes or series that were produced before 27 May 1989. We agree that these shows should be screened again. I have a vague memory of some of them such as  
Close to Home 
.  
Mortimer’s Patch  
is something I do not really recall— 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: But you remember the McDonald’s. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: Yes; I was too busy with the McDonald’s. Something that probably the member for Maungakiekie would remember better is  
Gloss 
—I am sure he was a big fan of  
Gloss 
 at the time.  
Hudson and Halls  
was maybe a show he enjoyed but I am sure judging by some of his contributions in the Committee he was more a fan of Billy T. James. 
As we have said it is fantastic to see some of this material rescreened for nostalgia opportunities. It is an opportunity for younger New Zealanders to see some of what has shaped New Zealand in terms of what is on our screens. It is an opportunity for us to see that and have a sense of identity. 
But as our previous speakers have asked what will be done with this content? What exactly will be done with this content and who will be able to access it? The commentary on the bill sets out very clearly that programming can be rescreened by a provider of another delivery platform that has an agreement with TVNZ for the supply of that content. It goes on to state that the committee recommends a new section “to make it clear that an archived work screened under this section must be screened free of charge to the viewer. We believe that archived programmes constitute a public good so the viewer should bear no cost.” 
But at the moment what situation do we have? This content is being played on the Sky platform via TVNZ Heartland. That is pay-per-view television so if people want to see some of this material that has been produced via the public broadcaster TVNZ which has been funded by New Zealand taxpayers over decades people will have to fork out for it. As the Minister said if that is in the public interest which public is it? It is the paying public. 
I have done a bit of research. The TVNZ Heartland platform is available on a basic Sky package which costs $47.66 a month. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: How much? 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: $47.66 a month. If people want to watch this stuff using the current way to watch it via Sky they will have to fork out $50 a month. That is hardly in the public interest of all New Zealanders. 
How is it in the public interest under the current model? Under this Sky platform the programming is supposed to be 100 percent local content. That is fine. It is supposed to be a celebration of New Zealanders and to show some of New Zealand’s finest shows but it is only available to Sky subscribers. Not even FreeView subscribers have the ability to tune into TVNZ Heartland. If this is the model we will see in the future for TVNZ content—content that has been built up over decades content that is very important in terms of educating future generations of New Zealanders about how New Zealand has progressed—and if the only way we will get it is via a pay-per-view television platform then I think that it is a very sad day for New Zealand broadcasting indeed. 
As I said it is not available to all New Zealanders and it costs $50 a month. Currently TVNZ has this archive and what will be done with it? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: You are well off-track. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: I think this is a fantastic opportunity to open up the archive as I said before. We can take a look at the past and see how our nation has grown through some of these programmes. Some of them are high-quality; some of them will be of questionable quality. 
I am glad that this legislation does not include news content. It applies basically only to content that has come through productions. It is good that those who have worked on it those who have come up with the ideas will have fair compensation for it. 
JO GOODHEW (Junior Whip—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Independents: Carter C Harawira. 
Motion agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 2 be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Independents: Carter C Harawira. 
Part 2 agreed to. 
Schedule 
A party vote. was called for on the question  
That the schedule be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Independents: Carter C Harawira. 
Schedule agreed to. 
Clauses 1 to 3 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I return to the core of what the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill is about which is the public good. Before this debate is out I would be very keen for the Minister in the chair the Minister of Broadcasting to respond to the question that has been put to him on a number of occasions as to why if this bill is aimed at providing archived works to the whole of New Zealand the 83000 households that do not receive Sky will not be able to access them. I ask the Minister to actually respond to that question before this debate is out. 
As of 30 June 2010 Sky had a total of 802397 subscribers. At that time the number of households in New Zealand was 1632200. That meant that 83000 of those households did not get Sky which is equivalent to around 2 million New Zealanders. That is very important because it is about equity the public good and who gets to see these important archived works that are the substance of this bill and are the essence of what makes us New Zealanders: our past and how we have developed. 
The claim that it is in the public interest that they be seen again has been made a mockery of since TVNZ Heartland was launched which is now exclusively for Sky to screen heritage programming. As a number of speakers tonight and previously have mentioned those heritage programmes were all made by paid license fees so in fact the public has already paid for the production of those programmes through fees and taxes. Now the public has to pay Sky for the privilege of watching them again and the Sky shareholders get to reap the rewards. 
I know that a number of my colleagues have mentioned some of those programmes and I will mention them again. One of the people in those programmes is very dear to my heart and I have launched a bit of a campaign to attract him to come back home from over the Ditch. It is John Clarke—or Mr John Clarke as he is described on Twitter where we have the occasional conversation—aka Fred Dagg. He is a cultural icon in New Zealand and he has become a cultural icon in Australia. It is a damn shame that he did not stay in New Zealand— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: “If it weren’t for your gumboots”. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: If it were not for our gumboots where would we be? 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Sing it. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: I will not be singing in this House. I pay special tribute to Fred Dagg. A few members on this side of the House would put their hands up if they were asked whether they modelled themselves on him. 
Carol Beaumont 
: Who are the Bruces? 
CLARE CURRAN 
: There are also the Trevs. We have at least one of those on this side of the House although he claims he is not one of those Trevs. 
Then there is Lynn of Tawa David McPhail and Jon Gadsby and Billy T James who brought Maori comedy to the fore in the early 1980s. There was our first enduring situation comedy  
Gliding On 
. Then there were those iconic programmes some of which have been mentioned like  
Pukemanu 
— 
Hon Rick Barker 
:  
Close to Home 
. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: — 
Close to Home Gloss 
 and  
Shortland Street 
. I cannot say I spend a lot of time watching  
Shortland Street 
 as I do not get much time to do that but there are many other award-winning efforts. Where are they now? Where are those sorts of programmes now? Where is the will to make those sorts of programmes in this country? I am interested to hear a bit more from the Minister about that. 
The point is that that was critical television during an important time in our heritage and it should be an important time now. Instead there is very little likelihood of those sorts of programmes being made in this country again. 
Removing the important TVNZ charter is the reason why Labour opposes this bill. It was extraordinary that the Minister of Broadcasting got up in this Committee and talked about the bill making an honest broadcaster out of TVNZ. Somebody said to me today that that is like taking the same moral grounding as a pimp welcoming the legalisation of prostitution. 
If the Minister of Broadcasting is interested in being honest then I ask whether he can show us where in National’s manifesto for 2008 there was any indication that the charter and TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7 would be scrapped. Could he explain why he continues to refuse to release the documents outlining TVNZ’s proposals for investment in TVNZ 7 and the TVNZ business plans for 2010 and 2011? If he is interested in being honest then what has he got to hide? And why at the 2010 Screen Production and Development Association conference did he indicate that he wanted to retain TVNZ 7? What happened? 
Hon Members 
: Got rolled. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: Well what else are we meant to think? As I said in my second reading speech on this bill there is significant weakness here. 
Can the Minister tell us whether he genuinely agrees with his Cabinet colleagues who oppose the continuation of the funding for TVNZ 7? I ask why he continues to ignore the concerns of the 61 academic researchers who took the unprecedented step of writing an open letter calling for a public debate on public broadcasting issues—a really important debate. Why did he try to mislead the public in the ambiguity of the findings of the officials’ watered-down report on broadcasting competition and why did he and his Government ditch the digital review in 2009? 
I wonder why he does not open up these issues for a proper debate where all of the arguments the evidence the public interest and the public good could be given proper consideration. Surely a Government that is too scared to look at the evidence can hardly claim to be interested in honesty. 
I think the Minister said that the only alternative to scrapping the charter was to fully fund TVNZ at a rate of $300 million a year. That is absolute rubbish and he knows that. Under his watch we have seen TVNZ 6 close down. We know that TVNZ 7 is facing closure. But if one does the calculations one sees it would cost only 1c per person per day to save those channels. I think it has been calculated as costing less than a cup of coffee per person per year. TVNZ Heartland again has appeared exclusively on Sky. 
Some really important quite significant and quite disturbing issues have been raised during this debate. The Minister has suggested that the Opposition missed the announcement on the radio spectrum licence fee deferrals in 2009 but when that decision was announced it came in the context of several smaller broadcasters that were finding times tough in the recession. What was not apparent until very recently was the scale of the MediaWorks deal. If the Government was being open and honest as it claims it has been throughout this debate then why did it not reveal the real reasons behind the deferral decisions? It was only when those recent Official Information Act documents were made available that it became apparent that the Government had bent over backwards to ignore the advice of its own advisers in Treasury and the Ministry of Economic Development. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Broadcasting) 
: 
 What an intellectually loose if not somewhat poisonous contribution from Labour’s soon-to-be-sacked broadcasting spokesperson. It was intellectually loose on a number of fronts. 
I checked her figures closely. She repeated a couple of times that 83000 households in New Zealand were without Sky TV. Well I think Ms Curran needs to check her facts. Then we had a long rambling discourse going through the history of New Zealand television. You know if we take 1.6 million households and we subtract the just over 800000 households that have Sky we do not get 83000. I am very surprised because that member reads laboriously and continuously from prepared notes but she does not have the wherewithal and the wit to pick up the most basic error. If she does not know the most basic fundamentals of the numbers in this whole equation how can we rely on anything else she said? 
She went on to make out that the National Government was not honest on issues of broadcasting yet she was fundamentally misleading the House—misleading the House—by trying to make out that this archiving scheme would result in all those archived works being shown on pay TV— 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I thought I heard the Minister say—I could not hear it clearly because of the catcalling from the other side—that the member was deliberately misleading the House. It is wrong to say that and to accuse a member of that. If the Minister did say that then I think he should withdraw it. If he did not I accept the clarification. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I thank the member for that. The word “misleading” was certainly used but I do not think “misleading the House” was. But I just caution the Minister. The Minister is to be very careful with the use of that word. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Well just like that member got the figures badly wrong about the number of houses with and without Sky TV she also got it really badly wrong in that she does not understand the fundamentals of this Television New Zealand Amendment Bill. That is the truth of it. She is telling the public and apparently this is not deliberate that this bill will free up archived works to be shown only on pay TV. Anyone who has read the bill—and I do not know whether this member has read the bill—will know that it is freeing up works that can be shown only on free-to-air television. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: How many households don’t have Sky? 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: They can try and shout down the argument but I have the microphone. 
The other thing that is really interesting is that that member over there Clare Curran basically harangued us for doing away with TVNZ 7. I can tell members why I think she is very soon to be sacked. Phil Goff was on the radio yesterday and just like he had to sack Brendon Burns I think when he hears how his spokesperson has gone on tonight he will have to have a word with her. Phil Goff was asked yesterday how Labour felt about this bill and whether it would support it. Phil got the first bit right; he said that Labour would not support it. He was then asked whether Labour would put more money into TVNZ and whether it would save TVNZ 7. He said: “Well you know look I can’t make a whole series of promises at this time until I’ve seen the whole picture. I mean we’ve got to focus on helping people struggling with the cost of living we’ve got to get rid of that deficit and then we’ve got a series of things that we would want to do and that may include TVNZ.” 
Well is that not the point? Basically $79 million over 6 years went into that channel. The Labour Government had no idea how it was going to continue to fund it. It had made no allowance for it. It had said it would be self-funding. In the end it is not. We are left with one heck of a problem which we have solved. What would Labour members do? Would they bring it back? Will Clare Curran be stupid enough to contradict Phil Goff tonight and get up and promise that Labour would fund TVNZ 7? I challenge her to do that but I bet she will not. She would be hauled into Phil Goff’s office tomorrow if she did and told: “Sorry darling you have just added another cost another unfunded promise on to the list of what will be a very heavy load strung around our neck at the next election.” 
Fundamentally this bill brings honesty. Here is another thing Phil Goff said yesterday: “You know if we’re totally honest you have got to say it is hard to see much on TV1 that is public service.” So Phil Goff actually gets it. But of course because ideologically he is stuck in a time warp in the wrong party he has to go along with this Labour Party charade that the TVNZ charter actually did something. [ 
Interruption 
] 
We can tell by the cackle and the shouting from those members that they know they have lost this argument intellectually. They know the charter never did anything they know fundamentally they would not bring it back and they know they would not fund TVNZ 7 because they know they could not afford to. They have no intention of doing that. They had the chance to push through a regulatory review but they left it to us. They deferred it they deferred it and they deferred it because they knew that at the end of the day it was not publicly palatable. No one wanted that review. When we took power we were up front and honest about it. All they can do is criticise us for doing something they never had the guts to do themselves. So that spokesperson is totally out of step with her leader. 
This is a great bill. If Labour members had any sense they would vote for it. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 When the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill comes into force—I think that is the terminology—and receives the Royal assent New Zealand will lose our public service broadcasting channel. We will be the only country in the Western world with the exception of Mexico that does not have a mainstream public service television channel. TVNZ will exist for the sole purpose of returning a profit and a dividend to the Government. We have to ask what the point is in a State-owned broadcaster that has no public service functions or responsibilities. What is the point? We predict that once this bill comes into effect we will see less and less New Zealand content on television because TVNZ will exist to chase ratings to make money and to return a profit. It will be indistinguishable from any other commercial broadcaster. It will not make New Zealand programmes. Why not? For the simple reason that it is much cheaper to import foreign programmes so there will be less and less New Zealand content. 
In fact we will probably see so few New Zealand programmes on TVNZ that people will be forced to look to the archives to try to get some New Zealand content. All of the discussion about the wonderful programmes that were made by TVNZ that are lodged in the archive at Avalon made me realise that a number of programmes that I made will be in the archives at Avalon: three television documentaries that I made will be lodged there in the archives and the whole series of  
That’s Fairly Interesting 
—a programme about quirky events that were happening in New Zealand at the time. Those are historical programmes that people would love to see. There is no equivalent to those programmes now being made by TVNZ so people will be very keen to look at those archival New Zealand programmes because we will see fewer and fewer New Zealand programmes on air. 
The irony is that those wonderful archival programmes will not be screened on TVNZ whatever the Minister says because the sole mandate of TVNZ is to chase ratings—not to show programmes for the public interest but only for the commercial interest. It will only be showing programmes that the sales department approves because they attract advertising and those wonderful archival materials and programmes that we have been talking about tonight will not be screened on TVNZ because they will not attract the advertisers so the sales department will not be interested. 
So we will join the shameful ranks with Mexico of countries having no public service broadcasting. Once this has gone through the Government will turn its mind towards weakening and undermining our other public service broadcaster Radio New Zealand. The intention of the Minister is to starve Radio New Zealand of funding weaken the organisation put it on the back foot and force it to commercialise. The agenda is absolutely clear and absolutely blatant because this Government and this Minister do not understand the importance or value of public service television or even of free-to-air television. It understands only commercial television. It understands supporting its friends and its mates in commercial broadcasting and in Sky television. 
I believe that in time we may very well see in New Zealand only paid television—within a short period of time—and we may find only one or perhaps two television channels foreign-owned channels owned by people like Rupert Murdoch and no public service broadcasting. This will have a significant impact on the identity of New Zealand on who we are because we will end up watching the equivalent of Fox Television. That is what will be available in New Zealand and that will have an impact on our identity as a nation as well as on the quality of our television. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I was very interested to hear comments from the Minister of Broadcasting because a number of us actually chipped at him to provide us with the number of households that do not have access to Sky television at this stage. It will be very useful if he makes a further contribution to this debate for him to actually provide us with a number. Would the Minister like to contribute the number now while I am speaking? 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: You know the answer. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: He thinks that I know the answer—the answer that he would give? I know the answer that my colleague gave and until the Minister provides us with an alternative to it I do not think we have another number on the table. 
I refer to a submission that I quoted from in the second reading on this bill. It is the submission that came to the Commerce Committee from New Zealand directors and editors—the Screen Directors Guild of New Zealand. They also made this point: “We are missing out as a nation if the only values we embrace are short-term commercial values. Many of the intangibles that we value and that make New Zealand special do not have an immediate short-term benefit but this does not mean they are not worthwhile.” I think those words are definitely the words we should bear in mind when we are considering the ramifications of this legislation. 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted.