Maharey Steve: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and  State Enterprises — In Committee 
Maharey Steve: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and  State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Volume:638;Page:8803] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Broadcasting) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairman— 
Hone Harawira 
: Thank you Mr Minister! 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I was trying to be quiet because it was a good speech. I think Mr Harawira has raised issues that go to the heart of what we are trying to do with broadcasting and of course that is to make sure Television New Zealand the major public broadcaster in the country does represent audiences right across the whole of the country. I thank him for his speech and hope he carries on raising those kinds of points about Maori broadcasting because although we do have as Mr Paraone pointed out a Maori broadcaster 24/7 each week—and it is doing a fantastic job; it is publicly funded part of the public service organisations of this country—Television New Zealand is still responsible for ensuring that it represents the wide spectrum of viewers and we want to see that it does serve Maori interests. 
 Can I go back to Mr Coleman who made I think his first foray into broadcasting this evening. I have not heard him speak on broadcasting before and I thought for the first 2 minutes— 
Hon Member 
: Which one is Mr Coleman? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Mr Coleman is the one who spoke before. I thought for the first 2 minutes of his speech that we were not going to hear about broadcasting because he talked largely about his incident with a cigar as far as I could tell and the fact that his career had come to an end after he blundered around the corporate boxes in Auckland. He made a huge mistake for a new member and of course ruined his career. I thought that was what he was going to talk about the whole time. 
One of the things we all know is that when people come into the House they do not necessarily come in with a background that fits the portfolio they get into. Mr Carter had no background in housing for example but he got the housing portfolio. People come in with different backgrounds and they have to go into portfolios they are not necessarily familiar with. Mr Coleman I understand is a medical doctor and therefore has no expertise in broadcasting at all apart from sitting watching it no doubt now and again. Unfortunately he did not follow the golden rule for people who are moving in from a background where they do not understand the portfolio and that is to spend some time finding out about it—spend a bit of time finding out about how the portfolio works. So half of his inaugural speech this evening was spent on his own blunders and his ruining his career and what followed on was a disjointed discussion that showed nothing but complete ignorance about the portfolio.  
I want to tell people who are listening this evening that this debate is an opportunity for Opposition members to get up and ask insightful questions about a portfolio following on from a review by a select committee. They do not have to be rocket scientists. They do not have to be geniuses. They do not have to have all the facts and figures at their fingertips. They have to simply listen to what has been said what select committees have done distil from that some questions and come to the Chamber and ask them.  
Mr Coleman began his series of discussions by talking about dividends. If he simply looked at the dividend for Television New Zealand he would find that right through the 1990s the National Government got 25 percent dividends from Television New Zealand on average every single year. That was commercial television. That was a publicly owned commercial television company providing for the Government 25 percent dividends every single year. That Government was also the genius Government that allowed Television New Zealand to sell its shares in Sky so it no longer had a foot in the digital world that we are now having to go into in 2007. Those members were the geniuses who drove the National Party policy in the 1990s. On top of that they gave the broadcaster money to pay for it and never got it back at all—never ever raised that money back again. 
So we have Mr Jonathan Coleman in his first time down in the Chamber asking what sort of dividend we get. It is on average around 6 percent. That includes the highest level of revenue that Television New Zealand has enjoyed in probably 30 years. During the period 2004-05 advertising went through the roof for all broadcasters. They made substantial money. Do we ask Television New Zealand for all of that? Do we say that we should have that dividend back? Or do we reinvest it in the broadcaster? Mr Jonathan Coleman would not know. Jonathan Coleman did not know what his own Government was gouging out of Television New Zealand. Would he know what is coming out of it now? No. He did not bother to read the report. He does not know anything about the dividend. He does not know why a dividend is asked for. This company earns over $400 million a year. Would taxpayers thank this Committee for saying: “Don’t act like a business on that money. Don’t try to make a return on that money. Just go soft. Don’t worry about it.”? Of course they would not. They would say: “No you cannot do that; what we want to see is a financially robust organisation.”  
It could be possible to go on and talk about why a company might carry some debt. This company carries no debt. We could go on and talk about what the charter actually does but I doubt whether it has been read. We could talk about how much a set top box costs which is run of course by a private company called FreeView which is being launched tomorrow. I doubt whether Mr Coleman has been invited because I am sure that company does not know who he is but if he did turn up he would find that the starting price is not $300 as he said but $249. It would be interesting in other words to get a spokesperson on the other side who knew something about the portfolio and therefore could have an intelligent debate but so far no good. 
Report noted.