Curran Clare: Address in Reply 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Curran Clare: Address in Reply 
[Sitting date: 14 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:339. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 Let us have a bit of a look at that plan because when I heard the news yesterday that John Key’s Government was going to take us to a brave new world within the public sector my ears pricked up with interest. Could it be that this Government would use its purchasing power and its considerable influence and resources to drive technological change in the public sector in a way that would lead to innovation job growth and resurgence in our private sector? Could it be that it would invest in the skills required to ensure that we have a highly skilled technological workforce and that the pathways from school into that workforce were being considered and were being seen as a priority so that kids coming out of school could get into high tech jobs? Would it ensure that the growing digital divide in this country and the closing of that digital divide would be seen as a priority? No sadly.  
After looking a bit more closely at what the Prime Minister actually said it is all about slashing—slashing budgets—and using technology as a cover not to drive job growth or innovation but rather to cut jobs and make front-line services automated and maybe even send them offshore. Labour is all for efficiencies: making our public services better improving New Zealanders’ access to services using technology and data sharing among Government agencies. There is no question about that. But Labour is also about a productive high tech innovative economy—a clean green high tech economy. An innovation society is what we want for New Zealand.  
Unfortunately with this Government—and this is a tragedy—the technology argument is being used as an excuse for services to be diminished and if the driving reason for doing it is to cut budgets and to cut staff then you have got to wonder what on earth the thinking is. Delivering core services through a call centre maybe not even in this country—or even worse via an automated service—is not a public service. Duncan Garner has written about this today describing it as Treasury-speak from the 1980s. That is not future talk; that is talk very much from the past.  
Then there is the spectre of user-pays. Here we have the same old story about cuts and diminished services. That is what underlines the Government’s 120-point plan. I see that John Key is not going to be pressed on how many jobs are going to be cut but I ask him how he thinks New Zealanders are going to receive a higher quality of service for their complex issues if they cannot even speak to a person. I see that he is reported as saying that people will be able to use their smartphones to apply for passports and other things rather than having to wait in lines in offices. Well there are two things. Firstly many people do not even have smartphones. They cannot afford them and they are not likely to be able to afford them if they do not have a job. Secondly just how many services will be taken off the front line? I bet it is more than just applying for passports.  
Technology is critically important to this country’s future and innovation is critically important to this country’s future but so is direct contact. Technology should be about bringing people and their Government closer together not taking them further apart and then making them pay for it. That is why we pay taxes. As anyone knows if you take away the personal contact between people and an organisation then the organisation suffers as much as the customer. You cannot trust an organisation you cannot talk to where you cannot talk to an actual person when you need to. Taking the people out of Public Service will affect the service.  
New Zealand should become an innovation society—an innovation society in a country that uses innovation successfully to create jobs and to create exports. It does not use technology as a means to slash them and create even more inequality. This Government has no plan to grow the economy. It is short-term dumb thinking just as is its agenda to sell assets. New Zealanders do not want their assets sold.  
This fits with some of the other agendas of this Government which are equally disturbing but are definitely deliberate. The first is that our public broadcasting sector is being reduced to a shell—a shadow. We need a strong public media that is independent of any Government—any Government—and that provides critical analysis discussion and debate in our country. We should be proud of our public broadcasters. We should hold our public broadcasting service up as an example of a truly functioning democracy just like most of our fellow OECD countries. It should be part of the fabric of our democracy. Instead what has the Government done? It has frozen Radio New Zealand’s funding. It will not be able to provide its current services under its current funding model. It has stripped Television New Zealand (TVNZ) of its charter. It has made it become fully commercial. It has axed funding to TVNZ 7 which is our digital public TV station and which punches enormously above its weight.  
This has happened at the same time as cosy and dubious relationships are emerging between the Government and its corporate media mates. There was a $43 million soft loan to MediaWorks so it could pay its TV licences. There is a refusal to consider or discuss the glaring need—the glaring need—for some regulation in the broadcasting sector which is happening everywhere else except New Zealand. Why? Because that would affect its mate Sky television which dominates the pay television market. It is now doing deals with TVNZ to put even more content behind the pay wall meaning that great tracts of TV will not and cannot be seen because people cannot afford the subscription.  
Meanwhile—and most disturbing—this is all shrouded by the growing scandal of political interference. There is clear evidence emerging of overt political interference by this Government in our media to promote its own agenda. You have heard my colleague Grant Robertson today in question time question the Prime Minister about his free hour on Radio Live. The Prime Minister became strangely silent today on the extent to which he was directly involved in determining the content of what he described as an election-free zone but which could be described as a free hit.  
I know that many people are grappling with the extent of these issues out there in our community and more and more people are starting to speak out about them. Many people are asking how this sort of thing can be happening in New Zealand. Why is the Government doing it? It does not have a plan and it does not want public scrutiny of where it is failing. And it is happening. It is happening in our country and more and more people are waking up to that. We should be fighting against any perception of Government interference in broadcasting. This Government does not seem to give a toss. Broadcasting programming matters should be the responsibility of NZ On Air; they are not the business of Government Ministers Prime Ministers or anyone attached to a political party. In any other country where the Prime Minister’s electorate chair is involved in programming where the Government gives soft loans to broadcasters and where the Prime Minister gets a free hit on air time this would rightfully be regarded as corrupt and I agree with that sentiment.  
Just before the election a programme was screened on TV3 called  
Inside Child Poverty 
. It was controversial. It provided an evidence base for an issue that we all know is very important and concerning for our country right now. Too many children are living in poverty. Yes it invited debate and discussion but it was a good thing to have that discussion out there. But in January we discovered that the Prime Minister’s man did not like it and had complained to the board chair and the chief executive officer before that programme— 
Hon Annette King 
: Before? 
CLARE CURRAN 
: —before that programme was even aired. Now we have that man the Prime Minister’s own electorate chair on the board of NZ On Air deeply involved in making decisions about funding and the content of programmes that are promoting the Government’s own agenda—Whanau Ora; the Government’s own agenda—and is scrambling around inside TV3 and NZ On Air to cover its back.  
How could this happen in our country? Is NZ On Air not charged to be independent and fearlessly protective of public broadcasting values that are independent of politics? Is NZ On Air funding propaganda? How can someone so close to the Prime Minister be allowed to be involved in these decisions? The new broadcasting Minister Craig Foss has the extremely difficult job of reassuring the public that the Government has credibility— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! Time has expired.