Turei MetiriaMETIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. The Green Party is supporting both of these bills. They are very practical changes that are being made and if there is more discussion to be had in the Committee stage then we will be open to that. I just want to briefly address the change that is on most people's minds which is the change to the broadcasting allocation and the rules. There is no doubt that we are already now in a new media communications environment in New Zealand politics. It is a natural progression that as technology changes the way that people engage with politics and with news and with information the law needs to keep up with that. It is certainly true that the rules were unduly restrictive over the use of the broadcasting allocation and arguably—especially in I think the last couple of elections—for those of us who have been heavily involved in the decisions around how that allocation is spent for our particular parties it really did mean that quite scarce resources were being locked up in old systems that were ineffective. From a public policy point of view if there is going to be State funding of some kind—like this is—then the use of that money needs to be the best possible use of it so it is not locked into old technologies that have limited impact. So as times have changed the law is finally keeping up with the way that people want to access the information and I think that is perfectly reasonable. That is part of the democratic process. We do not want to be funding public money into outmoded outdated forms of communication particularly on issues as critical as election campaigns. You know not everybody is into elections and election campaigns but it is a critical part of our democratic process and it needs to be taken seriously. So we support these changes. To be frank I think that one of the beneficial changes here is that the funding is not locked into broadcasting time on television in particular and radio. I suspect that radio actually has more utility still but anyone with Netflix knows that TV is kind of making its way out of the window and it really does not have the kind of opportunities that it might have had in the past for the community to access information about political parties and what they are offering in an election. The rules do still constrain to some extent the use of the money and I think that is wise too. It is public money and we need to be held accountable for it and the systems for accountability are I think good in the legislation. Expenditure limits still apply and I think that is wise but the bills open up the channels through which parties can use that State funding to communicate with voters in a way that best enables voters to get access to information. I will say though that over the years I have been to quite a number of meetings with a broadcaster—its CEO and other senior officials—that has regularly tried to get out of broadcasting the opening and closing statements and has complained about the fact that prime time is required to be used by law. It has to use prime time for political parties'—Denis O'Rourke: Oh the poor little things!METIRIA TUREI: —yes—opening and closing broadcasts. You know I have zero sympathy for them frankly—zero sympathy for them at all. The State broadcaster needs to take real responsibility for its role in promoting and supporting a healthy democracy and its arguments about having to give up prime time for this are frankly ridiculous. So there is a little bit of me that is saying Damn! It's kind of getting what it wanted after all." but that does not matter as much as making sure that our constituencies—the New Zealand public—get access to good information in the way that they need it the most. And like I say TV is kind of making its way out of the window anyway. We will continue to support these bills through the remaining stages of the debate. If as I say there are suggestions for changes to the legislation we will look at them seriously but I think that overall the bills are effective. They do not go quite as far as many of the submitters who made requests for changes to these laws asked for but they are none the less sensible steps along the way to having a more flourishing and healthy democratic process. Thank you."