McCully Murray: Television New Zealand Bill — In Committee 
McCully Murray: Television New Zealand Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:606;Page:3806] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 At the outset having asked some questions of the Minister yesterday I am delighted to have this opportunity again to put some questions to him. I will take him at face value and hope that he will answer them. I note that in clause 28 there is provision for the annual reports of the new State-owned enterprise and the new Crown-owned company to be packaged together. If one then looks at the statement of corporate intent which has as someone commented previously in this debate been made available to members in the last 24 hours one can see that there is a forecast of profit surplus of $17.9 million or thereabouts for the year ahead. It goes down to $17.8 million for the 2004 year. I ask the Minister whether he would break down that number assuming that the $12 million or $13 million that the Government is giving the company to offset some charter costs is included because the notes to the statement of corporate intent suggest that.  
Could the Minister tell us precisely what sort of profit or loss those figures indicate as being forecast for the State-owned enterprise that is going to own the transmission arm on one hand and for the television company on the other hand? I think it is important if members are to vote intelligently on this bill that the Minister should make that sort of information available to members.  
I ask the Minister in relation to clause 26 which is part of Part 3 where there is provision for qualitative and quantitative performance measures to be done—obviously to look at the charter and the measure of success against the charter—who will have access to those qualitative and quantitative measures? Will all members of Parliament have access to them? The Minister is either asleep or looking at the floor. 
Hon Steve Maharey 
: I’m studying. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Good. The Minister should do some studying. The Prime Minister will be very pleased to hear that. I ask the Minister those questions and I would be pleased if he took some advice from officials on this. It is a matter of frustration to members on this side that in the other organisation of a similar type that he has responsibility for—Radio New Zealand—that same qualitative and quantitative work is being done. It is not made available to members of the House. I would like to know whether it is available to the Minister; if so what does the Minister do with it who does he get his advice from and will it be made available to the select committee that does an examination of these entities on an annual basis so that they can do their work intelligently? If not how can they do their work on the select committee assessing the performance of the State-owned enterprise and the Crown-owned company if they do not have this information made available to them? If it is going to be made available to them will he then do something about the fact that Radio New Zealand does not make it available because it would be appreciated if that could be attended to as well?  
Finally I want to raise very interesting issues in regard to clause 29 which is headed “Protection from disclosure of sensitive information”. It always makes one’s nostrils twitch a bit when one sees a heading like that. That clause states: “Nothing in this Act must be construed as requiring in any statement of intent annual report or financial statement”—those are the documents referred to in the rest of this part—“any information that could be properly withheld if a request for that information were made under the Official Information Act 1982.” In other words it is a blanket provision that says that none of the documents that are referred to in Part 3 as being the accountability documents require the company or the State-owned enterprise to provide any information that they might normally be able to withhold under the Official Information Act.  
The first question I have to ask the Minister is whether that is a new provision. I have asked around and nobody else can tell me that they have seen a blanket protection of that sort in a statute before this Parliament before. They would like to know whether that is a new precedent-setting clause. Secondly I would like to know how it will work.  
Members of this Committee will be familiar with the provision by which they can go to the Ombudsman to seek information that has been declined under the Official Information Act. Am I to take it from this clause that they are supposed to have the Ombudsman interposed as some sort of policeman in the reporting measures of this bill when it becomes the law of the land?