Lee Melissa: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLee Melissa: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3430. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MELISSA LEE (National): It is a pleasure to rise to speak to this second reading of the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill. I must begin my contribution by acknowledging that member who just sat down Clare Curran. I can understand that she is passionate and occasionally I think she is actually very passionate about public broadcasting. I actually commend her for that but for her to mention Shane Taurima when she talks about an apparent conflict of interest—for her to bring Shane Taurima’s name into the debate is probably a big mistake. To think that a Labour Party candidate could run political meetings in Television New Zealand’s public-funded—I am thinking that I will not go there. That member actually brought that up but I will just leave it at that. If the Labour Party does it then it is OK. I mean jeez! That is just such a wrong thing to say. But as I began I have to commend Clare. She is very passionate about public broadcasting and I do agree with her: public broadcasting is a necessary thing in New Zealand.There are programmes in this country—whether it is radio or television or on other platforms—that actually need the support of the public and need the funding that is necessary because often they are not able to be done by commercial means. I am very grateful to Radio New Zealand for continuing to broadcast some of the programmes that are on its platform. As the Minister of Broadcasting has said this institution has been going since 1925 and what this bill actually does is amend the Radio New Zealand Act 1995 to bring this old institution from 1925 into the modern age so we can actually futureproof it. As everyone knows our children do not necessarily watch television. My 16-year-old child does not watch television in real time. He time-shifts. He records on his—Hon Member: iPad.MELISSA LEE: No no no. It is a Sky remote thingumajig. Sorry I am sounding so old.Hon Amy Adams: MY SKY.MELISSA LEE: MY SKY. That is right. He actually watches it online. I do not think children teenage children listen to radio. I listen to radio when I am driving. I do not necessarily listen to a radio at work—Simon O’Connor: The Edge.MELISSA LEE: I do not listen to The Edge. I listen to the radio only when I am driving. I do listen to music when I am driving and I do turn on Radio New Zealand when I am driving as well. You know the time that you can actually spend driving listening to the radio is not very long so I tend to go to the iHeartRadio Radio New Zealand app that I have actually downloaded. As the Minister has said the technology is actually improving so fast that we want Radio New Zealand to be technology-neutral so that it is not limited to the wireless radio of the past but something that is akin to the modern-day technology whether it is actually listening on our phones as we are walking to work with our headphones on or whether we actually do it from our computer or whether we actually listen to it on radio.National is committed to delivering Better Public Services. I just want to sort of talk about what Clare said. This has actually “languished” she said—I quote her—on the Order Paper since 2006. We are a very very busy Government but if we go back to 2006 it was the Labour Government. We actually took over at the end of 2008 and actually Labour was in Government for 9 years—9 years. Labour members feel so passionately about public broadcasting that they did nothing about it until 2006 when it was reviewed. It actually languished there and when Labour actually got voted off in 2008—2006 to 2008 is a 2-year gap and nobody did anything about it. If Clare Curran had been a member of the Labour caucus back then maybe she could have been so passionate within her caucus as to convince the caucus to actually do something about it but they did nothing. They did not do anything.But this Government has been busy. We have had the global financial crisis. We have had the Christchurch earthquake. We have actually been a very busy Government but we are acting. We are coming back to the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill.Brett Hudson: Creating jobs.MELISSA LEE: We are creating jobs—74000 jobs a year to be exact.I just want to sort of go back to what the Minister actually said about the sense of national identity when it comes to Radio New Zealand. It is very important because you know I was not here in New Zealand back in 1925 when Radio New Zealand began. I was not even here back in 1970-something. I was not even here in the 1980s. I moved to New Zealand and became a New Zealander back in the late 1980s. I have been in New Zealand for nearly 30 years. In that time the New Zealand population has changed drastically. New Zealand is no longer looking to England thinking: “mother England”. We are actually global citizens New Zealanders are. You know what? The population composition has changed and I am very grateful to Radio New Zealand for its Asian Report—I think now it is called Voices. One of my old reporters who used to work on our television programmes on Television One Asia Dynamic and Asia Downunder Lynda Chanwai-Earle does it on Radio New Zealand—Hon Amy Adams: See that’s the difference. We’ve got members who’ve done this stuff.MELISSA LEE: Yes she has actually done it. Lynda’s actually a very good reporter and she is actually a very good producer as well.The kinds of stories that come out on these programmes are—I think there was one programme she actually did about one of only two commissioned officers of the Royal New Zealand Air Force during the Second World War who was known as “Willie McWong”; actually he was William Wong of Dunedin. Those kinds of stories actually resonate with me because they tell the stories of the past. I think these stories must be told. When I was doing television I was very proud to tell the stories of people like Chew Chong from Taranaki who was instrumental in the butter export of New Zealand. He was the first man to block butter and think of exporting it to England—mother England. That was the beginning of the dairy industry and it came from Taranaki and a Chinese man by the name of Chew Chong. There is even a museum about it in Taranaki. What I am actually getting at is the sense of national identity of New Zealand now. As a nation we are a mix of many ethnicities. I am very proud of the work that Radio New Zealand does and I hope it will continue to do so in the multi-platform way that it is able to do.You know what? As a listener I do not like radio ads. I do not even like television ads. I tend to skip them if I can. Often we actually want as viewers and as listeners for Radio New Zealand to produce programmes without commercials. But it does not actually mean that Radio New Zealand should not be thinking in a business sense. It needs to draw more audiences. It needs to be more active in the way that it can actually draw businesses to support its programmes not just rely on funding. Do you know when I was producing television television was very expensive to produce. Radio is too but I recently went and did an interview with a young man who does podcasting. When podcasting first started I did not even know what it was but to think that a podcast that is generated from Christchurch has listeners from around the world—that is the modern age of technology and Radio New Zealand as an early adopter of technology has great advances that it can actually make. I actually commend the work that the Minister has done. I commend the work that Radio New Zealand does and we actually support it. I commend this bill to the House.