Coleman Jonathan: Broadcasting Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Coleman Jonathan: Broadcasting Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:645;Page:14721] 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
: 
 I think my colleague Georgina te Heuheu just hit the nail on the head there because during the Minister’s speech he made a fatal slip. He said that major legislation is going to be following on from this digital review. Now that is quite incredible really because we have these discussion documents out there at the moment. The Minister and his officials are saying that it is all a blank canvas and they do not know what is going to happen. But it is quite clear that there really is a secret agenda in broadcasting and it is going to be heavy-handed regulation and the Minister I am afraid has let that one out of the bag. We are talking about the title of the Broadcasting Amendment Bill; it sounds like this Minister has a lot he is going to be amending about the broadcasting environment in the months to come. I agree with my colleague Mrs te Heuheu that we should ask why the Minister will not tell us what is really on his mind. Why waste the time of the public the broadcasters and the officials with all this sham consultation process which we see in a lot of areas this Government puts its sticky beak into when really it knows what it wants to do all along? 
Trevor Mallard knows what he wants to do because he has a big problem with FreeView. He has a massive problem with it. This has been the Government’s baby. The Government has put $104 million of taxpayers money into FreeView but it does not know how it will succeed. It is a real issue. The FreeView consortium has a set of television channels but the figures will plateau because the basic problem is that there is not a lot that people will want to watch on it. So the Minister can either get something on those channels that people want to watch or he can turn off the normal analog television signal. That will be politically difficult for Mr Mallard because he does not have a plan for telling people how he will switch off that last group of people who refuse to get into digital television or how he will convert those people to digital TV. 
If we look at the digital TV uptake across New Zealand at the moment about 800000 households still need to be switched over. By the Minister’s timetable he has until 2012 to set the date for analog switch-off. That poses a problem because if 800000 people do not have digital TV by 2012 there will be 800000 pretty upset people. Of course this could all be fiction as far as the Labour Government is concerned because the chances are that it will not have the responsibility of shepherding all that stuff through. 
Trevor Mallard has made an interesting statement and it would be great if he would take a call on this and explain what he means when he says major legislation will follow on from the digital review. The Minister has had lots of opportunities this afternoon to get up and say something substantial on broadcasting. People are waiting for him to do so. It is no good that he goes around the sector as he has done saying: “Well I’m very busy I know nothing about broadcasting. I am holding the baby here because Steve Maharey has retired.” That will not work. People want some substance and Minister Mallard has to lay out his plans. This digital review is already 4 months behind schedule and why is that? It is because the Minister wants to keep secret this agenda of regulation. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I wanted to read and understand the material before it went out—that’s why. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Does the Minister understand it now? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I think I do. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: OK. Well the Minister understands it and I think what the Minister understands is that he will launch— 
Jill Pettis 
: Why isn’t this man out saving lives? 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Why is Mrs Pettis not giving up the waste of space she fills in Parliament and letting in someone to actually rejuvenate this absolutely exhausted Labour caucus? Why is Mrs Pettis not out doing something useful? There is no answer from Mrs Pettis because there is nothing useful she can do apart from making those ridiculous comments. 
There is a problem that Trevor Mallard has to face up to because we have a failed broadcasting policy that has been delivered by this Government that has brought Television New Zealand to its knees. There is no plan for how it will recover. The executives there are doing the best they possibly can. Labour has failed on broadcasting. 
Labour has a real problem. How will it make FreeView successful? Labour members do not know. They will not tell us. We know they want to legislate. Trevor Mallard is dying to legislate. Frankly if he had his way he would socialise absolutely everything. He has let the cat out of the bag today. He is smiling and playing the nice guy. He has a big problem now. He has told us there will be major legislation after this digital review. Why then is he wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars on this review? Why will he waste the time of the hundreds of New Zealanders who will respond to this review when he already knows the answer? Why does he not just take a call now and say what he wants to do in the whole area of digital regulation? 
The answer is that it is because he knows that his secret agenda will be pretty unpalatable. It will make it even harder to bring this failed Government within any hope of re-election. As it is Labour members have pretty much lost all hope and are giving up on the whole exercise so they are wondering why they should bother being transparent with this regulatory agenda on broadcasting. 
Basically if the Minister does not bring in his regulatory agenda he has no other way of propping up FreeView. If he cannot get something worth watching on it or if he does not switch off the analog TV signal which will be pretty unpalatable for those 800000 households concerned his FreeView project will be in big trouble. Basically it will need some innovative thinking which I think is beyond this Minister. He has admitted he knows nothing about broadcasting and he is not really very interested. He is pretty busy on a lot of other projects and in fact he is doing his emails on his BlackBerry now. He is not even really interested in the issues at hand. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Hang on! If you can’t ride two horses get out of the circus. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Oh he is not doing his emails— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No I am doing my emails and listening. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Well he knows he is not meant to be doing his emails. He should have his mind on the job and the job is what will happen in broadcasting. Why does he not tell us about the secret agenda he referred to before when he said there would be regulation after the digital review? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I didn’t. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: The Minister did say that but he is now denying it. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I didn’t. I said there would be legislation not regulation. It’s quite different. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Legislation regulation—what is the difference? [ 
Interruption 
] There will be legislation. With this Labour Government legislation means regulation. Labour members want to laugh it off but the public is on to them. The public is tired of this far-reaching nanny State regulation we get every time a diehard Labour supporter opens his or her mouth and people at home had better believe that this is what Labour will be doing in broadcasting. Trevor Mallard wants to bring in a heavy-handed regulatory regime because it is the only chance he has of turning FreeView round. 
Look at what Steve Maharey has done to TVNZ. He actually halved its value over the time he held the portfolio and I reckon that if he had had the portfolio for much longer he would have chomped through the other half of it. It will be very interesting to see what the financial results of Television New Zealand are—very interesting. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Very good at the moment—very good. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: The Minister says the results will be very good. That is another slip that we have on the  
Hansard 
. We have a lot of material now. Every time the Minister opens his mouth he is digging a grave for himself in broadcasting. I think if the Government had time for a reshuffle before the next election Mr Mallard would be saying: “Can’t I swap this portfolio for the Rugby World Cup one?”. The answer is no—bad news he will not be able to. He has lost that portfolio. He will have to do his time in broadcasting. It has got pretty tough but he will have to see it through. 
To come back to the title the Broadcasting Amendment Bill will bring the funding arrangements into line with what is happening out there in terms of the technology. There have been wide-ranging technological changes to broadcasting. Broadcasting now occurs over a variety of media. It is not limited to just radio and television and the funding arrangements have to reflect that because New Zealanders are sourcing their content on the Internet they are watching things downloaded through their mobile phones. New Zealand on Air and Te Mangai Paho want to be able to reflect that in the way they fund broadcasting. This whole Parliament is supporting this bill but there are wider issues. The wider issues in broadcasting are regulation the future of Television New Zealand and the charter. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
Clause 2 agreed to. 
Clause 3 agreed to. 
Bill to be reported with amendment presently.