Chadwick Steve: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Chadwick Steve: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:655;Page:4634] 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill because it is a Labour bill. When we brought in this bill the then Opposition members on these benches were railing against publicly funded broadcasting and they were railing against the charter saying that nanny State was invading our lives. Yet here National members are tonight congratulating the Minister of Broadcasting who had nothing to do with this bill; he was on the Opposition benches and its spokesperson on broadcasting when we worked on this bill. I acknowledge Sue Kedgley who I am sure will later take a call on this bill because the Greens and Labour fought to maintain the integrity of and funding for Radio New Zealand. 
Let us go back a little in history and look at what Tony Ryall from the Bay of Plenty said about Radio New Zealand. He said: “I believe that we should be putting up for tender the provision of a concert programme network and the provision of a national radio network.” That is really what they all wanted to do right through the 9 years we were in Government. What about Maurice Williamson? He said: “I have said regularly and publicly that for a company that is both the public radio company and that runs the commercial operation of radio it is a little like a temperance league running a brewery. They have conflicting interests conflicting reasons for being and conflicting funding streams with the potential to subsidise from one to the other.” 
When National was in Opposition it hated the Radio New Zealand Bill. This amendment bill was started after a review of the charter by this House in 2006. Good on Minister Coleman for getting this bill into the House because it is ours. Of course we will support it. The Minister of Broadcasting talks about wanting quality publicly funded broadcasting. That is rubbish. If he had his way he would love to get his hooks in here and flick off Radio New Zealand too. He talked to Auckland University of Technology students about it and went very quiet. His introductory speech was also incredibly quiet and incredibly non-committal. He just said that we should get this bill through the House. He does not like it; he never has. He went to Auckland University of Technology and talked about his top priorities for broadcasting. He was more focused on what we will do with Television New Zealand than what we will do with Radio New Zealand. 
Although he says how wonderful Radio New Zealand is and how it is a great watchdog for democracy—and he compares us with countries like Fiji in that respect—what has he done with the funding? Let us look at the funding for Radio New Zealand over the next 4 years. We cannot have publicly funded public broadcasting with frozen funds and the funding has been frozen at $34.1 million—only $34.1 million and no more—over the next 4 years. But he wants a robust quality publicly funded broadcaster. Well we cannot have quality for that amount. How do we keep up with technology? How do we keep up with inflation? How do we employ talented staff who are essential in keeping publicly funded broadcast robust which is what the previous Government supported? Words are very cheap I say to Minister Coleman. He praises a broadcaster on one hand then starves it on the other hand. We are used to that. Robert Muldoon starved radio and Television of the public broadcasting fee. We are used to hearing that from National Governments which say they are absolutely fantastic with business. 
This Government forgets that a well-funded public broadcasting system funds the scriptwriters and the musicians who put the content into the charter. That is what Steve Maharey set out to do with the charter. Over Labour’s 9 years we had a brand. We were proud of New Zealand and talked about telling our stories; it was called the New Zealand identity. Artisans musicians poets and storytellers were excited about having their stories told on national radio. It was absolutely fantastic for us. 
I will go back a little bit in history to say that it was in 1999 when the Labour Government—again—started to reclaim public broadcasting values from what was a deregulated free-market wilderness. It was a shambles. It was all predicated on a commercial rate of return and the broadcasting fee in order to subsidise public broadcasting. We restructured Television New Zealand. We encouraged the development of voluntary codes for local content on radio and on television. It was great stuff. We established Maori Television and I acknowledge Pita Sharples who went to Maori Television’s. first birthday. I thank Minister Sharples for acknowledging the Labour Government and the previous Minister of Maori Affairs Parekura Horomia for their commitment with the support of Steve Maharey and Helen Clark to getting Maori Television under way. These are great histories of what Labour Governments have done for broadcasting in New Zealand. 
I say to Minister Coleman that not only did we say that broadcasting was fantastic but also we put money into funding New Zealand On Air and Te Mangai Paho that has been the real generator of getting New Zealand content and te reo on Maori radio on the airwaves. It is a fantastic story. I know that in Rotorua—I am sure that Todd McClay goes along and does regular broadcasts on Maori radio; they would be difficult to understand—the listenership is simply phenomenal. My husband used to have a regular weekly broadcast session. You know old people in Rotorua came into the radio station to listen to live broadcast because they loved to hear those stories being told. That was very vulnerable and I congratulate Minister Coleman on not changing the charter too much. It would have been quite sinister to see a new Minister of Broadcasting in a new Government strip the charter of all the values that we care about. 
I want to talk about another aspect of the charter the way the charter will be delivered. Section 8(5)(e) to be inserted in the Radio New Zealand Act by clause 5 of the bill states that the charter will “stimulate support and reflect the diversity of cultural expression including drama comedy literature and the performing arts:”. I heard a fantastic programme on  
The Arts on Sunday 
 on Radio New Zealand National last week. I ask members to guess what it was focused on. It was focused on the cuts to Artists in Schools in this Budget. The discussion was not shut down which was great. It was there for us all to hear. People talked about the value of these programmes to develop scriptwriters and artisans in our community. What has happened? Funding to Artists in Schools has been completely cut by the National Government. Those programmes with a mere $8000 investment had multiplier benefits to communities of up to $500000. This Government has cut the Artists in Schools programme. 
It is pretty rich when we have a charter and we have a Minister of Broadcasting who supports the charter which has some great aspects in it but other Ministers around him are cutting budgets that would have provided us with the ability for artisans and broadcasters to teach kids in school about the value of broadcasting so that those children can come into the industry. They would have learnt how to write the stories that will be used on Radio New Zealand. The initiative has been cut. I think that is appalling. It was not mentioned in the Budget but like the cuts to everything else like community education we are starting to see now how deep these cuts are. The Government thought the cuts would go unnoticed. It thought that cutting the arts did not matter that they were a bit of fluff on the side. But we cannot have a good public broadcaster and we cannot have a charter that can be maintained that tells the stories of New Zealand and that tells all the aspects of delivery that are in this charter if we do not support the artisans the scriptwriters and children learning how to do broadcasting. I think that is very sad. It is very short-sighted. 
But I must congratulate the Minister on one thing. Section 8A(3) to be inserted by clause 5 states: “The public radio company must in fulfilling its Charter ensure that it operates in a financially responsible manner …”. Thank God! The Minister of Broadcasting does not expect any return on funds.