Collins Judith: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCollins Judith: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3440. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): What a joy to follow that member Tracey Martin who has just resumed her seat. Everything from now on has to be better does it not really? I mean for goodness’ sake! Let me take up the cudgels on behalf of Radio New Zealand after that horrible attack from New Zealand First. Radio New Zealand should be able to put on commentary from the politicians whom it wants to hear from not the ones it is made to hear from—good on Radio New Zealand.I would like to take up a point that Kris Faafoi made. He said that we had no commitment to Radio New Zealand. Well actually I remember 1YA—of course I was a child at the time—and we had this fabulous programme on Sunday mornings called Flick the Little Fire Engine. That was Radio New Zealand when I was growing up and I think it is still on actually in some parts. It is the same programme over and over again which is pretty fantastic—it is called recycling. But really we have $35 million worth of taxpayer money of commitment—Simon O’Connor: How much?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: $35 million every year going to Radio New Zealand. If I tell you how much taxpayer money goes to Newstalk ZB—Hon Amy Adams: Zero.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Zero. How much goes to Radio Live? Hmm—zero. How much goes to Radio Hauraki? Zero. How much goes to Classic Hits? Zero. How much goes to the Breeze—my favourite station personally because it plays good music when I am driving? Zero. That is it—zero—and yet we have $35 million a year of taxpayer money going to Radio New Zealand. I think that is money well spent myself. I just love being interviewed by Mary Wilson on Checkpoint. Nothing gets better than that. There is nothing like that with the sort of rabid interviewer coming down through the line ripping your heart out—fantastic stuff. Then there is Morning Report—unfairly I think referred to occasionally as “Moaning Report”. That is very unfair because I actually really enjoy listening to Susie Ferguson and Guyon Espiner. I challenge New Zealand First—and Tracey Martin the deputy leader—to come up with one reason why they would want to interview New Zealand First.Radio New Zealand has a very balanced view. It is not always fond of the Government especially when it is us. But having said that I still think Radio New Zealand is in a really good place to be. They are in fact the people who do not have to get advertising to pay their wages unlike every other radio station with whom they compete. They have an obligation to produce something that we expect which is sound balanced radio. Occasionally they get it wrong. I was listening to The Panel one day just last week when that lovely Jim Mora whom I am very fond of had on that lady—you know she is the one who does those baking soda cleansers. She was commenting—I have no idea why—along with somebody else similarly left wing. They were commenting in a really balanced way: all left. I thought: “Well isn’t that great?”. I thought that actually the public can listen to this and they will make up their own minds. But do you know what? Radio New Zealand apart from all that—and we all have our little sorts of things about it—I actually think generally does a really good job.Kris Faafoi said we are not interested in public broadcasting. Well yes we are. He also wondered why Television New Zealand does not want to run all these TV political ads at election time. I will tell you why. Mostly they are really boring; mostly they really are. When Mr Assistant Speaker and I were growing up—well he was growing up a lot earlier than me I have to say—there was not any choice. People basically were chained to the TV—the one station and at one stage the two stations—waiting for the little kiwi to come out at about 9.30 p.m. to tell us to go to bed. That is what it was like. I know Dr Megan Woods is looking at this and saying: “Is this true?”. It was. Worse than that it was in black and white. That is actually what we used to have with our public broadcasting dollar.But let us just wonder this: why do we have public broadcasting? Actually we had it to start with because there was no commercial interest or ability to bring it about. But I think it has actually won a place in people’s hearts. Where else is one going to learn about bird calls other than Radio New Zealand? That is a good thing. Should you wake up at 5 o’clock in the morning for some strange reason and need to go back to sleep what else are you going to do? Turn on Radio New Zealand at 5 o’clock in the morning and you will go back to sleep. It is fantastic. But I am digressing. The fact is that Radio New Zealand has $35 million of taxpayer money every single year. That is $35 million more than every other radio station that it competes with. I actually think that is quite a good deal frankly. If I were Radio New Zealand I would be pretty pleased with that.I would also like to say that I actually think Radio New Zealand has really improved its performance around communicating with and making itself accessible to the public. As we have heard from all the speakers tonight everyone is saying they have things like Netflix and stuff like that. Well actually I do not. I generally try to watch some television—normally not the news because it is always a bit dull and depressing; I actually like seeing ordinary TV occasionally. But do you know what? We have so much more choice nowadays. So many of the Radio New Zealand programmes are really good. If you cannot listen to them at the time then you can listen to them on the internet later on. It has a very good service on the internet so that it is very quickly available. If you want to go and check your interview what has happened what is going on with something or what the bird call was for today it is actually available and I think that is important. That is no different by the way from the commercial stations with which they compete.But I will say Radio New Zealand has certain obligations. For instance its leaders come to our Commerce Committee and report to us every year on their annual review. They come to us to talk about what they have done with the $35 million that they get every year—more than every other radio station and broadcaster. They tell us what they are doing. I was really pleased this year to be able to say to the Radio New Zealand board when they turned up with the chief executive that I think they are doing a great job. I know it is a lot of money. It is actually a huge amount of money. But having said that Radio New Zealand is something that a lot of people listen to. I am one of those people who listen to it during the day if I have a chance to. But then again I also listen to Newstalk ZB.Debate interrupted.