te Heuheu Georgina: Broadcasting Amendment Bill — In Committee 
te Heuheu Georgina: Broadcasting Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I suppose we can be appreciative of the Minister in the chair the Hon Trevor Mallard talking a call. But again I thought he might just treat us with it being 1 hour now until the end of Thursday—the end of a parliamentary week in Parliament—to the plan for the future. That seems to be a favourite slogan that the Prime Minister is rolling out after her visit to the Australian Prime Minister. The Minister did say there will be major legislation following the review. That is of the charter I take it? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No no no the digital review. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: It is the digital review. 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: The secret agenda! 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: I am not sure. I am not sure when he thinks that major legislation will come in because he is actually running out of time. So it might have been a great thing for him—as Labour is running out of time and as he might not get his so-called major legislation on to the floor of the House—to treat us to his views. I am not sure how long the Minister has been in this particular job. He will have some views obviously; he has been here a long time. 
My colleague Jonathan Coleman has been asking pretty continuously about the continued roll-out of digital and about the switch-off of analog. He has asked many times over the last year. This Minister might not necessarily know because he has only just taken over the job recently but given that he is a longstanding experienced member of the House one would think he would be reasonably up to date and that he would be aware that we have been wanting detail on the continued roll-out of digital. We do not have it yet and it looks like we are never going to get it anyway because this Minister will run out of time. That is a great shame in a way because he has been in the job now for the odd few months and we still really do not know what his view of the future is. 
I come back now to the bill before us and clauses 1 2 and 3—particularly the title clause. When Jonathan Coleman was on his feet the Minister kept saying that this is not about broadcasting. [ 
Interruption 
] The Minister was saying something along those lines. It is about content and it is about funding content so in that sense it is narrow. But this is the broadcasting environment and it is obviously an area that New Zealanders who fund the whole industry in terms of Television New Zealand (TVNZ) and whose money has been poured into that organisation by the millions over the last 9 years have a very direct interest in what the Minister plans in terms of digital television. Frankly millions have already gone in have they not? 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: $104 million. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: $104 million has gone in. When we look at the title of the bill—the Broadcasting Amendment Bill—those issues cannot help but come to the forefront of the mind of the Opposition whose job it is to speak for the public about expenditure and to watch the Government in the way it spends public moneys. 
In terms of TVNZ over the 9 years sometimes as I said earlier that has appeared to be a black hole into which money has been thrown and the Labour Government does not appear to have been terribly worried about what the New Zealand public has got back for it. [ 
Interruption 
] No it is not Labour’s money but Labour is in Government with a mandate to spend money responsibly. That is it is not in Government to take money in the way it does in terms of taxes but if it is going to take those taxes then it has to make sure it is accountable for the expenditure of that money. I would say that a television broadcaster that thinks that  
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 satisfy the requirement of the Maori component in the charter has totally lost the plot. Indeed the Prime Minister Helen Clark actually said the broadcaster had lost the plot. I wonder whether this Minister the new Minister of Broadcasting has done any work with TVNZ to make sure it is getting the plot right. That is what National would have liked to hear and unfortunately we are never going to hear it.