Alexander Marc: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Alexander Marc: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4664] 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to support this bill with however some deep concerns. This piece of legislation arises out of the required 5-yearly review of the Radio New Zealand charter performed by the Commerce Committee. If we look at some of the amendments we can see that the bill amends Radio New Zealand’s charter in a minimal fashion. Clause 3(2) requires Radio New Zealand to provide programming that caters to a full range of age groups. This will ensure that Radio New Zealand provides programming that is specific to child listeners who do require extra considerations and protections with regard to their specific needs. 
Clause 3(1) amends the charter so that Radio New Zealand must provide programming that contributes towards New Zealand’s spiritual and ethical development. It ought to be noted that this amendment makes the Radio New Zealand charter consistent with the recently enacted Television New Zealand charter which requires it to feature programmes that contribute to New Zealand’s spiritual and ethical developments. 
 But as woolly as some of these ideas are they are indicative rather than prescriptive and they should be treated and regarded accordingly. Radio New Zealand is now statutorily obliged to provide an international radio service to the South Pacific. Finally the bill allegedly sets the requirement for annual surveying of audience numbers and satisfaction meaning that Radio New Zealand will not shirk its responsibilities of remaining responsive to its listeners and taking into account their feedback. I will speak more on that a little bit later. 
It is clear from the report of the Commerce Committee and other sources that the charter itself is fundamentally sound in terms of what it requires. It is equally clear that there is general satisfaction from the public regarding Radio New Zealand’s delivery of charter obligations. I note from the 2002 ACNeilson survey of Radio New Zealand’s listeners that nine out of 10 listeners considered that Radio New Zealand provides fair and balanced information and 85 percent of listeners thought that it broadcasts programmes not found on other radio stations which is a key part of the organisation’s charter requirements. Eighty-three percent reported being satisfied only 3 percent were dissatisfied with the mix of programming on the network. Fifteen percent of listeners perceived National Radio to have improved over the last 12 months 15 percent thought that it had become worse and the remaining 70 percent thought that the station had stayed pretty much the same. 
Conclusively the overall performance of Radio New Zealand is pretty good. It seems that the relatively minor changes made by the Commerce Committee are evidence of that fact. Although the survey figures mentioned paint a glowing picture of Radio New Zealand’s performance United Future is none the less left with some serious concerns. Those concerns include the fact that Radio New Zealand does not have to subject itself to rigorous comparison with other stations in terms of its listener numbers through taking part in regular listener surveys as all the commercial radio stations do. The ACNeilson survey conducted in 2002 found that one in five radio listeners listened to either National Radio or Concert FM—the latter occupying a considerably smaller part of that listenership. It would be very interesting to see whether a comparison with the monthly commercial radio surveys showed a consistent listenership of Radio New Zealand. However we do not know that because Radio New Zealand has decided not to take part in industry standards surveys. I note that that issue is essentially an operational one and I am aware that practical reasons were apparently given for Radio New Zealand choosing not to take part in the comparative survey. But if a select committee can go as far as specifying that Radio New Zealand must undertake its own annual surveys of a qualitative and quantitative nature of its audience it would not have been too much—in fact it would have been easier—to specify that Radio New Zealand take part in industry-wide radio audience surveys. After all the taxpayers of New Zealand are the shareholders of Radio New Zealand and they have a right to know how it performs in comparison with other broadcast providers. It is regretful that the process of select committee review occurred before the last election because United Future’s contribution at that stage would obviously have been in that regard. 
Finally any debate on Radio New Zealand can hardly go by without considering some of the current rumblings emanating from the organisation itself. Amidst budget blowouts and requests for an emergency funding bail-out of $2.5 million we note the managing editor of news Lynn Snowdon apparently having to go so far as using the Protected Disclosures Act to communicate to the board of directors that all is not well in the engine room. Furthermore a report from consultancy firm Deloitte pointed to widespread dissatisfaction among Radio New Zealand’s 93 news staff. It also expressed and exposed serious problems in the news division and consultants said that the Auckland newsroom was in danger of breaking down because of pressure of work. It quoted staff as enduring constant crises and journalists as saying that something serious was about to go wrong and that they were in a state of siege and worn down. A common theme was that the news operation was about to implode. Needless to say we look forward to seeing the Government rectify some of those issues—in particular the accountability that would go along with having open survey results putting Radio New Zealand on an equal footing with all other broadcasting providers. We do believe that this bill should proceed but with reservation. I look forward to its returning to the House for further scrutiny.