Lee MelissaMELISSA LEE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'd like to first of all acknowledge the Minister who has brought this bill to the House the Hon Willie Jackson and congratulations once again on him taking on the role of Minister of Broadcasting.This bill actually does exactly what the Minister wants. It is very simple. It basically gets rid of TVNZ and RNZ—two very loved entities in New Zealand—and creates a new public media entity. However I don't think it actually does what the Minister hopes. The Minister hopes that this is going to be aspirational and bring about trust in the media sector. I think it is probably very helpful if we go to the genesis of how this bill actually began. Before I do that I'd like to sort of mention that Aotearoa New Zealand public media is not exactly something that inspires or creates an imagery in one's mind of amazing entertainment or amazing news or a trusted news entity which we hope that the new public media entity will be—and I hope there will be a name for the entity; I'm not quite sure how that's going to be achieved.The explanatory note of the bill basically says that it seeks to strengthen the delivery of public media services to New Zealanders by establishing a new public media. Yep—this bill actually does that. But it goes on to say that the media landscape is changing rapidly: the trends are of increasing competition around the world in terms of where people are actually getting their news or entertainment or sport. It's actually changing: people are not going to the traditional linear television or radio that they used to listen to and watch; they're going to streaming services they're going to other—I won't name all of them but things like YouTube. Young people are forever watching YouTube for example. They go to social media to get their news.Over the years of COVID lockdowns over the last couple of years the trust factor in media has actually gone down dramatically and part of the reason was the Public Interest Journalism Fund and the very fact that there was a perception that the Government was giving media a kind of a bribe. So media should not be trusted because they were literally being a mouthpiece for the Government. So how will this new public media entity—which effectively as the Minister actually said what was non-commercial will still stay non-commercial what was linear television will still remain linear television what was digital will still remain digital. So what is the new vision for this new entity? What is the challenge for this new entity to provide for the vast majority of New Zealanders who are hungry for new New Zealand content?Considering the fact that this genesis comes from the former Minister of Broadcasting the Hon Clare Curran who actually began the process thinking that we needed a change—she wanted to turn RNZ—Radio New Zealand—into a television station as well. I always used to think that Radio New Zealand does radio well; it doesn't quite do TV very well; we already have an existing TVNZ that does it very very well. The commercial imperative that TVNZ has provides the Crown with money where they actually profit from their enterprise. And I'm just wondering why the Minister is turning this new entity ANZPM—let's just call it that; Aoteroa New Zealand Public Media is quite a long thing—into an autonomous Crown entity. Why the change Minister? What an autonomous Crown entity actually means is that and I quote it has to give regard to Government policy when directed by the responsible Minister".If that is the case how will the public trust this new entity to be a step removed from Government policy or the dictation by the Ministers to do whatever they actually want the media to do. Where will that trust factor go? It is already down. I can't imagine it getting any better as a result. So I wonder if the select committee could consider potentially making this an independent Crown entity which perhaps says that it means that it is generally independent of Government policy or something that is actually independent of the Minister dictating to the entity what to do. I know the Ministers are not supposed to dictate what kind of content the entities are supposed to produce but the thing is that there are so many different ways: the Ministers actually appoint the board members—there is influence there. I think that anything that we can actually do to remove the Government hand from the news media and the new public media entity would be a good thing.The other aspect of it is that I read this bill and it was very straightforward that it gets rid of the two entities all of the assets and everything in it becomes the new entity. So in that aspect it is actually very straightforward and very simple. But the thing that I could not understand in this bill is the very notion that when Radio New Zealand a big entity and Television New Zealand—TVNZ—a bigger entity merges comes together to create one there's not going to be a single redundancy. Are you kidding me? Has anyone ever seen a merger where there are absolutely no redundancies? Well it looks like the Government's actually starting a trend. They merge two big entities and they are thinking there are not going to be any redundancies. Well good luck. I would like to see that actually happen but I feel very very sorry for the two entities who actually are going through a very stressful time because this has been going on ever since the Labour Government came to power and for five years they have been wondering what their entity was going to be—whether it was going to be "Radio New Zealand Plus" whether it was going to be a merger and all that. In a way finally there is a new entity and apparently all of your jobs are safe so in a sense maybe you should actually breathe a sigh of relief.The other aspect of it is that one of the reasons why sometimes I actually question the role of charter—there are charters and there are charters. When we were reviewing the Radio New Zealand charter recently in the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee we weren't going to get an opportunity to review it because this merged entity legislation was going to come to the House and I felt that because it was legislated every five years the RNZ Charter had to be reviewed and we needed to actually do our duty as a Parliament to review it.But you know we were told that charters are aspirational. And when you consider the fact that the business case that this merger is a result of the business case where numerous consultants and numerous working groups and people have actually worked on this—which literally cost the taxpayers close to $20 million—which was given before even the 2022 Budget this is an aspirational document the charter and it doesn't give any prescriptive discussions or I guess a hope from the Minister or wishes of the Minister of how the charter or the entity should operate to create the kind of media entity that the Minister hopes this will be. It's like when we actually got rid of the previous TVNZ charter because it really did nothing apart from lip service—this almost sounds like it.There is going to be six to nine board members appointed and among them two will have Te Ao Māori and tikanga Māori understanding in order to be appointed to the board. I think you know when you actually consider the fact that we have a cost of living crisis we have a Government who spends $327 million to create a megastructure and has given no indication as to how the entity may make $306 million over the next six years—that is $50 million a year—by tying their hands behind their back. I'm not so sure if this is going to work. I oppose this bill."