Maharey Steve: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Maharey Steve: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:617;Page:13246] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Broadcasting) 
: 
 It is no surprise that the Opposition has chosen to most spiritedly debate an area like Television New Zealand and not rise to debates on things like the guardianship fund an overseas superannuation fund with a large fund of money which we thought might have attracted the interest of people. But it has chosen to go for Television New Zealand. That has attracted the interest of Mr Peters undoubtedly because a person scorned over dinner is someone that one should always expect to come back for dessert and today he had a wee crack at them again. I am sure they are able to cope with that so I will not dwell on him feeling bad about the dinner. 
I want to say though that in terms of Mr Peters’ comments I am in complete agreement on two points. One is that I agree with his drive for accountability. He spent most of his time talking about Ross Armstrong. I just want to remind Mr Peters that Ross Armstrong no longer is the chairperson of Television New Zealand. He did leave Television New Zealand because we asked him to. He agreed to do that. All of those things have been cleaned up and there has been a long gap in between. But if Mr Peters has forgotten that I thought I would just remind him that those things do matter to us and we do act on them. 
I also want to agree with him on the notion of public asset. He is right. If the National Party were to ever under some kind of extraordinary circumstance return to the Treasury benches it would sell this asset. It would sell Television New Zealand. It would sell Radio New Zealand as well. We know that because National members have said repeatedly that they can see no point in owning it. Now whether one likes or does not like what goes on with the programming Television New Zealand is part of the little left to us by the National Party of our nation’s infrastructure and we will not be selling it. We will be hanging on to it. There is a clear point of difference between the National Party and ourselves. 
Let me just talk quickly about credit cards. Can I tell members who do not seem to have read their notes very well that TVNZ confirms that all its credit cards now carry a credit limit and that the number of credit cards on issue is strictly controlled and has been reduced by 20 since January 2004. The use of credit cards enables low-value transactions to be processed efficiently while contributing to a rebate on expenditure for the credit card provider. So all the comments about limitless spending everybody has one and they have 12 in their back pockets are wrong— they do not and under this Government they will not because we ensure that people get the message that we want prudent spending. 
Television New Zealand of course is now working under the charter towards New Zealand content being at least 50 percent of programmes shown. That will mean an enormous growth for independent producers of programmes. It will mean a real change on screen. The commitment to New Zealand programming is something that the Green Party may not have read either but it is right there. 
There was concern about current affairs on Television New Zealand. Yes Television New Zealand has been reviewing news and current affairs and yes it has taken off some programmes and put others on. If members read their notes once again they will find that more current affairs programmes are on now than there were last year. This year we are planning to increase current affairs and news. There are new kinds of programmes on television because we really like to see debate about the kinds of issues in our country. We are very pleased to see the charter being fulfilled in that way so if members have any concerns about New Zealand content and current affairs they should please go back to the notes. They will find that there are even more. 
Sue Kedgley asked the question about overseas programming being a proper area of expenditure under the charter. Well of course it is. A charter does not just mean that New Zealanders who do happen to live in a global society want to watch programmes made by New Zealanders about New Zealanders entirely. They also need to know what goes on elsewhere and they need other points of view coming in. It is an appropriate thing for a public broadcaster to spend some of the money it gets under the charter on programmes it might not otherwise be able to afford to bring into the country. That is an appropriate use of the money. 
Television New Zealand is going through a large number of changes—there is no doubt about that. But right now it is maintaining audience share as the House would want. It is maintaining a very high level of profitability and it has had a very good year in relation to advertising. At the same time TVNZ is slowly but surely working out what it means to be a chartered organisation that has to return a commercial return to the Government. It is one of only three public broadcasters in the world—the Canadians the Irish and ourselves—where a commercial return is required by the shareholder the Government. It is required to provide a larger return. A larger profit has to be made by TVNZ so this is a big learning curve but I can say right now that we are seeing major changes and we are reasonably happy with the state of TVNZ’s finances.