Tuiono TeanauTEANAU TUIONO (Green): Kia orana Madam Speaker. Let me start by wishing you the best as you step out of this place into brighter sunsets and sunnier islands. And also supporting the words with colleagues who will be stepping on to the campaign trail—I look forward to jostling elbows with yous out there on the campaign trail. This will be I guess my last time speaking in the House this parliamentary term so this will be the last time that colleagues Shanan Halbert and Tama Potaka will hear my dulcet tones reverberate around this hall. So I rise in support of this Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill on behalf of the Greens—supporting all the arguments in support of this bill as well but also I think it's really important for us to recognise the importance of the fourth estate and what that means for our national democracy but also importantly for our regional democracy and our rural democracy as well. As I was listening to folks I was reflecting on how few rural newspapers there are between the Manawatū heading up towards Hamilton and it's probably like that around the country as well as more and more stuff moves online. The importance of actually having those voices report the news from those communities' perspectives—it's really really important because when we strengthen that regional democracy and that rural democracy that's good for all of us. That's good for the functioning of society and I just wanted to reflect on the real importance of that. As politicians as MPs we get put under the microscope by the fourth estate; by the media—and probably a few of us around here have felt that burn when they've done that as well. But it is important to have that critique. It is important for functioning democracy to have that sort of criticism. And I note that nobody's up in the press gallery at the moment because before I came down I noticed that the journalists were out there grilling both the National Party and the Labour Party on their tax policy bun fight out on the tiles just before as well—which is their job and good on them but I would like to remind them that the best tax policy is on greens.org.nz. We need to be making sure that the very wealthy pay their fair share so we can have all those good things like free dental care and so on and so forth. So journalists if you're out there take a look at our website; we've also got a tax calculator as well. But anyway I'm deviating from the bill so I'll get back to it.This bill aims to enable fair bargaining between New Zealand news media and social media platforms for news content. This is achieved by providing good-faith bargaining code and a framework for revenue sharing on news content which is provided by news media but distributed and published on social media. It's important to note—unlike Facebook and YouTube and all of these other platforms where they just share our content those things are powered by an algorithm and the algorithm actually prioritises those top 100 things that you will see on your Facebook feed. And so I guess at least with the media—with the fourth estate—they're actually human beings. Like I'm fairly certain most of them are human beings and that's different from the algorithm. And I heard comments from that other side that actually if you have too much public-funded journalism you end up in an echo chamber—actually that's what the algorithm does. It actually prioritises those top a hundred items or whatever so that that you will engage in it. It's the engagement that actually gives those companies the money; its engagement that actually makes those algorithms work. They're not actually people it's an algorithm. So that's what our local democracy and those voices that we need to report are actually competing against and it's really important for us to recognise how damaging that has been for our democracy. We only have to look to what happened in the United States—and I reflect that within the OECD New Zealand has one of the lowest public broadcasting funding per capita—and the US is worse. And we saw what happened there with the with the movements onto the Capitol Hill and how they're still grappling with that because they actually haven't been able to deal with the real fundamental issues of democracy and what the impact of these social media giants and their actual responsibilities are to our wider democracy here within in New Zealand. So I support the bill because this gives some shape to that; it provides us with an answer. The algorithm isn't walking around on the streets of Taihape or walking around on the streets of Fielding or walking around on the streets of Levin or Ashburton and so on and so forth—we need people to actually do that. And here's the thing with the journalists as well: they're always held up to criticism which is fair enough actually. I was just noting how the host on Breakfast has been hauled in front of the media for criticising members of this House and I don't know whether that criticism was justified or not—but there is an accountability there that journalists have that some conspiracy crank with a camera does not have when they publish their stuff on Facebook or Google or wherever. So there is a massive massive discrepancy and it's important to recognise the strength of that journalistic integrity and importance of that. So just to touch on some of the components of this bill. The code and bargaining system will be administered and monitored by the Broadcasting Standards Authority which will become the independent regulator of the scheme and code. The regulator will develop the code of conduct to support the bargaining process under the legislation and this will create obligations on eligible news media organisations and eligible digital platforms subject to the framework. The bill defines eligible news media organisations through adherence to professional standards and New Zealand content and audience. Eligible digital platforms are defined as those which present or facilitate access to New Zealand news content which have a bargaining power imbalance in their favour with New Zealand news media. The bill has a mechanism for eligible news media companies to trigger formal bargaining with eligible digital platforms—followed by mediation and then arbitration if parties do not reach an agreement with specified time frames. There are pre-described duties imposed on parties bargaining to negotiate in good faith and comply with obligations in any code of conduct developed by the regulator and there are a couple of actual additional features to the regulator as well Madam Speaker or Mr Speaker—we've had a change in the Chair.I wanted to make a final reflection on when this type of legislation was passed in Australia. People were wondering Well what's going to happen here—are the social media companies going to bail?" and they did try to bail but then they quickly came back to the party when they found that they were actually losing revenue. So what I think this points to and the reason why we support it is that it's a trajectory of a conversation that we need to be having in terms of the power imbalance of social media companies—because these guys are massive: this is the Goliath of the Goliath versus little David here. And the importance of actually understanding that within the wider context and the impact on our local democracy on our regional democracy and our national democracy as well—and what that means on a global scale. So I support the bill."