Brown Peter: Standing Orders—Sessional 
Brown Peter: Standing Orders—Sessional 
[Volume:640;Page:10357] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Tony Blair is on record as saying that Parliament is a place for noble causes and that is what this place should be. That is why New Zealand First will support this sessional order and the television coverage rules as provided in this motion. We can see no good reason why MPs should be satirised whilst doing their job in this House. We certainly can see no good reason why MPs should be ridiculed whilst doing their job in this House. Equally so we can see no good reason why they should be denigrated whilst doing their job in this House. We agree with Dr Cullen that the situation should be monitored and monitored carefully and probably reviewed if flaws are found or the system does not appear to be working. 
We have little or no sympathy for the media and the media’s case because principally some in the media—I will not say all but some in the media—when it comes to relaying the activities of Parliament operate under questionable ethics. I use the example that has been hinted at this afternoon. My former colleague Dail Jones was laughing at a joke or something that happened here in the House and he was shown on television with the musical theme “We’re in the Money” underlying it all. That was totally and utterly unfair and dare I say outrageous. Equally so a few weeks back my colleague Ron Mark questioned the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections I think and the debate got quite heated. But when the television showed it they showed the heated response from the department and then Ron Mark’s questions giving a totally wrong impression of what happened. 
I do not need to remind the House that some time ago my colleague Ron Mark was baited by the Hon Tau Henare—“baited” is the only word I can use. The statement the Hon Tau Henare made was a gross distortion of the truth and Ron responded. He did not respond in the manner that is appropriate to an MP I must say. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Yes he did for dissing him. 
PETER BROWN 
: I am getting a debate from behind the scenes here. Mr Mark has apologised to this House I think on at least three occasions. He was sitting behind me and I was acting party leader at the time. He has apologised personally to me. He has apologised to the Rt Hon Winston Peters our leader who was absent at the time. He has apologised to the caucus. He has apologised to the party members I do not know how many times several in writing and to many a local New Zealand First meeting. I do not know what else he has to do. That was a year or so ago and yet he still appears on television with that gesture advertising a programme. That is absolutely outrageous. 
If we are to televise Parliament then we must have some rules in place. We must have some rules that reflect what we are meant to be doing here. I saw the  
Dominion Post 
 the other day with photographs of MPs yawning. If that is the response of the media to these sorts of rules they invite MPs to make tough rules. But having said that I would suggest to anybody who feels a bit tired and wants to yawn to do what my mother told me to do when I was a young boy: put one’s hand over one’s mouth. Then it looks as if one cares about other people. Nevertheless this place is not here so that MPs can be made fools or idiots of. I think most of us will agree that we can do that pretty well on our own without being filmed or televised. 
 I recall when I went to London to a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference that we met three senior MPs—senior in terms of time spent in the House of Parliament—and we were talking about the televising of Parliament. The UK has been televising the Westminster Parliament for quite some years. Those MPs’ advice to all of us at the conference was to avoid it if we could because they said in essence the media cannot be trusted. They said that the media will use the televising of Parliament to undermine the very institution they will use it to undermine the Church and they will use it to undermine the Sovereign—the Queen. That last probably is not as important to us as perhaps it is to the UK but nevertheless those senior MPs in the UK Parliament were of the opinion that the media did very little to promote the issues as they were being discussed in Parliament; instead they made fools of the people who came to Parliament to do their best for the country. 
I have no doubt that just about everybody in this House comes here for a genuine cause. They come here with the feeling that their political view can make a better country. We all from time to time disagree—sometimes very very strongly. But the commitment to do our best I think goes through everybody’s attitude. I have had some fairly strong arguments with colleagues from all sides of the House but I would not for one minute suggest that they were not taking their issues seeing them and promoting them in the way they were doing without the best intentions to achieve the best outcome for New Zealand. 
To be made a fool of by the media is really the pits. I can recall in my own case going on television outside this House on a documentary programme—one might say that I was set up for it—to talk about the censorship of movies. The interviewer said to me: “Have you seen the movie?”. Well the truth is I had not seen the movie but I had read extensively the censor’s report. The censor has to write a detailed report of every movie that goes through his office. The report on this particular movie was sickening so my answer to the interviewer was: “No I haven’t seen the movie but I’ve read the censor’s report and it was absolutely sickening. He goes into details.” I said pretty much exactly that. What came out over the air was: “Have you seen the movie?”; “No I haven’t seen the movie.” And then they moved on to another clip. 
I have to say that my leader the Rt Hon Winston Peters had a word with me the very next day. He said that one cannot go on television and criticise a movie if one has not seen it. I explained: “Well here’s the censor’s report. Read that and see if you want to see the movie and see whether you think it should be censored.” Indeed my brother-in-law who lives down the road from me came and knocked on my door and said he had seen me on television and again I explained. I had the censor’s report and let him read it. He shared my concern. 
The point I am making is that television has the ability to clip cut and change things to suit the audience. What it should be doing is reflecting accurately what goes on in this place. Until we can get a cast-iron assurance that that is what will happen then we have to have rules in place that protect the people doing this job. I cannot think of terribly many other jobs—there might be some—that will be open to public glare and are put on TV at night to have people ridicule. When I worked on the waterfront and we invited a team of dignitaries down we had the courtesy to tell our men that people unrelated to their loading operation or discharge operation would be coming to view the operation. We did not expect anybody to later go out and castigate the guys who were working hard in the holds of the ship. 
If the media think they can come into this place with their TV cameras and show the world whatever they think the world should see with little thought of accuracy then I have to say they are barking up the wrong tree. New Zealand First supports this sessional order. We support the assertion that Dr Cullen made: it should be monitored and reviewed and possibly changed from time to time. Meanwhile we think these controls are a good place to start. Thank you.