Rich Katherine: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Rich Katherine: Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12240] 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 As I rise to speak in the Committee stage of the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill the first question I have for the Minister in the chair the Hon David Benson-Pope is this: why are we here under urgency to debate this bill? Why are we here to debate a bill that is only two pages long and that actually achieves very little except to insert a few words into Radio New Zealand’s charter? I may add that they are two little words that mean very much: “spiritual” and “ethical”. I would like to hear the Minister explain to the Committee how a radio station can deliver to New Zealanders their spiritual needs or reflect their ethical needs. I do not think that is the role of a State broadcaster and I am not even sure that a broadcaster is capable of doing that. It is very difficult to know from the bill what the Government means by “ethical needs”. Is it further social engineering and giving an indication to New Zealanders of what they should be listening to thinking and eating? The sort of bill that we see here really goes along the lines of telling New Zealanders what they should do with their lives. I think the charter itself set out some very basic principles for Radio New Zealand but now with the further development of the charter and addition of these new words Radio New Zealand is getting into areas that I do not think the New Zealand public wants the State broadcaster to get involved in. 
As I said we are here to debate this bill under urgency. One would imagine that the reason for doing that was that there was a dire need for this bill to be put in place. In fact I think most of us in this Chamber know that there has been no groundswell of protest calling for this particular bill. Radio New Zealand itself has made no mention of this bill nor has it required that it be driven through Parliament. I think Radio New Zealand is struggling to reflect the responsibilities of the charter already without broadening some of those requirements. In fact when I look for the reason for pushing this bill through under urgency I do not find one reason why we are here to debate this two-page bill. 
I think we always need to be mindful that when we put legislation through the House an immense cost is borne by the New Zealand public. Time and time again we see this Government putting through legislation that does not actually make a difference to New Zealand life and legislation that does not make a difference to the business or organisation for which it is intended. We are seeing a greater amount of what I would term “feel-good legislation”—that is legislation like this which the Government can point to and say it is a nice idea that we can now reflect New Zealanders’ spiritual needs within the Radio New Zealand charter when there is really no core reason why the legislation needs to be put in place. Once again I mention the huge cost to Radio New Zealand and to the New Zealand public in putting this legislation through Parliament. 
This bill is of course now well out of date and that is why we are looking at making a change to the commencement date. This Government is way behind in its legislative programme so quite often as we have seen with the reprinted bill here the date when an Act comes into force is being changed. This bill is not about restructuring Radio New Zealand giving it a bigger budget or changing its role. In this two-page bill we see just a lot of mealy-mouthed words and tinkering that really have very little to do with the provision of State broadcasting services to the New Zealand public. I do not think people will notice any change to the quality of what they hear. I do not think this Government has in mind what the ethical needs of the New Zealand public are. It certainly does not have in mind what the spiritual needs of the public are. In fact there was quite a debate about the word “spiritual” because United Future I think wanted to put in the words “religious beliefs” so that those beliefs would be reflected within the Radio New Zealand charter. But that amendment was ruled out.