Curran Clare: Television New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Curran Clare: Television New Zealand Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18675] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak in the Committee stage of the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill to which Labour is fundamentally opposed. I want to talk about the public interest which is an extremely important principle that underpins our opposition to this bill. The Government is doing away with the Television New Zealand (TVNZ) charter getting rid of TVNZ 7 stopping New Zealand from having a public broadcasting television station and leaving us in a situation where New Zealand and Mexico appear to be the only countries in the OECD that do not have a public broadcasting channel. The Government is also freezing funds for Radio New Zealand National which is essentially a cut while at the same time doing sweetheart deals with MediaWorks. There is a very dodgy relationship between the Government and a commercial television station and there is mounting evidence that although there was a plan to keep TVNZ 7 going and to likely merge it with Radio New Zealand National something happened to stop that. 
Now we are left with nothing except the weakness of the Minister of Broadcasting Jonathan Coleman who does not have any real plan for public broadcasting in this country other than to get rid of it. If he did have a plan then he has been rolled. There is also the weakness of the Prime Minister and Ministers as I said last week in kowtowing to— 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: This is the same speech from the last reading. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: It is good that the Minister may be able to respond. Labour is emphatically opposed to this bill. 
I have a little story to tell today about this Minister and public broadcasting. The Government spends much more time with the commercial broadcasters than with the taxpayer-funded broadcaster. Last week I told members that the Minister of Broadcasting has met with the board of MediaWorks nine times since the election and that six times of those times were last year—that is once every 2 months. I am still waiting for answers on what he actually talked about. Last week I also asked the chair of the board of Radio New Zealand National Mr Richard Griffin how many times the Minister had met with Radio New Zealand National since the election. Twice I was told. That is since the end of 2008. Yet Radio New Zealand National is our public broadcaster and it has had its funding frozen which it admits represents a cut. It is trying its hardest to stay afloat and one would think that the Minister would spend more time with it and pay it more attention. We do not know how many times the Minister has met with the board of TVNZ—he has not told us that yet—or how many times he has met with the board of Sky. Those questions are with the Minister and we are waiting for answers. 
In fact other issues we are waiting for answers on are about the withholding of information on the business plans for TVNZ relating to TVNZ 7 and about the proposal that was prepared and put to the Minister to try to keep TVNZ 7 afloat. In a select committee a couple of weeks ago TVNZ told me it had provided the Minister with proposals about keeping TVNZ 7. Will the Minister release that information? No he will not release it but we will keep trying. The proposal is called “TVNZ 7 investment scenarios” and it has been withheld for commercial reasons. Why would that be given the widespread public concern about the decision to discontinue funding for TVNZ 7: about the public interest issue and about the potential harm that this decision might cause to the whole public broadcasting environment in New Zealand? One can admit and accept that it might be legitimate to withhold financial figures that might be reasonably expected to compromise TVNZ’s commercial interests if they were made public. But it is difficult to make that argument with regard to TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7 given that TVNZ 6 has already ceased operation and that the Government has now announced its decision to cut TVNZ 7. So it would be interesting to hear the Minister say why that information cannot be made public. After all it is difficult to argue that either TVNZ or the shareholding Ministers have any commercial interest in withholding information on channels that will not be continued. 
That brings me to another issue which I mentioned before about the Minister having spent a lot of time meeting with the board of the commercial television broadcaster and very little time meeting with the public broadcasting sector. Of course we all know that MediaWorks was given a $43 million loan from this Government to defer the company’s spectrum licensing payments. That happened at a time when the Government was deciding to axe the Television New Zealand charter which is the central issue in this bill and a very central public interest issue. It also happened around the time that the decisions were made to freeze the funding for Radio New Zealand National which is essentially a cut to that funding and then to make TVNZ 6 go commercial and subsequently to cut the funding for TVNZ 7 altogether leaving New Zealand with no national public television broadcaster. 
I want to share a little story with members about the public interest issue and it relates to this bill because in substance the bill attacks the public interest by doing away with our public television broadcaster and doing away with the charter. That makes TVNZ behave as a commercial broadcaster would which is not in the public interest. It is also not in the public interest to give MediaWorks a $43 million loan and the Minister well knows that. I would like to share with members that in May 2009 the Minister for Communications and Information Technology wrote to the Radio Broadcasters Association and rejected its request for a deferral of spectrum licensing fees because that would be a fiscal risk to the Crown. The Minister said he was not convinced that the Crown ought to be an alternative to services. In August 2009 the Ministry of Economic Development advised the Government that there had been much lobbying by MediaWorks and the Radio Broadcasters Association including an approach to the Prime Minister which we now all know about. They were recommending that a single channel of communication be used to ensure there was no risk of creating ambiguity or mixed expectations. In September 2009 they advised Ministers that the MediaWorks problem was with its capital structure not its long-term viability and the advice was accompanied with a Deloitte’s report. 
In October 2009 a memo went to Cabinet and noted the urgency of making a Cabinet decision on a deferral of MediaWorks’s spectrum licensing payments. That stemmed from MediaWorks’s capital restructure plans so there was no public interest issue there. Late in September 2009 a draft Cabinet paper noted MediaWorks’s lobbying and Treasury’s misgivings because it saw the move as a policy shift. It required a sign-off under the Public Finance Act but Treasury did not spot that at the time. Treasury opposed the deferral of spectrum licensing payments and we know that Treasury and the Ministry of Economic Development opposed the deferral and the providing of a loan to MediaWorks. [ 
Interruption 
] That was a very significant public interest issue. In October 2009 a draft Cabinet paper showed that the urgency was all about the arrangements with the banks for a capital restructure. Treasury advised on the risk of the Crown becoming a creditor and acting as a bank. The Cabinet decision went through in October. Cabinet approved the alternative payment arrangements despite that advice from Treasury and the Ministry of Economic Development. 
But then Treasury worked out that there was a problem because under section 65 of the Public Finance Act the deferred spectrum licensing payments required the approval of the Minister of Finance— 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: —which it had not got— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Order! 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: —and in order to get that— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: It is for me to control the Committee not the member. A point of order has been called and I indicated that without standing up. The member may not have heard me but to continue to talk louder is not appropriate. 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: Thank you Mr Chairperson. The member is talking about radio contracts which have nothing to do with this bill. I urge you Mr Chairperson to ask her to reconsider her speech in terms of Part 1. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Mr Chairperson— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I will listen to the member. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: I think that is a bit rich coming from a member who approached— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Members must not attack another member when they make a point of order. They must stand up and state the point. I was looking for assistance not to see people get roused. I will give the member another chance to make a point. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Thank you for your help Mr Chairperson. I just recall that the Minister when he made his opening remarks in the Committee stage spent the first several minutes on attacking the 9 years of the Labour Government in a somewhat provocative and angular way saying it was masquerading as delivering public television covering the cracks and all sorts of other things that were really outside what an ordinary Committee stage would sound like. So I would have thought that measured against that my colleague’s contribution was mild indeed. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Yes. I really am very much in favour of members’ speaking specifically to the bill but when we deal with Part 1 there is a purpose of the Act and I guess that opens it up a little notch. As has been pointed out I think most sides have done that. I do not think it assists in the final determination to get too political as we go on but I have been listening to what the member says. As long as members tie in those illustrations to the purpose of the legislation I think they are marginally inside the boundary but a bit further out than I would prefer them to be. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: Thank you Mr Chairperson. This issue goes directly to the public interest in terms of cutting or axing the Television New Zealand charter. 
The point I am making is that under the Public Finance Act the Minister of Finance had to sign off that loan. There was no public interest and what had to be found was a reason for public interest. The facts and the paperwork show quite clearly that there was a scrambling around looking for a reason relating to public interest. The Minister for Communications and Information Technology made it clear to the Minister of Finance that there was a problem and that if the Minister of Finance did not sign off the loan then the policy would be unlawful. The Ministry of Economic Development suggested that the public interest test could be met but only on a technicality of a retraction of the deferral avoiding the minimal risk—I stress the word “minimal”—of business closures and destabilisation of the broadcasting sector. That was a market rationale not a public interest rationale. The bigger issue was the significant risks to Government credibility for licence renewals and to damaging good faith with the industry. This was really all about the Government’s bumbling on this issue and the fact that it had to scramble around and find a public interest test.