Lee MelissaMELISSA LEE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise to participate in this general debate and I begin my contribution with a reflection on what Willie Jackson has said. That first bit was the only bit that I noticed because I was busy with a meeting and all I heard was that he thought that on this side of the House we were being very very negative. He said that we could be positive about it but you can consider the fact that in the last six years this atrocious Labour Government has actually performed really badly and Mr Jackson is one of those Ministers who has performed really really badly. But I reflect the words of Christopher Luxon our leader who this morning said with regard to the Minister Kiri Allan—and I quote—We rely on Ministers not to get the personal and public mixed up." It was appropriate that she apologised and I hope that she actually takes the opportunity to refresh her reading of the Cabinet Manual perhaps. I note that Minister Allan has served as an Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage for the past three years and I wonder whether there was any other occasion where she might have actually misinterpreted the public versus the personal as well. When you actually consider the fact that when there are issues of potential influence that the Ministers have on Government departments and the perceptions of interference the undermining of the trust of New Zealand media is one of those things that actually happened. It began going right back to 2018 with Clare Curran's actions in meeting with Carol Hirschfeld from RNZ and misleading a select committee and her further actions that saw her consequently be sacked from Cabinet and resign as a Minister. Then comes a public—Todd Muller: And who led that attack? MELISSA LEE: Well! Then comes the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund started by Kris Faafoi which multimedia stakeholders time and time again say was one of the biggest mistakes ever made by this Government because it has really contributed to the trust factor or the lack of trust in the media that has actually happened as a result of it and the catastrophic attempt to merge RNZ and TVNZ into Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media (ANZPM). Andrew Bayly: And how much did that cost?MELISSA LEE: Well it cost—actually it just got released—$19.6 million and can I tell you colleagues that $12 million of it went to consultants. Not one of those consultants were public media specialists $2.6 million went into offices and overheads and $3 million went into reimbursements. Nearly $20 million of taxpayers' money went to the project. Although the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media is actually cancelled I am quite worried and it was raised by journalist Pattrick Smellie on BusinessDesk who said that potentially Willie Jackson could appoint people on to the board of Television New Zealand because their contract basically comes up and all of them could be replaced by 1 May. Every single one of those board members could be replaced by the board that actually—Andrew Bayly: The transition rules? MELISSA LEE: Yeah the establishment board of Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media. It could be Tracey Martin as the new chair of TVNZ. That is a way that Willie Jackson could potentially have his wish to create sort of a different version of ANZPM at TVNZ and that will be the way that Willie Jackson could actually control the media. On this note I'd like to actually say best wishes to the departing CEO Simon Power. I wish him the very best because he had to actually put up with this and champion the work of TVNZ. But even without Simon Power from his successes I'm sure that TVNZ will continue to be a cherished entity that New Zealanders love and I just hope that the Government and Willie Jackson the Minister for Broadcasting and Media could guarantee that he would not be interfering by appointing his Labour friends to the board to control the media. Thank you."