Kedgley Sue: Television New Zealand Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Television New Zealand Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:606;Page:3731] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I would like to talk about Part 1 the purpose of this Act. I reiterate that the Green Party does support the transformation of Television New Zealand into a Crown-owned company because we would like to see it change from being a commercially focused State-owned enterprise to being an organisation that hopefully is editorially driven rather than just commercially driven and that will have the satisfaction of viewers not the return of a commercial dividend as its primary objective. What is the point we say of keeping a television channel in public ownership if it is not going to focus on a New Zealand voice a New Zealand perspective and New Zealand programmes? 
We do need to remember that TVNZ has been more commercially driven more dependent on commercial income and advertising revenue than any other public service television in the world. Figures from a year ago show that whereas we were spending about $3 a head annually on public service television Australia was spending $30 and the United Kingdom was spending $120. So we support the idea of trying to change the culture of Television New Zealand from one that is simply preoccupied with advertising revenue and ratings to one that is focused on New Zealand programmes and the New Zealand perspective. 
In that regard we sincerely hope that TV2 will improve its performance. At present a mere 13 percent of the programmes screening on TV2 are New Zealand programmes. That is the channel that children watch. Our children are watching a couple of hours of television every single day on average. What are they seeing when they watch TV2 the young people’s channel? They will learn more about Los Angeles than they do about their own suburbs and communities because New Zealand society remains largely invisible on TV2. We sincerely hope that will begin to change—or what is the purpose of a publicly owned television channel? 
Although we support the transformation of TVNZ into a Crown-owned company we are totally opposed to the Government’s last-minute amendment which came like a bolt out of the blue to separate off the transmission arm. We believe that exactly as Katharine Rich said it will weaken not strengthen TVNZ. It will shrink the potential revenue base of TVNZ and therefore its potential to make New Zealand programmes. It will eliminate the option of having transparent cross-subsidies from the transmission arm and it will make TVNZ increasingly reliant on advertising revenue at the very time that we are asking it in the charter to be editorially driven not ratings driven. It will weaken the implementation of the charter. 
Given that advertising revenue is notoriously fickle and in particular will become so—as we and the pundits predict—as we move into the digital era we believe that this bill when the Minister of Broadcasting’s amendments are adopted with the help of United Future will inevitably increase TVNZ’s dependence on Government funding which of course has its own problems of potential political interference. If TVNZ is dependent on Government funding what happens when there is a change of Government and there is no more funding forthcoming? On the political interference argument there is an old saying: “She who pays the piper plays the tune”. It would be very easy for a future Government unhappy with Television New Zealand’s election coverage for example to threaten to reduce the Government subsidy—$10 million a year we are told for the next 3 years. Helen Clark made it plain that she was furious with TVNZ’s election coverage 4 years ago. It is not unimaginable that in future a Prime Minister would vow to reduce the amount of Government funding available for TVNZ because of his or her unhappiness with election coverage. That is what happened back in 1975 when Robert Muldoon refused to raise the licence fee essentially as a way of punishing the broadcaster.