Kedgley Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Kedgley Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:620;Page:16096] 
11.  
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Broadcasting 
: Does he agree with the reported comments of Television New Zealand Ltd Chief Executive Ian Fraser that the TVNZ dividend of $37.6 million for 2003-4 would be better off reinvested into programming to meet the charter; if not why not? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Broadcasting) 
: 
 It is for the Government to decide how to allocate funding. For this reason it expects the State-owned enterprises and Crown-owned companies to return their surplus funds. The payment of a dividend to the Crown by TVNZ is required and the Crown returns funds to TVNZ to assist it to implement its charter. By doing so it helps to ensure there is transparency and accountability for the now $17 million provided for charter funding. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Does the Minister agree with TVNZ’s chief executive Ian Fraser that the State broadcaster is caught on a money-go-round by having to pay far more in dividends to the Government than it receives back in funding for charter programmes; and why will the Government not waive the dividend provided that TVNZ meets a strict and accountable set of commercial and public service performance measures? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As I said before TVNZ is a commercial company. It is required to act in that way while it delivers its charter obligations. Therefore we will ask it to pay a dividend and we will choose what it gets back for charter funding. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Is the Minister happy with the performance of TVNZ? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes I am. TVNZ’s results have been outstanding in the last financial year. Not only has it improved its financial performance but it has taken significant steps towards implementing the charter. Unlike some of the Opposition members who seem to want to sell off TVNZ we are committed to it being a strong company delivering charter television. 
Marc Alexander 
: Does the Minister think that TVNZ’s request to retain its dividend to reinvest in charter programming is a clear sign that it is not currently meeting its charter obligations as indicated by the plethora of crapulous mind-anaesthetising programmes such as  
Living the Dream 
 the  
Mike King Show 
 and the truly inane  
City Celebrity Country Nobody 
; if not why not? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No. The member might have liked to watch the programme on Marti Friedlander that was on in the previous weekend. He would have found it very very useful. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Does the Minister agree that if TVNZ is serious about reshaping itself as a true public service broadcaster as the chief executive said yesterday then the days of astronomical salaries for star staff long lunches on company credit cards and the company paying for $60 bottles of wines and $60000 a year for corporate boxes must end? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: This Government has been very clear with TVNZ that it needs to monitor its expenditure closely. Eleven percent of all TVNZ staff earn over $100000 a year which compares very favourably with other publicly owned companies and large private sector companies. We will ask it to continue to monitor that. In relation to other expenditure I will pick out the member’s last point. TVNZ has for some time been looking to assign its lease for its corporate box because it no longer should have one or wants to have one. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Has TVNZ taken any specific steps since the publication of the report on violence to reduce the amount of violence in children’s cartoons screened on TV2—the programmes show more than 8.3 episodes of violence in an hour—and why is it saying in its annual report that it will replace foreign cartoon programmes when funding becomes available when charter funding is already available precisely for that purpose? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The member would probably know that the production costs of cartoons particularly those for child audiences are inordinately expensive. That is why the company needs time to do that kind of programming. In relation to what it has done about violence I think the major thing that it has done in respect of young people is to remove the promos that it ran throughout the evening for often quite violent films that were to play later on in the evening.