Coleman Jonathan: Broadcasting Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Coleman Jonathan: Broadcasting Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:645;Page:14707] 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
: 
 We come to the Committee stage of the Broadcasting Amendment Bill and we are now talking about Part 1. We had the second reading in the House last night and it is pretty clear that all parties will support this bill. 
As we discussed the bill essentially brings the funding arrangements up to date in line with the technology. When the Broadcasting Act 1989 was passed only television and radio were on the horizon in New Zealand; we are now in a totally different environment. We have had the digital revolution and we are now in an environment where broadcasting already involves a lot of different platforms whether they be the Internet mobile phones things like video on demand— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: That’s not broadcasting; that’s narrow-casting. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: The Minister will get his chance to take a call. The general point is that the Broadcasting Amendment Bill actually engulfs or encompasses a variety of platforms. The current funding arrangements are really outdated for the technology we have now. This bill will allow the broadcasting funding agencies NZ On Air and Te Mangai Paho which is the Maori broadcasting funding agency to direct funding to a variety of platforms. Previously as I said they were allocating them just to television and radio. But in this new environment we have to accept that people will source content across a variety of platforms and the arrangements have to reflect that. 
National has been supportive of this bill right from the start but what this bill really brings into focus are the areas where we do not agree with the Government. I think there will be some significant points of debate in the field of broadcasting in the future. We heard last year about Television New Zealand (TVNZ) failing abysmally in financial terms under the yoke of this Government’s policy which has saddled it with this dual remit whereby it has to give the Government a dividend and on top of that it also has to perform to the expectations of the charter. As my colleague Richard Worth aptly summed up last night the charter as we have it now is just a set of aspirational statements with nothing concrete that we can measure any outputs against. This leads to a heck of a lot of confusion and we have had some ridiculous examples of what constitutes a charter programme. 
It is quite clear that the Government does not actually agree with the people at TVNZ. There was no clearer example of that than when the chief executive of TVNZ when asked by the Maori Affairs Committee last year what Maori programming was currently on State television named programmes such as  
Location Location Location 
 and  
Police Ten 7 
. Quite clearly those programmes do not represent Maori broadcasting. We have such a loose charter that TVNZ can try to fit any old programme within what is prescribed by the charter. It is a pretty unsatisfactory state of affairs. Steve Maharey when he was the Minister of Broadcasting was very keen on the idea of the charter; it has really been his baby. One really has to ask oneself what has changed between before the charter and after it. Has it really made a difference to what is on our screens? Well if one actually looks at it one sees that the reality is that the charter was supposed to deliver more local content for New Zealanders but in actual fact we now have less. If one of the functions of the charter is to ensure that New Zealanders can see content that reflects how we live here in this country one would have to argue that it is not actually performing as one would hope it might. 
But this Government has more problems in broadcasting than just TVNZ because it also has the issue of FreeView and digital broadcasting. The Government has invested a lot of taxpayer money into these new digital channels—$104 million in total. TVNZ was given $79 million to set up the channels then an extra $25 million. The reality is that the numbers of viewers have not grown as quickly as they might have. Have they plateaued? That is the real question. Unless the Government actually sets a date for switching off the analog TV signal or puts something on those channels that is really compelling to watch I do not think we will see the numbers grow.