Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Today of all days I stand in opposition to this Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill. Today of all days I want to start with a small saying of a truly great man—a great man whom we farewelled today a man who had enormous aspirations for New Zealand and spent every day of his life in this Parliament striving to achieve them. He reminded us day in and day out that New Zealand is a small country at the bottom of the world and no one owes us a living.What I heard before from the speaker from New Zealand First was about putting New Zealanders ahead of others doing what is right beating up the multinationals our moral responsibilities—what he was talking about was a world that owes New Zealand a living. He was not talking about the context of these major sporting events of interest other than in the context that the world owes us a living.I want to make my contribution on a few areas. I want to start with the implications. Although we are going to oppose the bill I do not necessarily want to spend 10 minutes berating the member or his arguments. Let us look at the elements of it. Firstly what are the implications if we were to accept it—if we were to say: Let's pass this thing into law."? First we have to look at what it takes to broadcast these games or these events. Well it means that someone some organisation or some nation has to assemble a whole lot of capital equipment—whether it is cameras broadcasting equipment or personnel—and they have to ship it out to wherever the event is taking place. The All Blacks are playing Australia at the Westpac Stadium and someone has to send outside broadcasting equipment. This is stuff that costs seriously big money. They have got to send this stuff out there and they have got to expend their capital to actually capture the game.That is all well and good if that is all you are doing. But if you are say a pay-per-view channel that has invested private capital in this stuff and you are sending it down there to give it away free to anyone what does that do to your return on the business case—not only buying the equipment and covering the game but paying for the rights to cover that game in the very first place?Hon Member: Tell us all what happened 30 years ago then.BRETT HUDSON: I will tell the member what happened a few years ago: we did not get live coverage of most games. I was young enough to watch this stuff when Grahame Thorne had his perm on national television. If we were lucky—if we were lucky—we got the games a couple of hours late and the coverage was absolute rubbish from maybe one or two camera angles. We have far better coverage of all sorts of sports in a world where we have competitive tensions and where companies are prepared to invest in the equipment to broadcast this stuff and then compete for the rights to do so.So what does it take? It takes a whole lot of equipment and personnel an investment in that to go and capture the event. So who is going to do it? Who is going to do it when you are not going to get paid for it—or you are going to get paid for it but a lot less than what you would otherwise get because who is going to pay for a pay subscription when Mr Mitchell over there has decided that you have got to give it away free to everyone in the house?Firstly who is going to go and watch the game at Wellington when they can sit at home and watch it on telly? And secondly which private entity is going to invest in that capital and those operations to actually capture it when they are not going to get the revenue from it that they might otherwise expect if it was a truly competitive market?This brings us to the point of who is actually paying for it. Who is paying for it? The reality is that someone has got to buy the rights to cover that match. Someone has got to have the equipment and the personnel to do it and someone has got to actually broadcast it.Mr Mitchell's stuff free to air sounds really good because it is "free". Well here is a lesson: nothing is free. Someone has got to pay for it. In this case what he is really saying is that we are going to fork—he spent 10 minutes telling us how much we already spend. Well now we have got to go into our pockets. Ma and pa taxpayer—we are going to go and dig into their pockets. As a Government we are going to reach in and we are going to take a little bit more out to pay for this because someone has got to pay for it. That could be justified if it was simply an objective basis for doing this.The second point is what do we display? What is genuinely of national significance? He has got a schedule in this bill but you could look back. If you look back 50 years what was significant in New Zealand sport then is not the same as what is significant today and in 50 years' time it will be different again. So who chooses? Who chooses? Well his bill smells reeks of the very stuff that Friedrich Hayek warned us about decades ago: it is the central government. It is the central government that decides what is of importance to New Zealanders what they should be allowed to see when they can see it which sports and which matches! It decides what is important! Well the reality is that does not match up to New Zealanders' expectations.I do not expect the Government to fund what I am interested in. Although we treasure the All Blacks and we want to be No. 1 in rugby if I had the choice I would be saying: "Forget the rugby show me Formula One Grand Prix live. I will stay up. I will watch the stuff." I see technology I see skill and I see all the things I want to see in that event. But others would say it is not of national significance. So the best way to treat those discussions those debates is to let the market address it. As soon as you allow the Government to do it you have got a bunch of people in seats like this saying what ma pa and the kids can watch. That is the New Zealand of the 1970s. That is a New Zealand where you used to have to apply to Treasury to get an overseas magazine subscription because the Government did not think it was something you should be allowed to read without its permission. That is exactly what they are talking about.Hon Trevor Mallard: That was the 80s. That was a National Government.BRETT HUDSON: Norm Kirk as well Trev. Do not forget Norm Kirk. Then we have the impacts. We have the impacts. We should consider these things because it is one thing to retreat to the 1970s and not be allowed to do anything—not only could you not get a magazine subscription but the only time you could visit a bank was when you were at work which was a slight problem. You could not get money out because there was no such thing as an ATM. It was not a great New Zealand. They think it was great. It was not a great New Zealand.But let us look at the impacts because these are important. At the moment we have companies that invest in being able to cover these events whether it is rugby netball cricket—the real big ones. Or whether it is tiddlywinks Formula One Grand Prix NASCAR—which has got to be in my view one of the least interesting and valuable sports on the planet but I tell you what there are a lot of Americans who love that sport—American football lacrosse or Irish football. All of these sports people can test and they are prepared to invest an amount of their money to get the rights to broadcast that.Then look at how it impacts the sporting bodies. How does it impact them? Well if you look at New Zealand Cricket and the New Zealand Rugby Union the advice they have given me—and they have done this directly—over 40 percent of their revenues—Simon O'Connor: How much?BRETT HUDSON: —over 40 percent—are derived from broadcasting rights. So broadcasting companies are currently prepared to pay them significant amounts of money so that they can have the right to broadcast their content if you will—their games whether it is an All Blacks versus Australia game whether it is a National Provincial Championship game a provincial-level game or any form at the grassroots. They are prepared to pay certain amounts of money to actually broadcast these events. What will happen to those revenues if as per the schedule which could change over time so many of them have to be broadcast free to non-paying viewers? The thing is obvious. Those companies are not going to be prepared to pay anything like that amount of money for those rights. They are simply not going to do it. So what are we left with? We are left with sporting bodies completely underfunded not because anyone wants to cut their funding but because the market is not going to support it because they are forced by the New Zealand First people to give it away for nothing.Arguably—and I think it is an enormous stretch—you could say the market could sustain some of that except you have to look at the true scope of new schedule 1A. It is not just the All Blacks versus the Wallabies the Kiwis versus the Kangaroos or the Silver Ferns. No. It is not just Commonwealth Games or Olympic Games. No. The most important part and I will finish with this is: "Any other sporting event funded by the Major Events Development Fund or any high performance New Zealand sportsperson who has received government funding for development and is participating …". Basically it is any event that anyone has ever had any public money for that would have to show everything free. No one would be prepared to pay for the broadcasting rights. It is a ridiculous bill. I oppose it."