Smith DamienDAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you very much. It's a pleasure on behalf of the ACT Party to stand today and present our vision about this madcap Labour scheme and we hope Chlöe does not get cancelled by this new entity because that would be a shame for the young people of Aotearoa and we'd need to bring the Hon Judith Collins on at night to talk sense into the nation.First Kris Faafoi and now Willie Jackson want to merge RNZ and TVNZ. Kris couldn't see it through so Willie's picked it up and he's got the mantle. I wonder if Kris saw what a mess this was all about to be—Tangi Utikere: Point of order Mr Speaker. There's an expectation that members referring to current or former parliamentarians use their full name and I'd invite the member to do so.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Absolutely correct. I have noticed that creeping in quite a lot and the dropping of the honorific as well so I will encourage the member—in fact I will instruct the member—to use the correct names when he's addressing the House.DAMIEN SMITH: OK. Thank you Mr Speaker. Today we saw what it was about. ACT believes that the provision of media isn't the role of the Government especially with broadcasting Minister the Hon Willie Jackson highlighting that at the core of this democracy has changed. ACT would apply the mixed-ownership model to this entity and we'll give you the reasons why: because this is a poorly defined merger. If the Government is going to do it it's got to do it right. We already have a somewhat functional public media and this bill is not doing it right.The former TVNZ CEO Kevin Kenrick said in 2019 that the business case for a new public entity would need to be focused on substance—substance Mr Speaker. Now I've had a look and I regret to inform you that I can't really find any in this framework. Big platitudes are unfortunately no substitute for substance.So what is Minister Jackson proposing? Let's chuck all the shares of Radio New Zealand and TVNZ into a big Crown entity pot add 38 million bucks and a woke agenda cross your fingers and hope for the best. Three hundred and twenty-seven million has been allocated to this merger at a time when Kiwis are coming to grips with the cost of living crisis and inflation for the Hon Mr Hipkins is caused by money supply large money supply going into the economy and this is another example where savings could be made.To counteract Ms Leary the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund has increased public concern about what is happening in terms of democratic media. So what does the Government do? It decides to double down. The Hon Kris Faafoi got up and said It's digital content. We need more streaming to keep up with Netflix. We can't let the people stream if we don't merge." That sounds reasonable right? Loosen up the focus so the public media can get on with the times. Well the last I checked the TVNZ OnDemand website was live and it still is.I asked my esteemed colleague Sam Purchas to check too and he said "Yeah they're already streaming. It's great—and have been for a while." Not only that but they must be printing money on demand with the number of ads they're running. TVNZ states itself that it remains focused on ensuring digital growth outpaces any declines in broadcasts. They're already doing it but the Minister wants to spend $38 million to let them do it. So this rationale is clearly nonsense. Secondly I think the Minister may be labouring under some misconceptions if he thinks that this merger is magically going to make our public media the new Netflix.So what are we dealing with here? We've got RNZ and TVNZ. TVNZ seems to be doing pretty well. They're turning a profit: 15 million bucks in 2022—in fact after achieving a record result the year before. Radio New Zealand not so much. This one seems to be hanging out—50 million bucks in a hole. So why wouldn't we just let TVNZ keep getting on with the job? They've been doing OK and I think that if we start getting to why Labour is so excited to merge them it's because they love to see successful and the profitable kneecapped with financial burdens. Merging RNZ and TVNZ is like trying to put an anvil on an athlete.I can see Minister Jackson is just so thrilled at the thought of TVNZ's financial performance being anchored down. In fact that whole side of the House seems horrified to see anyone turning a profit—except for themselves that is. They're turning a record profit every year. It's a great business model: where your customers don't give you whatever amount of money you declare they get locked up.So it's no wonder with the tax and drive philosophy over on that side of the House the Government keeps turning record profits from hard-working Kiwis and they've figured out they can just keep writing bigger numbers on productive New Zealanders who owe them. All Kiwis are worse off under this Labour Government. They've let inflation get out of control which negates recent payments to consider tax cuts. Dr Deborah Russell: Come back to the bill.DAMIEN SMITH: I'm coming back to the bill. This Government is happy with this business model. They don't understand that this is how value is created in society. It's not how the world works. Most businesses can't do it that way. This new public media entity seems to have lucked out though. The TVNZ board might be a bit concerned about what's going to happen when Radio New Zealand moves in. But to the new board: fear not. You're not going to have to boost revenue to make up for the sudden $50 million liability says the Cabinet paper. This new entity would not be expected to maximise its commercial revenues. This is the Labour dream. So how is the Minister going to ensure he gets value for money out of this? I don't think value for money has even crossed this Government's mind and certainly hasn't under this framework. They've appropriated 38 million bucks the $390 million just to establish this new entity and ACT says that's a waste. This is a mouthful of a name as well. And let's hope there's a contest and that the people of New Zealand are included in the naming rights of this entity because we have two very trusted brands as has been stated before. Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media ANZPM—I thought ANZPM was John Key. That's where he ended up wasn't it? And it's a touching tribute for Willie to name this after him and I never knew you were such a fan of John Key! Or perhaps Willie's angling for a spot on the ANZ board one day too.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Another reminder about the names.DAMIEN SMITH: Back to the merger. No one on that side of the House can answer what they're going to do with this but we can see what's motivating it. They want to push their ideology or as we now call it "democracy has changed" approach. They've never forgiven National or ACT for scrapping the TVNZ charter in 2011 and I think they've been holding a grudge ever since. They've copied and pasted the charter and dialled up the ideology and dialled down the reasons. Strangely enough things almost looked promising for a bit with the new public media entity. But the Cabinet paper now says it must demonstrate editorial independence impartiality and balance particularly in delivery of news and current affairs. But they seem to be a bit confused over that side of the House. New Zealand on Air's document Te Tiriti Framework for News Media says that we live in a society that perpetuates racism and inequalities for news media. It's not simply a matter of reporting fairly but of constructively contributing to Treaty relations and social justice. I wonder if the Minister will ask his new State media to reject this advice from New Zealand on Air. If impartial imbalance particularly in the delivery of news or current affairs is so important to him he will have to. So this Labour Government is just obsessed with pushing this co-governance agenda. Two of the board members must be appointed in consultation with the Minister for Māori Development. I'd love to see these two conversations between the Minister of broadcasting and the Minister for Māori Development! I'd like to think it would be just Willie Jackson himself angrily—sorry the Hon Willie Jackson himself—muttering to himself about David Seymour being a useless Māori. One great ratings programme would be to have Mr Jackson on TVNZ with Mr Seymour to debate co-governance but his party won't allow him and that is a shame for the outstanding broadcasting potential that that could have. The other four to seven members of the board are appointed in agreement with the Minister of Finance and we all know that's quite worrying. So we have this merger. There's no justification. Perhaps if this merger had been clearly set out as a modernisation and streamlining of services we could have got behind it. And $340 million later—no justification—raid Radio New Zealand TVNZ who were doing pretty good jobs in different ways seemed to be making a bit of money now seems to be spending a lot. I'd like to be clear about the content of the bill. We wish Simon Power all the luck. Even if he's the CEO of TVNZ because he doesn't know what the Politburo plan is either. We will be opposing this bill and it's not a good deal for the taxpayers of New Zealand."