BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) : I am pleased to rise and make it clear that the Labour Party will oppose the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill. This might be called the “Get the Coromandel off the Front Page Bill”. The bill was tabled last year. It was promised before Christmas. It comes now as a directionless bill, from a directionless Minister in a Government whose only direction in broadcasting seems to be towards Sky. This bill formalises the gutting of the already gutted Television New Zealand (TVNZ) charter, effected from the middle of last year. At that time the Minister of Broadcasting was also introducing a Radio New Zealand charter bill, which pledged that there would be no sponsorship. Now he is telling the Radio New Zealand board to get out of its mindset and to consider its options, including sponsorship. It is little wonder that thousands of New Zealanders are saying to the Minister “Hands off Radio New Zealand.”

When the Minister launched the Platinum Television Fund last year, he said it would be open to all broadcasters as a fund for premium content. Now the Minister is telling the TVNZ board to look at the Platinum Television Fund as a source of money to keep a public broadcasting option going for TVNZ. This bill closes down that public broadcasting option. If the Minister is successful in that ploy, the money from the Platinum Television Fund will not go into programmes; it will go into keeping, on a shoestring budget, a public service broadcasting option on TVNZ 7 alone. I think we can forget about TVNZ 6 continuing. We have to say private television production companies that are already feeling the squeeze have every reason to ask what on earth is going on. What has happened in the last few months? The recession has eased, but the Government has taken an even harder view of public service broadcasting.

This bill is about a lack of coherence from the Government. On the one hand it says in the bill’s preamble it is in the public’s interest to see New Zealand’s screen heritage. Yet at the same time TVNZ is providing to Sky, from the beginning of May, a channel available only to people who purchase the Sky option. I ask where the public service broadcasting option is in that. Where is the Government’s coherence? How is the public interest being served by that? Another example of this Minister’s inconsistency and incoherence was the recent instruction to the TVNZ board about the funding of TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7. He told the board that there is no further funding for those channels when the money runs out at the end of next year, because the Minister of Finance has told him that there is no money for that.

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Well, what would you do, Burnsy? What would your Government do?

BRENDON BURNS: Well, the Government should be honest about that and not dress it up as a bill.

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: No, tell the truth. What would you do?

BRENDON BURNS: I ask that Minister what he would do about it. He is the Minister, and he can do better than this. This bill fails to spell out in any way any requirements for TVNZ to screen any New Zealand content.

Let us look at the bill and some of the details included in it. Let us look at new sections 4(a) and 4(b), inserted by clause 4, in Part 1. We see the purpose of the legislation is to “(a) provide for the functions of TVNZ, the Crown entity responsible for conducting a television and digital media business; and (b) ensure that TVNZ carries out its functions and maintains its commercial performance”. What do those clauses replace? They replace the Television New Zealand charter, which actually said TVNZ had some other obligations as the State broadcaster. It was asked to feature programming across all genres that informed, entertained, and educated New Zealand audiences. In fulfilment of its objectives, TVNZ was required to feature New Zealand films, drama, comedy, and documentary programmes. What does this bill spell out about the content that must be delivered? It says this: TVNZ must encompass both New Zealand and international content. It puts absolutely no requirement on TVNZ. So under this legislation we will see a further grinding back of the content that TVNZ provides. That is what it will do.

I ask the Minister what the point was of telling the Platinum Television Fund that it should become the funder of high-end content just 9 months ago when it was launched, when now he is saying to TVNZ that the Platinum Television Fund should become, perhaps, the funding source for its ongoing provision of TVNZ 7. With that goes the end of the commitment to quality programming. This bill puts no specific obligations on TVNZ to provide any New Zealand content at all. One has to contrast that with the Television New Zealand charter, which, whatever its faults might have been, at least specified that TVNZ, as the State broadcaster, had some requirements put upon it.

New Zealand On Air is left as an organisation—

Melissa Lee: Which New Zealand programme can you name that was funded by the charter?

BRENDON BURNS: You can talk about grants; I am talking about New Zealand On Air now. I am talking about New Zealand On Air.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member is bringing the Chair into the debate on a few occasions. You cannot use the word “you”.

BRENDON BURNS: I will talk about New Zealand On Air, an issue that Melissa Lee knows something about. She has been a recipient of the largesse of New Zealand On Air.

Hon Darren Hughes: Big time.

BRENDON BURNS: Big time. That organisation has provided plenty of carrots, but no stick—plenty of carrots, but no stick. Last week, probably in anticipation of this bill, it announced $9.3 million of funding for high-end programmes: good programmes, stuff that New Zealanders will want to watch, and stuff that will make New Zealanders proud to be New Zealanders. But I suspect that New Zealand On Air is getting in ahead of this announcement, because the Minister is trying to get his hands on the fund he launched only 9 months ago for content.

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Tell the truth, Burnsy. You know that’s not true.

BRENDON BURNS: I say the Minister should tell TV3 that he wants TVNZ to receive most of the money from the Platinum Television Fund. I ask him what has happened in 9 months. Why has he been unable to get some resources for his portfolio—what has happened?

The Minister is also at the same time demanding that TVNZ maximise its dividend stream to him. I ask him what that is causing. TVNZ is now in the process of a second round of job cuts. Ninety jobs were lost last year—90 jobs gone. How many job losses will we see announced in the coming weeks? Already we have been told that $5 million has been taken from TVNZ’s budget. That $5 million is going, so where is the Minister’s commitment to TVNZ and its future? Where is the Minister’s commitment? It is just not there. This bill is an indication of that, very, very clearly. It fails on a number of fronts in terms of its delivery to New Zealanders, and in terms of content. We see the Minister scrambling around, and trying to instruct TVNZ to fund the two existing channels TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7 out of a dwindling return that TVNZ is managing to deliver at the moment. We know that TVNZ is being unrealistically told to crank out the maximum possible dividends over the next 5 years. We see a second round of job cuts looming.

All that the Minister can do is to introduce a long-awaited bill that does absolutely nothing for public service broadcasting whatsoever. He has also suggested that the two channels TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7 be funded from the Platinum Television Fund, and we know that it will not deliver that funding. The Minister has told the chair of TVNZ—

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: You’ve got to tell the truth.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member. I say to the member to my right, Jonathan Coleman, that the phrase “tell the truth” is deemed under Speaker’s ruling 43/1 to be unparliamentary. The member has used that phrase a number of times. I ask him to desist from doing that.

BRENDON BURNS: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am certainly not going to lose my cool and storm out of the Chamber, like members opposite have done to relieve some time when the pressure told on them.

This bill confirms the Government’s view of broadcasting. The Government sees TVNZ as nothing more than a cash cow—nothing more than a cash cow. The obligations enshrined in the charter, in terms of trying to deliver some sense of public service broadcasting objectives, are absolutely obliterated by this bill. They are absolutely obliterated.

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: You’re 30 years out of date, Brendon.

BRENDON BURNS: What is wrong with State service broadcasting? What is wrong with public service broadcasting? The Minister is telling TVNZ that he wants it to deliver public service broadcasting objectives, because belatedly he has woken up to the fact that actually New Zealanders do value those things. They do value those things, and they have shown that very, very clearly in the response to his instructions to the board of Radio New Zealand in the last few weeks—very, very clearly. By the thousands and thousands, they have said very clearly to the Minister they do not like his instructions to Radio New Zealand. I suspect that they will not like what he is saying to the TVNZ board, either.

The Minister’s instructions are really part of the whole strategy of lining TVNZ up for sale, by stripping it of any requirement to be anything other than like any other broadcaster out there in the commercial space. That makes it very easy for the Government to say TVNZ is no different from any other broadcaster, so why should the Government keep it in public ownership? That is the strategy. It is very naked, and the Minister’s language about that has been quite explicit. He has said to the TVNZ board that it should let Television One and TV2 be “nakedly commercial”. I think that was the phrase that he used. He said we should let them be “nakedly commercial”. The Government is to fund a tiny shoestring operation at the back end to try to deliver a tiny little sense of a public service obligation, and then it will sell TVNZ. It will simply have a shoestring operation, funded out of the Platinum Television Fund and anything else that TVNZ may be able to cobble together after it has paid its dividend stream to the Government. That is the Government’s strategy. That is what this bill is about.

I also want to comment about the fact that the Minister has included in this bill references to New Zealand content derived before 1989. The bill proposes that TVNZ pay $300 per half-hour to broadcast such content—$300 for half an hour of programme content. What a derisory sum that is. What an insult that is to New Zealanders.