11.10-1pm: 20.11.03
Chair: Martin Matthews, Chief Executive, Ministry for Culture and Heritage
MM: Welcome everyone to this session “Reflecting Ourselves”. Much has been said already last night and earlier this morning about the importance of broadcasting and in particular public service broadcasting at this time, its importance in relation to particularly small nations and issues around strengthening our identity. Having a strong sense of ourselves, our place in the world and so on. I think it's important when we think about those things and often talk about nation building and nationhood and national identity to keep in focus the idea that in fact we are diverse peoples from diverse backgrounds living in different places with different perspectives, backgrounds and interests. This session really is an opportunity to think about diversity in lots of different ways. To reflect the fact that New Zealand is a diverse society with people from many different backgrounds and living in many different places. We've got an opportunity to explore the ways we seek our diverse peoples and communities through some of the broadcasting activities that currently exist. It's an opportunity to look forward and explore some of the issues connected with a community and various people's interests through broadcasting. We're going to take as our first speaker Simativa Perese. Simativa is Chair of the National Pacific Radio Trust, responsible for Niu FM, which Brent Impey referred to as having stunning success in the Auckland market through the recent survey results. The Pacific Radio Trust and Niu FM are an initiative that have been under way for about a year now, clearly having a significant impact in the provision of broadcasting services, both in Auckland and in other centres, to Pacific communities. Simativa's a seasoned broadcaster himself and in his spare time he does work to pay his bills as a barrister. I know Simativa has spent an awful lot of his time over the last year working with other members of the Pacific Radio Trust in setting up Niu FM and getting this important initiative underway. So Simativa, welcome.
Simativa Parese: [Greetings in Samoan]
Warm Pacific greetings from New Zealand's newest radio network, Niu FM, which by the way is spelt “Niu”. Hone was supposed to have spoken first in this session but he's pulled rank on us as the tangata whenua, he says you new boys go first. So that's why with respect and with thanks I pay homage to Hone for allowing us to speak first.
Reflecting ourselves is the topic and I guess probably the easiest way to start is by suggesting to the Minister that an easy for us to reflect ourselves is to have television for Pacific people. And no doubt Shona Geary will receive an email from me soon requesting a meeting for that purpose.
The obvious issue is if nationhood is made from within through our language, music, songs, games and customs, the question for Pacific people is whose language, whose music, whose songs, whose games, whose customs. You see, and I say this respectfully to the earlier speakers from the UK, New Zealand's experience is really quite different. Whereas Greg Dyke and Bob Collins suggested that minority interest should be included in public broadcasting, we here in New Zealand have gone much further in the area of radio, and have actually created Niu FM, a new vehicle nationwide to meet the needs and aspirations of a growing Pacific community. It's something I guess that in part was referred to earlier by Ian Fraser - that over the next 25 years New Zealand will be young and brown. And so there we have it. Pacific community, what is it? That is a pretty complex question and I want to try and allude to some of the factors that we on the Trust are concerned with in terms of our delivery.
It means - well it's easy enough to see. I'm Samoan. There are Tongans, Cook Islanders, and so on. But the issue for us is what about the cross pollinators, the Samoan/Tongans, the Samoan/Tongan/Maori, the Samoan/Tongan/Maori/Cook Island Maori. You see you need to add to that complex mix of cross pollinators the differences that are apparent inter-generationally for us. Now this was most obvious at the 1999 Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs International Pacific Mission Conference. There was a section for leaders and one of them was a 19-year-old speaker from Palmerston North. And he got up and spoke boldly and said you older people should listen to us. You should give us a voice. We have opinions as well. Well of course the older people at the conference said no, no, no. You're young, leave the voices to us the older people, those of us with titles, those of us who are church ministers, those of us who have experience and are wise.
Using the term Pacific community is really for us a wonderful utopian label. It doesn't reflect the reality and although I say that I do agree that there is a growing Pacific culture made up of a blend of customs and that's not only the domain of brown people, that's Pacific culture brought in by or shared by all sorts of people including white New Zealanders, including Fijian Indians who take a very valid part in Pacific communities. It's been developed by a mosaic of people, including those as I say connected with those customs by virtue of their non-racial associations. So how do we get those collected customs? Well we shape them by sharing our interests in music, our common struggles, and for us a wider sense of community understanding that we're no longer living in Samoa. We're no longer living in Tonga. But we live in a bigger, much wider community. Those common struggles, we've all heard them. Pacific Islanders - worst health rates around, health statistics around, highest rate of youth offending, highest rate of offending in population in our gaols and so on. We had our common struggles and it actually I think binds us together as Pacific people.
This government has, by investing into Niu FM, recognised the need for Pacific initiative to give us a voice which in our view will help to shape the future course of Pacific people at least insofar as radio is concerned.
What is that voice about? Well let me share with you some of the initiatives that we brought on to Niu FM. The 10 to 2 Show is in my view, as an old broadcaster, one of the best shows available in Auckland. And why? Well it's topical, it's interesting, we hear on that show for instance debates about issues. One that I'd like to share with you concerns the question of how do we as Pacific people look after our elderly. Should we put them in an old people's home, should we sideline them to some extent - and you have really interesting debate. You wouldn't hear that, you won't hear that on any mainstream radio service. You won't hear Pacific people ringing up in that way. There was one call from a chap who purported to represent a group of workers at a steel factory in Otahuhu, and he gave the view of that group as to how they should, we as Pacific people should treat our elderly. Then there was also of course that now famous episode of the idiot who ran onto the rugby field and tried to kiss Louis Koen's bottom. For that he obviously got knocked out. But we had a lot of callers, Samoan humour on air. People talking about it and pointing the finger as to whose relation it might have been. You won't get that on ZB, with respect. It's something that's unique to us.
In the area of music, which is something that has been pioneered by Radio 531PI, and the first pan-Pacific radio station in New Zealand. It's not unusual to hear two songs from different countries being played one after the other. A Samoan song followed by a Tongan song followed by a Cook Islands song. In fact it would be unusual to hear otherwise.
But now we've got Nesian Mystik whose members are artists from Samoa and Tonga. Nesian Mystik, they're the people that sang the ad, the coke ad you know.
Now arguably - and I see I've only got two minutes left - the area of social policy which Niu FM will have its greatest impact is in bridging the information needs of Pacific people. It isn't sexy to talk about ratings, although Brent Impey apparently did earlier in the day, but Niu FM has done fairly well in Auckland. Our listeners and certain age groups listen longer than any other radio station - talk or music - we've created specialist youth shows which are run by young people and you might like to tune in between six and seven in the evening. It's the first time you'll hear young Pacific people sharing their views about topical issues. Issues of importance to Pacific people such as the recent debate about a certain college in Auckland pulling out of the PacificIsland festival. You've heard young people talking about the pros and cons of this. There are a number of other examples of building a shared culture. A culture that bridges the divide, not only as between Pacific Islands but also between Pacific Islands and mainstream New Zealand.
I want to conclude by suggesting from a radio perspective that from a Pacific perspective we need to ask the question does public broadcasting reflect the values of Pacific people? Well in my view it's a no brainer, you bet.
MM: We turn now to Access Radio, and an opportunity to explore some of the issues around community radio, a medium through which communities can reflect themselves through various opportunities, through the network of access radio stations around the country. Our next speaker is Terri Byrne, who's the Broadcast Manager of Auckland's access radio service, Planet FM. Terri as you will see from the biographical notes has a long background in broadcasting and communication related activities. Terri, welcome.
Terri Byrne: Thank you. Kia ora, good afternoon and good morning it is still and to our special guest Bob Collins [greeting in Irish].
By, for and about, these are the three essential words of community access broadcasting. For and about no doubt appear in the intents of most public broadcasters but the word that sets access broadcasting apart is that little one "by", it is our byword you might say (and we don't spell it with a U).
Small word - big implications. As most radio has become the voice of advertisers and much of the media goes on to eat itself with stories of celebrity and self-generated controversy, the public conversation has been drowned out. As global corporate media promote their owners' agendas, as spin doctors become the voices of politics and the New Zealand Herald fires the Cartoonist of the Year for representing another perspective on Palestine, the processes of participatory democracy are eroded and the voices of ordinary people, their daily concerns, their desires for information and participation are frustrated.
And the key tool that allows this to take place is editorial control. Each medium will decide what information is appropriate to its audience or to the audience desired by its advertisers. By the processes of the editorial policy the audience becomes the passive receiver of information and, sometimes, the fodder.
In community access broadcasting, the people are at the centre of the process and there is no editor. He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
The exclusivity of media professionals is removed and the public conversation is allowed to flourish in all its colours and voices. Access radio is the sole provider of an unmediated community voice.
Because this is radio by the people who are also from the audience, the community of interest, this voice has the ring of truth. Not a capital T truth, but a personal truth - a living experience of culture, a community, a belief and some singular pleasures.
The removal of editorial control is a scary thing - especially for media professionals - it means we own the fact that we don't know best. Indeed in many cases we know bugger all about the lives and priorities of many cultures and interests. It reminds me of a story I heard - courtesy of our national broadcaster, thank you - from Celia Lashlie discussing the failure of CYPFS in the murder of two Masterton girls. She told how she spoke one day to a woman whose family had been attended by twenty different agencies. And when the woman finished speaking, Celia said thank you and the woman said "what for?". Celia said, "for telling me". And she said "oh it's easy when you're listened to". Twenty agencies were failing because they were telling this woman how her life should be run instead of hearing her needs and her possible solutions.
So we are reminded as professional communicators that the process begins not with talking, but with listening.
Another scary part of surrendering editorial control is that it means that we have to share knowledge and in many cases admit that this craft that we have all so carefully honed is not so hard after all and that ordinary mortals can become able broadcasters and effective communicators.
And it's scary from a legal point of view. The many issues of defamation and broadcasting standards are the trickiest part of the professional's work in community access radio. We take great care to address the training and understanding of these matters, and are often confronted by very different belief systems around such issues, especially when dealing with cultures with little appreciation for the niceties of western legal values.
However, for all the challenges it presents to media professionals, community access radio is the liveliest, richest, most passionate and enthralling radio I've experienced and the great faith I have in the medium as being affordable, accessible and an engaging medium that is effective, even transformative in people's lives … is daily confirmed.
Community access radio stations are broadcasters and community facilitators.
Around New Zealand eleven community access stations are achieving great things with the communities they serve.
Through comprehensive training programmes, they are empowering groups with skills and voices that reflect their needs and their identity. They're providing successful settlement outcomes for new New Zealanders.
They're airing heaps of youth radio and grey radio, another voice we rarely hear these days.
Access radio is a conduit for community health and welfare education, it provides exposure to creative communities, especially literature and music, and gives expression to Aotearoa's many belief systems.
This is participatory broadcasting democracy.
What's more, the people who make this radio - pay three ways to do so:
But as one woman commented regarding her cultural programme, "When I turn it on - I know we're here."
To list the range of users we have around New Zealand would take longer than time allows. But a few examples - in Auckland we broadcast around 140 programmes in 46 languages - including English. That's a reflection of the region we serve. Auckland is a city transformed by migration in the past twelve years and our broadcasters come from every corner. We address mental health and disability issues, arts and education, elderly and youth. Ideas of many shades from socialism and rationalism to a comprehensive range of spiritual and religious beliefs.
Throughout the country, stations are working in education, from preschool through to tertiary, in community building, regional perspectives, local body politics, lots of local youth programming, health education, women's refuges, the Wrestling Federation, the Irish Hurling finals, the Ukulele Club - some wonderful personal passions for music and story telling - these are the lives of New Zealanders.
With a glance to the future, in fact to our now I think, I'd like to read you something from a Newsweek journalist, Joe Klein who in 1993 examined the impact of media segmentation on American society in an essay called “The Splintering of America”. After describing the homogeneity of the 1950s he recalls the ‘60s as a time when the media started to split into subcultural shards:
Nowadays, if you have a member of any identifiable American subgroup - black, Korean, fundamentalists, sports fan, political junkie - it's possible to be massaged by your very own television and radio stations and to read your own magazines without having to venture into the mainstream.
The choices are exhilarating, but also alienating.
The basic principle is centrifugal: market segmentation targets those qualities that distinguish people from each other, rather than emphasising the things they have in common.
It has serious consequences - it becomes far more difficult to sustain a sense of national community and to build a sense of common values.
I remain a little ambivalent about the seriousness of the consequences but I think the concerns are worth examining.
In addition to all the radio addressing market segments (you know 18-30 males, whatever) we have National, Concert and iwi radio, there are networks dedicated to a single religious belief, to sports, to students, to dance music. In the past decade the Auckland radio market alone has acquired two Chinese radio stations, two Pacific stations, a Samoan station and an Indian station with a large component of Korean. English speakers have a smorgasbord of choices in this mightily media-ed market so why not Hindi or Samoan or Cantonese.
On the one hand access providers are supportive of people achieving their own voice - on the other we have concerns about the potential for ghettoisation.
However, this is where the byword comes in. These single language or single interest stations are still editorial filters, they still have programme directors and they are mostly advertiser driven.
The access model is pluralistic and community driven, which allows us to keep the doors open to the exchange and interaction of cultures and ideas. While working on and listening to an access station, people sometimes discover an alternative to Klein's centrifugal model. They discover the things they have in common and they enjoy the things that distinguish them from each other.
We must anticipate however that increasing media segmentation could leave access radio organisations with the hardest job of community development and training, serving the least financially viable communities. Stations need to be supported in that development work. They also need to be supported as venues of free speech, community connectedness, multi and cross-culturalism.
As for the future … community is an organic thing. I often see it as an amoeba which constantly moves by the very device of changing shape. Identity has the geography and each access station is as different from one another as are the parts of the country they serve. Access radio is already the most local and most diverse medium in New Zealand - which should make New Zealand On Air happy. But from what I observe around the country the future of community access broadcasting is to become more local. That is, to penetrate deeper into the lives of our communities. We must ensure that there are no financial barriers to those needing a voice and we must overcome some technological constraints.
Some regional access stations are looking at minis - LPFM stations that cover three to five kilometres, the voice of the country village or a school zone with broadband link back to the mother ship for regional replay and on demand broadcasting.
In Auckland we agree with those from north of the Brynderwyns - oh, and south of the Bombays - who say "Where is Auckland? It has no centre, it has no heart." So true. But it does have "'burbs", neighbourhoods, home patches, turf. And there, it has heaps of heart. You hang with your homies. Like the local library, LPFM could be public facilities. Cost about six grand to set something like that up. And from these nets would come regional community broadcasters and content.
Technologically speaking, we're also looking at another form of access - the ability for programmes to be accessed by their audiences. Because of the limitations of the 24 hour clock and a magazine schedule, some listeners have trouble hearing their programmes at the time of broadcast. On demand delivery of programmes would provide genuine listener access.
So in contrast to The Splintering of America we imagine the Gathering of Aotearoa. By community access stations combing broadcast and narrowcast technologies, local voices become regional voices - and because the technology allows it, become a kind of resource library of our lives.
Reflecting Ourselves? That's the relayed version. Access radio is about Being Ourselves!
MM: We have an opportunity now to turn the discussion back to television but continue the theme around communities and local perspectives. Our next speaker is Tom Conroy who is the Managing Director of Southland TV. I think the fact that Tom has come into this role from a long career in the oil industry is a reflection of the sort of passion that one has to have to work at this level, make it work, so I'm looking forward to Tom's comments on issues around regional television.
Tom Conroy: Ian Fraser, would you stand up please? We're talking about reflecting ourselves and our only New Zealand-owned broadcaster is absent. I know that he's a very busy man. I'm not picking on Ian but I am making a point: they can't be everything to everybody and perhaps there is a role for regional television to take up the slack. Unashamedly parish pump, I don't quote from as my predecessors have done, from Einstein, Arnold, Stevenson or Shakespeare but from Michael Stedman. Is he here today? I think he's talking at this conference later. [Note: Mr Stedman was unable to attend.] But he summed it up beautifully in three succinct words: unashamedly parish pump, and that comes from the guy that rejected me as a Spot On presenter many years ago. So he doesn't get it right all the time but he got that one right. And this is what - I love the word “passion” because that's what regional television people are all about. They're extremely passionate, more so I think than elsewhere. I mean I still have in my memorabilia a Christmas card from Andy Shaw who is actually here too as well. And I'm just hoping he still has the picture of Batman I send him in 1976. But that's the sort of crazy sort of passionate desire we've got to make this work.
The parish pump indicates what our core essence is about. Reflecting on our people, our community and their insight, their insight on New Zealand society. And by making those programmes we've grown and learned a capability to make a lot of other programming as well and that's what we offer New Zealand television and broadcasting in general and Mr Dyke, I'm sorry you are wrong on one count. It doesn't take a lot of money to make good television programmes, but it takes enough money, there's quite a difference. Because in this industry one thing I've learned: the amount of money you put in is not proportionate to an increase in quality. It's not guaranteeing an increase in quality. The quality goes up at this rate, the money seems to go up at that rate. And we need to level it out, make more programmes. I always say the Brits, the Americans make great situation comedies because they make a lot of them and the cream rises to the top. If we made a lot of programmes about our people and our insights the cream will rise to the top.
I tried to find one analogy that elsewhere - that does reflect that how, say, regional television relates to national television and I went to a play, it was put on by the New Zealand drama school, it was their exit play at the end of the year. It was about 18 years ago, it was Henry V. I walked into the theatre, no sets, no scenery, one rope ladder. No props. I thought “my god what am I going to do during the dialogue?”. Nothing to watch. It was the best performance of Henry V I have ever seen on stage. It was absolutely amazing. The cost of it would have been down here, Laurence Olivier's would have been up here. The quality difference was not that big. But those people, what a contribution those people have gone on to do, to do the drama and history in New Zealand. Sadly because of the lack of funds some of them have been lost to that industry but it's an example where we are not too dissimilar.
I want to talk about quality. I want to talk about perceptions of this industry and we're going to start with perceptions because I want you to compare what you think you know about regional television, what you think you know about Southland TV, with some of these facts.
VIDEO PRESENTATION ON SOUTHLAND TV
I have to apologise, there is some deception there, because I wish I could afford to pay them $11.50 an hour. That's the only figure that was exaggerated slightly. And it's not funny, it's quite sad because of the contribution I believe that they make to this industry.
Now just to talk about quality and I'm very proud of that effort made by a staff with an average age in the early 20s, many graduates from our broadcasting courses from around the country. The quality always comes up as a question for regional television, applies across the country. We do make good stuff. We can't make superb stuff as often as we like because we don't have the money. But we, I just want to give you one example. A couple of years ago the Davis Cup tie was held in Invercargill. The same three evenings of the same three days the New Zealand swimming champs were held at SplashPalace, which is just down the road. We filmed both with the same crew, the same equipment. The highlights package of the tennis went out on Sky, highlights package compiled by TVNZ on the swimming went out the same weekend on TVNZ. The tennis was to ITF, International Tennis Federation standards, we produced both, three 13-hour days. Nobody in New Zealand noticed whether that was made by a regional station. They didn't notice, because side by side with the rest of it, nobody noticed. TVNZ was very kind. They rang up and said send us an invoice, we know cash is tight, we'll help you with the money as soon as possible. I sent them an invoice for that swimming content alone for $5,000. He rang me up and said, I didn't mean a down payment I meant the whole lot. I said that was the whole lot. He said I can't back the outside broadcast truck out of the garage in Auckland for $5,000. So we can do it. We can do it, everyone, all the regional stations are capable of doing it.
A chap came up, we'd been on Sky three months and a guy came up to me and he said that, that medical documentary you made was absolutely outstanding, you ring up Sky and you say thanks very much for helping you raise you standards. I said I made that three years ago, you can just see it clearly because it's on the Sky Network. Who have got beaten up a wee bit here tonight, and I have to say in their defence that if it hadn't been for them I would have lost my station and my house, if I hadn't been able to make, smooth that transition that helped us achieve. So my wife says thank you very much Sky.
So I just want to make a couple of points. One thing that makes me angry is, please, I hope I'm wrong about this but I just get this feeling there will be somebody, a TV personality who will get in a car and they'll get a lump sum of money from somebody, it might be from the government, New Zealand On Air or from a broadcaster or a sponsor, wherever it comes from, to drive round New Zealand and depict Heartland New Zealand and I know what the Southland bit will be. It will go to the bloody paua shell house, okay and that'll be it, and in a year's time we'll all pat ourselves on the back and say you know, we've depicted Heartland TV, it is the paua house you know. Heartland TV, my arse. That is not what Southland is about. Every week the regional station makes news and lifestyle programmes, every week we've got the Maori youth show you've seen, we've got farming, we've got harness racing, we've got panel discussions and one of the big payers, god forgive me, country and western music. But we make them all. We make. We are the people that know the products, the people, the views, the insights, the eccentricities. Let us make that contribution.
I know that my time is just about up but it's very important that the next transition in broadcasting isn't celebrity Big Brother in the paua shell house. Who's going to get kicked out first? you know. That is not Heartland New Zealand. Now Fred and Myrtle who devised their house have moved on, I think we should too. While the wealthier players are on a journey, the others, in order to survive, are on a crusade.
Thank you.
MM: We've already had some discussion this morning about the role of the Maori Television Service. I think it's important in this session for us to recognise the importance of Maori radio. Speaking to us next is Hone Harawira. Hone is of Nga Puhi descent, he is the Chair of Whakaruruhau which is the Federation of Maori Radio Stations. He's also the Chair of the Electoral College for the Maori Television Service and has a very long and extensive involvement in various broadcasting and language issues. Kia ora, Hone.
Hone Harawira: Kia ora tatou. I'd like to be able to start off with a big long waiata and all the rest of it but Maori Radio is not funded as well as Maori Television is. Leonie was able to fly the whole lot of them in just for that waiata. I had to get a ride with the Minister of Maori Affairs to Kerikeri and then fly down from there. So that's why unfortunately we don't have the waiata organised.
Maori radio is still a relatively young industry. We've been going for about 15 years, with stations all around the country. For those in the South Island you probably already know the truth: there's 21 in the NorthIsland and one in the South Island, so we'll get that one out of the way early.
I'm from the station in Kaitaia, Tehiku. We're still building our history. I think that we're still trying to find that place, our place, in New Zealand society. I think we're still a bit too inward looking in Maori radio. I think the world really is there for us to go out and take but I think we just need to give ourselves the confidence to go out and do it. Look at our awards ceremony coming up next year. Maori radio awards, the first time we've ever had it. And we're going to have a big bloopers, you know bloopers on radio thing and I recommended that it be called the Paul Holmes Cheeky Darkie award, but everybody sort of shouted me down, and I thought geez you know we've got to move past this sort of stuff. We've got to have a look at ourselves and laugh at ourselves sometimes. So I think that, you know I know that it's not particularly PC for me to be saying - apologies to Kofi Annan and everybody else but sometimes we've got to be able to just say this is who we are, that was a blooper of the highest order, let's celebrate the fact that we can make bloopers as bad as that.
Maori radio goes right across the whole spectrum. We're there because of Maori language, in fact if those who fought for Maori language hadn't taken the case all the way the government wouldn't have created the funding for Maori radio. So our existence is because of the case for Maori language, and I never forget that that is the case. But we go - our stations run the whole spectrum, Maori radio. From those who are dedicated to the preservation of the language and its regeneration, its revitalisation through broadcasting, and one of the best examples of that is Kahungunu - and I see Joe Te Rito here - all the way to the other end, to Maori FM who have to exist in one of the toughest commercial markets anywhere, radio markets, and there's a whole range of stations in between. Sometimes I worry about what is our real place there, and then after talking to others I think that in fact our place is at every part of that spectrum. We do have to be there to service all Maori. I have to say all Maori because one of the things I've learned at Tehiku is that Pakehas don't listen to Maori radio. That's just the reality. I know that because when I finally worked that out in Kaitaia that Pakehas didn't listen to Maori radio I thought to myself well how do we get them to listen to the Maori language if they're not going to listen to this. Because they ain't going to listen to it on hardly any other station. So we decided to take a quantum leap in thinking really and we started a Pakeha radio station called Sunshine FM. It's got to pay its own way but the purpose of Sunshine is to promote the Maori language to those who can't speak Maori. To help them gain an understanding and acceptance and an appreciation of the Maori language. We had a Pakeha trustee recently passed on, but he said that Sunshine's purpose should be to touch gently those who can't speak Maori.
And how I know it's successful is that in the ten years I was running Tehiku I'd be lucky to get maybe three, four, five thousand dollars in any sort of commercial revenue at all from the Far North, and in the last twelve months Sunshine will take in out of the Far North $175,000. So I know the Pakehas are paying and I know they're listening. I can go to their homes, very rare but it happens occasionally, I can go into their shops and they're playing Sunshine. I don't care that they're not listening to Tehiku I care that they're listening to Maori.
And because it's our station if we wanted to we could bump it up to 30 per cent tomorrow and then they'd all switch over to something else and we wouldn't get them back. So I'm happy that we've done that. I'm happy that we've thought our way through that exercise, because the key to the survival of the language isn't just that me and Tainui can talk to one another, it's that people - they don't all have to speak Maori - but they at least have to understand some of the basics and be able to pronounce it well. And so Sunshine FM has been a big step for us and Tehiku and other stations have gone on to develop similar models in their areas.
It also gave us the opportunity to look at Tehiku and Sunshine because we had a rangatahi show as well on our station, 4 o'clock to 7 o'clock every afternoon, and one day I found myself reaching out to turn Tehiku off because the rangatahi stuff was all that hip hop stuff and all that carry-on was going to come on. I can't stand listening to that shit quite frankly, but as I reached over I thought, something's wrong here I'm turning off my own radio. But we sat down, did the stat thing and sure enough we should be doing more and more for our rangatahi. They are the audience. They are going to be the carriers of language, they are going to be the future of the language. But because the stats were so high and I was sitting back oh god I've got to give them more.
We looked at the Sunshine experience and we launched a third station, Tai FM. So now we have three stations in Kaitaia. At Tai FM every kid in the whole of the Far North listens to Tai FM and I'm happy because they're getting a level of Maori that they couldn't stand getting off Tehiku, that they hardly notice if they're listening to Sunshine, but it's part and parcel of their whole culture now on Tai FM. And I think that that's really the secret to where Maori radio has got to be going in the future, is to think our way around some of the issues that are before us, some of the obstacles that we are confronted by. Sure money's a problem, but as Tom said, you can throw truckloads of money at something, it's not going to increase the quality. The passion, the commitment, the desire to make a difference is what's going to make the difference. I hope this doesn't get back to the Minister because I asked him for some more money last month.
And I was also particularly pleased to hear what Tom's talking about because a couple of months ago our Society, Te Reo Irirangi o Te Hiku o Te Ika, we applied and were granted a television frequency, and we hope that - I've got to say I've had my fingers crossed for so long that we actually get to air before MTS does - so I can go along to the launch of MTS and mihi to my teina. Whether we do or not that's not really the issue but we are going to have our own television station. We don't want Kaitaia just to be on there because of the weather. And for those of you who doubt that, I know people all round the country think they've got the best, just watch every night to see whether Kaitaia's in the top three. But we don't want the other one to be when policemen are putting their heads through a fence and getting bashed on the head and that kind of stuff. We want to be able to tell our stories to reflect our culture in the Far North to ourselves.
We don't want to try to be like anybody else. We just want to be good in our territory. If we can be good where we are [CHANGE OF TAPE - SMALL BIT MISSED]
We also, I also happen to be Chairman of our local kura kaupapa and we've been training staff at the Tehiku. I only let them work on Tehiku because if they go on Tai FM they're allowed to speak English and I don't want them to speak English. I want them to become excellent Maori language broadcasters and I can make them do that on Tehiku. But I've found that it was taking up so much of our time teaching them at the station and we've decided to train up a couple of the senior students really well and our next project after the television station is to start a little radio station at our kura and let it become part of the curriculum.
I saw Nicole here somewhere, she must have sneaked off. Because Nicole Hoey is also looking to spread the whole kaukapa of Maori television training as well and we want to be part of that.
We haven't gotten any more money since we started. Five years ago our budget was $9.24m for Maori radio and this year it's $9.7m and the only increase really has been in Herewini Te Koha's Te Mangai Paho admin budget. But be that as it may the issues, the issues are financial. You know we'd like more money to do more things. We are training people and then we're losing them to the national Maori news provider Reo Mai. I have to chuckle now because now Reo Mai's losing them to MTS. But we now accept the fact that we've got to train our kids at our kura, bring them into our stations, put them onto our television and let them fly to another world because we want those kids to be everywhere. We want that culture to be appreciated everywhere, and special congratulations to TV3 for the use of people like Meriana Hond and others and giving them a lot of air time because the pronunciation is beautiful.
All I'd say though is this. Their pronunciation is so good that when the other announcers come on you go “oh God”.
Helen Clark got us all noticing the national anthem just by saying there's not going to be any money unless for your sports body unless you sing the national anthem in Maori and in English. And heaps of people came. She didn't have to spend any money to do it, she just did it. She could probably do the same for public broadcasting generally in this country by saying you're not going to get a cent of money, this money, unless all of you here can pronounce “Hone Harawira” as easily as I can pronounce “Tom Conroy”.
Kia ora tatou katoa.
MM: Now it's your chance to ask some questions of the panellists. As was the case with the previous panel discussion, there are roaming microphones. I'd ask that you wait to receive a microphone and please give your name so that we can have that as part of the record of the proceedings. Questions?
Martin Gallagher: Martin Gallagher, MP for Hamilton West, but I speak as a former deputy Mayor and Hamiltonian who unsuccessfully lobbied Television New Zealand and NZ On Air around the issue of local funding for local programming. At the time was absolutely inspired by the Southland example and have to say the irony for me, bitter irony, is that I come from the fourth largest centre of population in the country and yet Southland has done so well. But I think also I pick your point, I think it's also very telling and the irony is not lost to me that you've complimented rightfully and correctly Sky for the very survival of your station. And I put my hands together for Sky. But I have to say the question I have to the panel is simply this. Given the fact that in a previous year for example we had, when Radio New Zealand was one commercial and public whole, we had a newsroom that had eight specialist staff. We now have one chap, a person, very good job covering Waikato/Bay of Plenty sitting at a desk in a private station to do that. And I'm not criticising Radio New Zealand because within that budget I think they do a fantastic job. Do you think, however, that national broadcasters and NZ On Air perhaps have a greater responsibility to ensure that cities even like Hamilton can if you like speak to each other in terms of say local programming breakout or funding of programmes that may be just specific to those communities, let alone say giving significant assistance to the Southland TVs of this world and hopefully in years to come or time to come the Waikato TVs?
Tom Conroy: I don't think it's as significant as people fear, the amount of money we're talking about. The infrastructure is across the country, 14 or 15 regional stations already in some form of infancy or better. It's a case of building on that I believe to get that and Hamilton is a bit unlucky, they've had a couple of failed attempts, but there are others that are burgeoning and trying to break out that I'm sure could be developed into exactly the same or even a better model than ourselves. It suits the Hamilton market of course, everything's a bit specific to your area. There is one point I'll make about the Sky option is where we've been amazed about the response, it's not as I'd hoped at whole lot of national advertisers dying to put advertising on my television station. It's a whole lot of producers around New Zealand dying for air time. The amount of product we get offered has been phenomenal. And if I can get sponsorship to cover the air time then it becomes viable. But there's a lot of people out there making product about Hamilton, about Christchurch, about Westport, who just want to have somewhere to show it so the rest of New Zealand can enjoy it.
And that is where the benefit has come and that is where I think we'll all go to. In twelve months time we'll be 100 per cent New Zealand-made programming. There will be 25 per cent Southland, there will be 50 per cent education, the other 25 per cent will I think will be a cross section of the communities around New Zealand. And I'm sure Hamilton will be right there or thereabouts.
Simativa Perese: Yes - Martin, talofa, I absolutely agree with you. The national broadcasters do have that obligation. Niu FM's intention is to ensure that in time we have regional breakouts for local Pacific communities, whether in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton and, if we have enough money, perhaps in Dunedin. Insofar as those breakouts are concerned we're pretty committed to that. Another part I think - and this follows on from earlier comments - is that part of our programming is to ensure that we bring in as many regional broadcasters as possible. And therefore if we have for instance a Samoan language programme, and we intend to tender this out to Samoan broadcasters around the country, we will take the show, the best show that is available, to play on air. So if it comes out of Christchurch, for instance, that's were the Samoan component will come and it will be played on the network.
So, yeah, I agree that, if money's been given to a national broadcaster, it should be shared around, absolutely.
Lindsay Shelton: All the questions are to Tom I guess. I think Wellington's population is somewhat larger than Southland. Can you give us a big more financial information: what went wrong in Wellington that they couldn't stay on the air and you've been able to stay on the air and been a success?
Tom Conroy: I think it's a high degree of community support. The station was developed during a time of a Southland boom and we're always telling people about 3 per cent of the population, 17 per cent of the GDP. And the Southland community has done almost enough to keep us going and we've had some owners with deep pockets during sort of tough times. So it has not been easy but we've seen the light. As soon as we went to them with the option of nationwide coverage, and in fact coverage of the entire province, which I couldn't achieve on a one kilowatt VHF transmitter, interest went up tenfold from the big players. Then we could go to the people like the Southern Institute of Technology with some hard-core proposals about how we could take education around New Zealand, and they've come on board and said that's a fantastic idea and they ran with it. So we had a product.
We have been fortunate, I'm not saying it's been an easy ride, it's been a very, very difficult ride - but we have - I think we've got over the hump, the worst of it. In the next couple of weeks I hope to secure a financial deal based on our offering at the moment and what we're projecting to see us safely through to 2007/2008. And it will be first time ever that I can sit down and plan beyond next week's pay, because that's how we've survived.
LS: On Sky, are you going to be less of a regional broadcaster?
TC: No I think there'll always be as I said the breakdown, we'll always make sure that we've got that essence, that Southland essence. I think in time over 24 hours, I think the 25 per cent will always be Southland. We want to keep 25 per cent for other regions to reflect themselves so we can call ourselves regional network TV, if it's not incorrect, and then we've got the education stream in between and I think the next stage will be about a third of each, so it will be a growing transition but we will never - when I'm involved - lose the Southland entity because somebody said, oh you're very provincial. I said that's why I call it Southland TV.
Goeff Leyland: Geoff Leyland, University of Waikato. I should point out to Martin we do have a TV station in Waikato, Big, Big TV. The name is both ambitious and ironic. But maybe because it's Hamilton East and not Hamilton West primarily. It's been going four years and building an audience and, as a researcher I keep saying to them, who's your audience and I've now accepted their premise that you provide the service, people will come. They don't need to go and count their audience, there are people out there I'm sure using it. And I think it's quite unique and I think obviously they're making links with you, I suspect as a network. I'm just saying they exist.
George Andrews: George Andrews, Screen Director Guild. I'd just like to ask a question which refers back to Bob Collins' address this morning when he said the public service broadcasting should have room for everybody, that all the interests should be reflected by a public service broadcaster and always you four have shown the, given a different voice, a regional voice. But I wonder whether you feel each of you that that encourages a national broadcaster to do more or relieves them from that task?
Terri Byrne: I'll speak to that a little bit. National radio used to have Dalmatian broadcasting, Dutch broadcasting, Maori and Pacific broadcasting, and they subsequently relinquished those to be taken up initially by the access stations in the various main centres at least and still for those New Zealanders who come from non- English backgrounds, but in the case of Maori and Pacific they've gone on to their own specific radio station. So obviously to some degree they are happy to let those go and there's also a tendency to exploit - I notice that say for Afghani people and Iraqi people they don't exist in the larger media on television, on radio at all for 364 days of the year and then suddenly if there's something happening in their home countries we get people sticking microphones - how do you feel, how do you feel? how do you feel. How they feel is all of the obvious range of things that relate to having your own country being devastated like that. But I also wonder how they feel about then being dropped back into obscurity and having no other face to the community other than that of the war torn country or whatever. But they do go on of course on our station and others to broadcast to their own communities and have a voice for the members of that community and others who can hear that but the national media tends to use them as fodder or not at all.
Simativa Perese: My comment is that, yes it does impose more on a national broadcaster. When the National Pacific Radio Trust was set up we were required from the very outset to broadcast eight different languages so therefore it's English and seven others. But there are growing, obviously, populations. What that means for us is that as communities seek more time, for instance we've just increased the Fijian time and Tu'valu and Tokelau from one hour to two hours and that's obviously to try and capture more of their issues as much as possible. But yes there is an obligation I think on a national broadcaster to try and do as much as possible with their public funding, whilst it receives public funding, and if its objectives are public policy oriented, it needs to try and meet as many interests as possible. It creates something that is very difficult commercially but if you set up to be a public policy vehicle, then that's what you've got to do, simple as that.
Hone Hawarira: As the, one of the official languages in this country, we would expect, we've always expected [though] it's we've never been realised ,that national broadcasters would show as much respect to the Maori language as they do to the English language. Pronunciation is just a start. The amount of Maori, where it's used, and you know not just at, well I don't know if it still is, I've stopped watching, they were having Te Karere on in the morning at quarter past six and then before it finished they're just jamming ads on over the top of it in English which was a serious insult. And in terms of Te Karere in the afternoon, it became Te Karere O Cricket. I mean Maori don't just stop watching Te Karere in the afternoons in the summer simply because if the cricket's on there's no Te Karere. And you know the way in which Maori language is treated in that manner, that you can just drop it for a game of cricket, even when we were getting blown away by Australia or somebody - you'd think they'd want to cut out of that and get to something a bit more positive. But, but that they can treat Te Karere that way in its afternoon slot, and so poorly in its morning slot suggests that there's a hell of a lot more that the national broadcasters should be doing to enhance the Maori language.
Q: I'd like to say - Leonie this morning warned against what you called mainstreaming.
HH: Yeah, and? That's not to - I don't think that she at all was suggesting that Maori shouldn't be on mainstream television, and in fact one of the fears is, with radio as with television, that the public perception will become, oh that's Maori go over there and watch. Or that's Maori go and listen to it over there. And the reason why I was talking about the Sunshine FM is there are intelligent ways by which people can develop Maori language use, such that everybody can come to enjoy it. The issues with, the most obvious one being Television One of course, is that they just don't seem to bother to try.
Tom Conroy: I'd like to see, if I can just finish on that, a relationship, a content relationship with TVNZ that are similar to the one that I have with Sky, and here's how basically it works. A sports event's within my reach, we ring up Sky and say, right this sport event's being held in Southland, what can we do for the sports body to make sure it gets on television. We discuss who, it is economically viable, who would give the best return for the amount of money that it's going to cost to make it, and that decides whether they cover it or I cover it. I might do the tour of Southland, Davis Cup, they'll obviously to the rugby because they've got better resource to do it with and it's a very open relationship and it's done on a content by content basis.
If TVNZ could sit down with me and whoever, the respective regional TV, and says right it's more economic for you to make that, then you make that and we'll stick with this. Even if it's just occasionally touching base and comparing notes and making sure we're servicing the part of the industry that we are best ably to do so. That sort of very open relationship is all I'm asking for.
Leonie Pihama: Kia ora. I probably just need to clarify on that point in terms of mainstreaming. My discussion is about the fact that there is an obligation in terms of a Treaty relationship structurally to ensure that Maori have a tino rangatiratanga line, have a mana motuhake line and an ability for independence and autonomy. That does not abdicate the responsibility to national broadcasters. In fact what it does in my mind is actually raises the issue around how national broadcasters are also going to adhere and provide for their Treaty obligations. The notion of mainstreaming for Maori has never worked. Our education system is a clear example of the inability of a singular monocultural mainstream system to provide for the diversity required to fulfil Maori aspirations. So it's a different take. National broadcasters definitely have an obligation to te reo Maori, to tikanga Maori and are legislated in the charter, their charter has an obligation but also the funding that they get from New Zealand On Air is also about, relates to the culture of this country which is also about being Maori.
John McEwen: John McEwen, Ninox Films: My question is to the Minister on behalf probably of some of the regional stations. As the former Chairman of the three regional stations in the South Island when I had them for three years, two major dilemmas occurred that were - I suppose stunted the growth.
Number one was the rating system that is able to had by radio stations means that everyone can see what people are listening to. When it comes to television, the rating systems are designed so that you cannot tell who's watching in the regional stations. They are really skewed to Wellington and Auckland and they say if 10 per cent in Wellington watch a certain programme therefore 10 per cent of all the South Island just about watches this programme. So if you're in Invercargill you can't get an accurate rating. So you have to set up your own rating system to try and work out who's watching and then try and go to advertising agencies who use another rating system. And that is a very difficult thing to work from.
The second thing which I think is a real problem is that every year there's about $100m roughly or $80m spent on New Zealand On Air programmes, of which only 25 per cent of the population ever see those shows. And so we have ten years of local programmes reflecting who we are, that sit in the vaults that never get seen again. And yet regional stations can't get access to those because they're tied up with rights still owned by the major broadcasters or by the producers but no one ever sees them and I think that there needs to be a relook at how the money when it's given to make programmes is used, because when you see a very good programme that only 25 per cent watch, the regionals could show those shows to the other 75 per cent and we've just got all these programmes sitting in our vaults that no one ever sees.
Steve Maharey: I thought I was getting off lightly in this session. They were sort of comments more than questions in a sense, just highlighting two issues. One is the inability of regional stations like Tom's to be able to get the sort of ratings base that a larger organisation can get from the current way we do things. I think that raises the question, if anything was ever to be done about issues like access to New Zealand On Air funding, there would need to be a different way of looking at those stations, and we have talked about that and wouldn't want to base it on ratings.
In terms of programmes in the vault yes I think this is a large issue that we do need to be able to replay programmes that are being made from New Zealanders' money and shown once or shown twice but then they don't seem to have space to be there again. And this is also one of the debates I think we have to have at the moment about the replaying of those programmes either by Television New Zealand finding a way for example of being able to show programmes that it's put on TV One and TV Two and then what does it do with them after that and they have been I know exploring some ideas for it.
And there are some interesting debates to be had about both programmes made at a regional level that may be shown elsewhere, but certainly the ones that are made with New Zealand On Air money being looked at as perhaps being replayed across a regional station that's linked as Tom's vision seems to be, so that people get a second bite of the programme which may well be just sitting there doing nothing if it wasn't shown in that way. So both of those comments I don't have an answer to but I do have an interest in us trying to resolve the issues of the ratings base not being a good way of looking at regional television and of getting those programmes shown again and again so people get maximum use out of the dollar that they spend on making the programme. They're good comments.
Jo Tyndall, New Zealand On Air: I thought I'd just add to that Minister and also in response to John's comments. In the case of programmes that are fully funded by New Zealand On Air we do and have for the last several year made as a condition of funding that they are available for retransmission on regional channels immediately after their first broadcast on a main nationwide network. We have also talked, started talking to the regional broadcasters group about ways in which we could facilitate making that catalogue of programmes that has been sitting there available to them, while of course respecting the rights that were negotiated at the time that the programmes were first commissioned.
And we'd be happy to continue those discussions further, but yes we'd be delighted if programmes that have gone through the window that was negotiated with TV One, Two or Three were able to be picked up and rescreened by the regional broadcasters. I'm very happy to help that.
Tom Conroy: If we could just do a quick followup on that ratings suggestion is that we'd love to be able to do ratings because they're restricted from the commercial competition or the ability to be commercially competitive. The cost of doing the ratings is exorbitant, I've done it a few times ourselves and come up with great numbers but it's crippling. And we live day to day, hand to mouth and that's always going to be the case I think for many years to come.
We had a suggestion the other day, somebody said I'll tell you what would help your station, why don't you build a new set just like the one at TVNZ because that's big and it's really, really impressive. I said you point to the three people I have to sack to make that possible. You know we have to make compromises and every dollar that goes out the door we have to justify 100 per cent and those costs can be you know can be absolutely crippling and yet we absolutely need them, the ratings, that is, at the moment.
Robert Boyd-Bell: Just another issue that should probably go on the table in this discussion, I'm not an ardent defender of TVNZ all the time but they have got this non-commercial ghetto window on Sunday mornings that's being used to serve discrete audiences for some years. We shouldn't assume when discussions like this are going on that that is a sacrosanct time, it is the only time non-commercial time left on New Zealand television, because it was the deal that Richard Prebble did as the then Minister in order to be able to get all the other time commercialised.
If we are looking again at the future of New Zealand broadcasting from first principles, we ought to consider what happens, what would happen to those ghetto/ minority/niche whatever you want to call it, special interest programmes that are screened on Sunday mornings, if that time was not commercial free? Do you think that Inside Out or Asia Down Under or Marae for that matter or Tagata Pasifika would survive in that time if it was commercially driven? And I think we ought, one of the issues I think we also have to examine when we're talking about first principles.
Terri Byrne: I'd like to answer that as somebody who has to buy advertising to promote our services to the multilingual audiences. I have gone to Television New Zealand repeatedly and said we'd like to buy something around Asia Down Under, under Te Karere, around Pasifika, and they say they're not commercially available and that seems to me a little bit like a formula to fail in the sense that they say we'll they're not commercially viable programmes because nobody buys the advertising. Nobody can buy the advertising and it's a catch-22. And certainly in Auckland if you're - one in three Aucklanders does not have English as their first language, that's the population of Wellington who would be, we would be happy to communicate with in their own language from an advertising point of view if that were available.
Simativa Perese: Can I just suggest their role - that Tagata Pasifika has been a very important programme for the Pacific community for very many years and most recently it was kicked out of that slot and sent on to 11:15 on a Thursday night when most people that it's aimed at are asleep. And so as a half way house they replay it on Sunday morning and that really causes for us, and I'm glad that Ian is here, some real angst in the community as far as television is concerned because we don't get a fair suck of the sav on that one because we've got so much that is able to played and shown to reflect Pacific cultures throughout the country, yet we still only have after 10, 11, 12 years half an hour, which was moved from Sunday to Thursday and replays now on Sunday just to keep some of the folk happy. But that really does need to be looked at in my respectful view as far as planning for Pacific television is concerned.
Keith Lambert: Keith Lambert's my name. Just to expand on that last thing, does this raise a question, I ask the question to everybody that, about this principle of universality in the sense of geographic universality. In other words, if everybody can get it technically but they're all asleep does it not make a mockery of it?
Terri Byrne: That's one of reasons that access stations, this is in the radio case, are looking to establish on demand listening, because we have 140 programme and in most cases in fact that may represent one hour, two hours a week for a community. And if they miss that because they're at work and it's on at 3 in the afternoon or you know 11 o'clock at night or whatever, we would like the opportunity for them to be able to come home from their shift or whatever their lives demand of them and in many cases in fact the penetration of internet is higher amongst non-English speaking community in most cases than it is among the English speaking communities and we would like for them to be able to replay their radio show on demand on the internet.
Simativa Perese: Keith I'd just like to comment on that and draw the radio analogy, which is about a new radio network that went to air just over 12 months ago and reaches 3.6 per cent of the Auckland market. Now it grew from 2.6 to 3.6 and that's stunning because it's just behind Radio Hauraki for instance. And a lot of mainstream broadcasters don't understand how we've become so popular. The answer's simple. Because Pacific people are listening and it's their radio network and the same thing in my view can be translated through to television. That if you gave it a fair airing, because it is a mockery I agree, 11.15 at night - I'm asleep, right?. But if you gave it a fair airing Television New Zealand might actually find that it has something that is commercially viable if it gave it a go.
David Jacobs: Hi, David Jacobs again. I think if this is for anyone, it might be for the Minister, following on from Robert Boyd-Bell, if we are putting things on the table, if Sunday morning might not be the only part of the schedule that's commercially free, or maybe there might be other parts of the schedule that might be differently commercial. For example, advertising - the selling of advertising time is one commercial model, sponsorship is another. The forms of funding tend to flow through into different and diverse types of content so it may be that if we are looking for commercial revenue we could look at other ways of flowing funding in that are still commercial - for example sponsorship, but limiting those spaces to being advertising free.
MM: I'm not sure whether the Minister does want to react to that and in a it's probably not appropriate for, for the Minister to engage in decisions at that level. I think we've got room for maybe two more questions, there's one over here.
Glyn Jones: Hi, Glyn Jones from TVNZ interactive and just really make the point we were, I was at a gay television symposium a few days ago and we were sort of talking about exactly the same points about how do you actually get access in prime time where people are actually going to watch those whether they were Pacific programmes or gay programmes or whatever and I mean I just make the point that streaming is available. The internet is available it's a great way to push the Charter to a lot more people and just encourage producers of programmes both in radio and in television terms to actually think when they're working through the production, the budgets for these sort of shows and that sort of thing to actually think seriously about putting money aside for an actual streaming of what goes to air on the television and extra content as well. Because as far as - I mean obviously I'm pushing my barrow, but it is a really valuable and sensible way to make off-peak programme on peak if you know what I mean.
Q: Where do producers get the money from?
GJ: Well that's the deal you do with the network and with your other funders, you know. That's where it has to come from.
MM: Can we take one last question, thank you.
Anna Cottrell: I'm Anna Cottrell, and I just want to say I think there's been some fantastic points made this morning, that really need to be addressed by our state broadcasters and it worries that me some excellent things have been said, you know like the relegating of Tangata Pasifika, which is a programme that wins awards, putting it on when people are asleep or at church is deeply insulting. That's one thing that I would love to hear the state broadcaster respond to.
Another is the replaying of the programmes that - we spend months making our programmes, TV3 programmes - the programmes I have made for TV3 have been replayed again and again, thanks to TV3. But to get Television New Zealand to play them again takes a lot of individual effort. They take your programme, they screen it, sometimes with or without publicity. That's it, on with the next. It's a terrible waste of taxpayers' money and it's one that offends me.
Another thing about the fragmenting of - you know take all the radio stations, fantastic radio in this country, more than any other country per head of population, I think. Now I'm just wondering, trying to think of practical ways where those of us who probably don't get to hear some of these things, television stations and radio stations buy programmes from overseas all the time. Why can't there be packages that we could hear on National Radio from the best of your programmes so that they are for a more mainstream audience. It saddens me, this idea of ghettoisation because I think if think if this country's to move ahead and as has been said this morning, the future of this country is brown and young. It's brown and black and Asian and we are not reflecting that in our state broadcasters and that's something that I would love to see our state broadcasters here respond to. Thank you.
Simativa Perese: Yes thank you for your comments, Anna. A couple of points that I'd like to just respond to there. The National Pacific Radio Trust is working in collaboration with Radio New Zealand and the National Programme in terms of sharing news, and I see that Linden is here somewhere. One of the things that we certainly wanted to do is to share stories to, obviously to begin with in terms of building that relationship of programmes.
The other thing that I just wanted to comment on is the second time I've heard it this morning, I wasn't here for the middle session - 'ghettoization'. I find that offensive. It's actually Pacification of Pacific people - that we have our own radio network to be able to discuss our issues, to talk in a more positive way about who we are and what contribution we can make to New Zealand. We don't regard it as ghettoisation, we regard it as an opportunity. So it's just a linguistic thing. The same thing as Hone Harawira, so I should get funding, mentioned before it's a use of language. I just find the term “ghettoization” just offensive. It's for us an opportunity to, to get in and muck and share our views and be better citizens hopefully as a consequence of that.
Terri Byrne: Just to add to that I think any suggestion we've used, and used the word “ghettoization” is not to imply that those people don't, all of the various stations that we mentioned, Chinese or Samoan or Indian or whatever don't have their own voice, that's quite contrary to our ambition. But I saw something just the other day on TV where the mosques [sic] were blown up in Istanbul and a Turkish man was very distressed and spoke to camera and he said these are our neighbours. They are Jewish we are Islamic, it is not about Islamic or Jewish it is about the fact that we are Turkish and I think that there are opportunities whereby whatever conversations people are having within their own special interest or language group that we should always try and bring those into a cross-cultural relationship so that we have some sense of being New Zealanders rather than being Islamic or Jewish or Pacific or Afghani or Chinese.
MM: Thank you. Well I think we've had an interesting session. A lot of interesting comments from the panel and questions from you. I think that's certainly what we've been looking for in this and the other sessions during the course of the day so thank you everyone, thank you in particular to the panel and I ask that you join me in thanking them.
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