PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) Link to this
Tony Blair is on record as saying that Parliament is a place for noble causes, and that is what this place should be. That is why New Zealand First will support this sessional order and the television coverage rules as provided in this motion. We can see no good reason why MPs should be satirised whilst doing their job in this House. We certainly can see no good reason why MPs should be ridiculed whilst doing their job in this House. Equally so, we can see no good reason why they should be denigrated whilst doing their job in this House. We agree with Dr Cullen that the situation should be monitored, and monitored carefully, and probably reviewed if flaws are found or the system does not appear to be working.
We have little or no sympathy for the media and the media’s case because, principally, some in the media—I will not say all, but some in the media—when it comes to relaying the activities of Parliament, operate under questionable ethics. I use the example that has been hinted at this afternoon. My former colleague Dail Jones was laughing at a joke or something that happened here in the House, and he was shown on television with the musical theme “We’re in the Money” underlying it all. That was totally and utterly unfair and, dare I say, outrageous. Equally so, a few weeks back my colleague Ron Mark questioned the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections, I think, and the debate got quite heated. But when the television showed it, they showed the heated response from the department and then Ron Mark’s questions, giving a totally wrong impression of what happened.
I do not need to remind the House that some time ago my colleague Ron Mark was baited by the Hon Tau Henare—“baited” is the only word I can use. The statement the Hon Tau Henare made was a gross distortion of the truth, and Ron responded. He did not respond in the manner that is appropriate to an MP, I must say.
Hon Brian DonnellyI am getting a debate from behind the scenes here. Mr Mark has apologised to this House, I think on at least three occasions. He was sitting behind me, and I was acting party leader at the time. He has apologised personally to me. He has apologised to the Rt Hon Winston Peters, our leader, who was absent at the time. He has apologised to the caucus. He has apologised to the party members I do not know how many times, several in writing, and to many a local New Zealand First meeting. I do not know what else he has to do. That was a year or so ago, and yet he still appears on television with that gesture, advertising a programme. That is absolutely outrageous.
If we are to televise Parliament, then we must have some rules in place. We must have some rules that reflect what we are meant to be doing here. I saw the Dominion Post the other day, with photographs of MPs yawning. If that is the response of the media to these sorts of rules, they invite MPs to make tough rules. But having said that, I would suggest to anybody who feels a bit tired and wants to yawn to do what my mother told me to do when I was a young boy: put one’s hand over one’s mouth. Then it looks as if one cares about other people. Nevertheless, this place is not here so that MPs can be made fools or idiots of. I think most of us will agree that we can do that pretty well on our own, without being filmed or televised.
I recall when I went to London to a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference that we met three senior MPs—senior in terms of time spent in the House of Parliament—and we were talking about the televising of Parliament. The UK has been televising the Westminster Parliament for quite some years. Those MPs’ advice to all of us at the conference was to avoid it if we could, because, they said, in essence the media cannot be trusted. They said that the media will use the televising of Parliament to undermine the very institution, they will use it to undermine the Church, and they will use it to undermine the Sovereign—the Queen. That last probably is not as important to us as perhaps it is to the UK, but, nevertheless, those senior MPs in the UK Parliament were of the opinion that the media did very little to promote the issues as they were being discussed in Parliament; instead, they made fools of the people who came to Parliament to do their best for the country.
I have no doubt that just about everybody in this House comes here for a genuine cause. They come here with the feeling that their political view can make a better country. We all, from time to time, disagree—sometimes very, very strongly. But the commitment to do our best, I think, goes through everybody’s attitude. I have had some fairly strong arguments with colleagues from all sides of the House, but I would not for one minute suggest that they were not taking their issues, seeing them, and promoting them in the way they were doing without the best intentions to achieve the best outcome for New Zealand.
To be made a fool of by the media is really the pits. I can recall, in my own case, going on television outside this House on a documentary programme—one might say that I was set up for it—to talk about the censorship of movies. The interviewer said to me: “Have you seen the movie?”. Well, the truth is I had not seen the movie, but I had read extensively the censor’s report. The censor has to write a detailed report of every movie that goes through his office. The report on this particular movie was sickening, so my answer to the interviewer was: “No, I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve read the censor’s report and it was absolutely sickening. He goes into details.” I said, pretty much, exactly that. What came out over the air was: “Have you seen the movie?”; “No, I haven’t seen the movie.” And then they moved on to another clip.
I have to say that my leader, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, had a word with me the very next day. He said that one cannot go on television and criticise a movie if one has not seen it. I explained: “Well, here’s the censor’s report. Read that and see if you want to see the movie, and see whether you think it should be censored.” Indeed, my brother-in-law, who lives down the road from me, came and knocked on my door and said he had seen me on television, and again I explained. I had the censor’s report and let him read it. He shared my concern.
The point I am making is that television has the ability to clip, cut, and change things to suit the audience. What it should be doing is reflecting accurately what goes on in this place. Until we can get a cast-iron assurance that that is what will happen, then we have to have rules in place that protect the people doing this job. I cannot think of terribly many other jobs—there might be some—that will be open to public glare and are put on TV at night to have people ridicule. When I worked on the waterfront and we invited a team of dignitaries down, we had the courtesy to tell our men that people unrelated to their loading operation or discharge operation would be coming to view the operation. We did not expect anybody to later go out and castigate the guys who were working hard in the holds of the ship.
If the media think they can come into this place with their TV cameras and show the world whatever they think the world should see, with little thought of accuracy, then I have to say they are barking up the wrong tree. New Zealand First supports this sessional order. We support the assertion that Dr Cullen made: it should be monitored and reviewed, and possibly changed from time to time. Meanwhile we think these controls are a good place to start. Thank you.
TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party) Link to this
Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. The popular question that tamariki ask me, when I spend time in a kura, is, what I really do each day. I suppose I could focus on some of the negative aspects of the House, but I do not, because that is not what the majority of the day is about. The list of work is enormous, as any member of this House knows.
I talk about the role of Parliament as the supreme legislative power, and, as a consequence, our mahi in passing the laws by which Aotearoa is governed; examining, amending, processing bills; and approving the supply of public funds to run the country. I share the experiences that we have in promoting representation and the mutual obligations that we have both to advocate the views of the people and to represent the work of Parliament back to the constituency. I talk also about the very important role of scrutinising the work of the Government and the ever-thrilling challenge of question time. But I do not talk about the exhaustion that comes with the workload that extends into late evenings and weekends, the responsibility of keeping up with mountains of paperwork, and all the other core business that comes with the two letters—MP. I totally accept that all of this is part of the role of a member of Parliament.
But if people were to pick up the Dominion Post yesterday, they would be hard-pressed to see any other role for Parliament than one of pure entertainment, a forum of fun and frivolity—all yawning aside—and a place, unfortunately, to fall asleep in, if one is really tired. The fact that my colleague Dr Pita Sharples was, last Thursday, denied the opportunity to table his signed code of ethics, as he attempted to have it added to those of the other 13 members of the MMP parties who had tabled theirs, was not seen as news. I suppose good behaviour does not sell newspapers.
That is why we in the Māori Party have supported the new television coverage rules in our commitment to restore the respect, authority, and legitimacy of Parliament. The Māori Party debated at great length the importance of focusing on the respective members who were on their feet, and on ensuring shots unrelated to the proceedings were not permitted. We were pleased to see that the authority of the Speaker is preserved, with the default position always reverting either to the Speaker or to the presiding officer in the Chair.
There is one particular part of the new rules that has excited the imagination of the fourth estate—that is, the direction that coverage of proceedings must not be used in any medium for ridicule or denigration. The Māori Party is particularly supportive of such a ruling, in light of the report from the United Nations special rapporteur who highlighted “the systematic negative description of Māori in media coverage”. As a particularly vivid example, we need only to cast our memory back to 1975, when television cameras gave extensive coverage to a billboard campaign by property investor Bob Jones attacking the Rowling Labour Government. The billboard that achieved national prominence, however, was one about the Minister of Maori Affairs, Matiu Rata, which said: “Matt Rata reads comics”. That a man of such mana, a leader of his people, was put up as a figure of fun and tormented by the popular press of his day, reflects badly on all those involved in such a shameful incident.
These incidents of so-called ridicule or denigration could also be described as institutional racism. “Nigger” jokes were seen as normal, fun, and funny—excused, I suppose, by that childhood chant: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”. Well, really, is that so right? It is little wonder that Mohammad Ali in 1966, in refusing to fight for the United States in Viet Nam, said: “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Vietcong … no Vietcong ever called me a nigger.”
Those are the sorts of episodes that a study on Māori in the media undertaken in 2004 reported as being unbalanced in their treatment of Māori—denigrating, and insulting. When I picked up the Dominion Post yesterday and found that four of the eight unflattering photos of MPs were of Māori MPs—Shane Jones, Dover Samuels, Ron Mark, and myself—I asked what has changed since 1975. I did not bother to complain, because I did not feel that it was worth it. But the United Nations special rapporteur was so concerned about the treatment of Māori in the media that he recommended that “Public media should be encouraged to provide a balanced, unbiased, and non-racist picture of Māori in New Zealand society,”—not a number of Māori MPs in a very unflattering way as they were yesterday.
In light of this it was refreshing yesterday to see the Broadcasting Standards Authority come out with a statement supporting better training in inter-cultural understanding for journalists. The statement from the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s chief executive, Dominic Sheehan, said it all: “All cultures have a right to be treated fairly by the media. Better journalistic training in other cultures would be a solution to inadvertently offending people’s customs and protocols as a result of a lack of knowledge.” The authority also supported the concept of media campaigns to combat discrimination, with Sheehan confirming that such a campaign reflects the important part the media plays in improving communication between cultures.
I am not generally one to say that I get excited by statements like that, but in the midst of an environment of bad news and unflattering photos, the leadership shown by the Broadcasting Standards Authority is exciting. I quote from Mr Sheehan again: “While our media is underpinned by the right of free expression, we want people from all communities to know that broadcasters have a responsibility to maintain programme standards like the observance of good taste and decency, balance, fairness, accuracy and the privacy of an individual. Included in the standards are safeguards against denigration and discrimination against a group in society.”
If I were in a courtroom, I would tempted to say: “Your honour, I rest my case.”, but instead, in this esteemed “House of Law”, I say that nothing more really needs to be said. In the interests of broadcasting standards in respect of our Standing Orders, and in compliance with the MMP parties’ own code of conduct for MPs tabled in this House, I say that the direction to avoid ridicule or denigration is the right direction for this House to take. Tēnā koutou.
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) Link to this
I move, That. I intend to seek leave of the House, at the conclusion of my speech, to allow full debate on the motion, my amendment, and any other amendments that may arise, to ensure that the debate is not constrained in any way, because I think it is an important debate.
Let me explain why I am moving my amendment to the motion. I will start by talking about the context of the motion. First of all, by and large it is a positive change. I think the points that Mr Brownlee made are quite correct, in that this motion represents an opening up of Parliament in a number of ways. It is unfortunate that this debate has overshadowed that broader opening-up.
The first thing is that we are seeing access to a live feed through these cameras, a feed that will be free, and a feed that will mean that all of the proceedings of this Parliament are broadcast through the Internet and through any media channel that chooses to use it. There is an intention that select committee proceedings will also be, ultimately, televised, or at least the public parts of them. That is something we must all applaud, and I think it is important to remember that what is driving the move as a whole is an attempt to open up Parliament and make it more accessible to the people of New Zealand. That is extremely important.
In the context of that, the motion includes a relaxation of the rules regarding television coverage. Rather than coverage being restricted to the member who has the call, the new rules will allow reaction shots and some broad shots of the House to be used. That is an improvement; that is an opening-up of what can be shown. I think it is important that we acknowledge those positive elements.
I also want to thank Dr Cullen for explaining quite clearly the import of this matter being a sessional order, and what that means in terms of the procedures of the House.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER Link to this
Mr Tanczos, I do not want to interrupt you, but there is a slight dilemma here. You indicated that you would be seeking leave to broaden the debate for subsequent speakers, but you are now going very broad indeed—strictly speaking, outside of your amendment. I do not mind, but I just mention that so that you do not think it has slipped past me.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your guidance. I seek leave of the House for the debate to include discussion of the main question, my amendment, and any further amendments that members may see fit to move, and for the questions on the amendments and the main question to be part of the conclusion of the debate.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER Link to this
Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your guidance, and I also thank the members of the House.
I thank Mr Cullen for explaining clearly the import of this matter being a sessional order, and the possibilities that the House will have at a later time to re-examine the matters in this report and in the sessional order.
As I was saying, by and large this matter is being driven by a desire for a positive move, which is the opening up of Parliament, but it is fair to say that since the publication of the report, major concerns have been raised in public, not only by media and media representatives but also by other people—lest we think this matter is driven purely by media self-interest. I would characterise the concerns—at least, as I have observed them—as being centred on three key issues.
The first one is the process. I acknowledge the letter that Vernon Small wrote to the Speaker, indicating that although the media have been consulted on the broad changes, specific elements within them had not been made apparent to them. I think that is an issue, and I note that the Dominion Post reported today that the Speaker had acknowledged that and had apologised to Mr Small for it. I am simply going by media reports; obviously, I was not there myself.
The second issue is the rule that coverage must not be used for “satire, ridicule or denigration”. That presents members with problems. The first thing is how we are to define what is denigration or ridicule, or even satire for that matter. I think we open ourselves up to the potential for a very restrictive regime. Although I accept Dr Cullen’s assurance that this rule would be interpreted liberally in this Parliament, we always have to acknowledge that when we do these things, we do them for the future, and for Governments of a different nature from the sorts of Governments we currently enjoy. I certainly would not like to see members put in place rules that a more authoritative regime could use to suppress criticism of itself.
Again, as Mr Small has said, members should ask themselves whether programmes like Eating Media Lunch will not be able to use the proceedings of the House for satirical material. I think it would be inappropriate for members to try to stop them from doing that. Not only is such a rule unenforceable but also I think members would not want to stop satire. Political satire is an important part of the culture of New Zealand and of other countries. I certainly remember, when I was growing up, seeing David McPhail and Jon Gadsby on television. Political satire, and the ability to poke fun at, and prick the pomposity of, politicians had a significant impact on my political development. It was an extremely important element, and I think it would be unfortunate if members were seen to be trying to stop political satire.
Like Mr Rodney Hide, my personal view is that people should be able to film what they like. If, as Dr Cullen said, the concern is about misrepresentation of the proceedings of the House, or if the concerns are those that Tariana Turia raised about racism and targeting, then it may be possible to find better phrasing that actually goes to the heart of what we are trying to avoid, rather than our having these fairly blanket statements. That is why I moved a motion to refer this matter back to the Standing Orders Committee. I think it would be quite useful to have another look at these issues.
Dr Cullen referred to the photos in the Dominion Post as being a case in point; that if that is the objective of the exercise, well, members do not want to allow that. But I think that comment misses the point. It seems patently obvious to me that what the was doing was playing up and giving members a bit of a shot across the bow, because it does not normally engage in that kind of thing. It was quite a pointed protest. Although I think the choice of photos may have been unfortunate, as Tariana Turia has pointed out, it would be wrong of us to take that as an indication of what the media’s concern is about this issue. The only time in the past that I remember the media showing a photo of members of Parliament yawning, it was a photo of Annabel Young. The media were slapped over the wrist for it, but the context was—[] No, it was Annabel Young.
I offer my apologies to Mr Donnelly. The thing about the Annabel Young photo was that it taken when the House was sitting under extraordinary urgency to debate a tax law. Members were sitting until 4 or 5 in the morning, or something; we were certainly sitting into the early hours of the next morning. The photo was really portraying the kinds of hours that we were sitting, and I do not think that was an unreasonable thing for the media to do. I do not think the photo was intended to be derogatory at all; if anything, perhaps it was intended to be sympathetic.
The other issue is the inconsistency around the use of stills photos. When we think about it, we realise it is difficult to see why there should be inconsistent rules for stills photography compared with the rules for television feeds. Again, the concern could be that photos can be taken out of context much more easily than film footage, because a photo of someone blinking can be portrayed as a photo of someone asleep. I have certainly been subjected to more than my fair share of photographic misrepresentation in my time—not by the press gallery, I must say, but by media outside the House. But I think it must be possible for us to say that what we are concerned about is unfair misrepresentation, if that is what we are trying to get at. I cannot see that a very clear case can be argued to support a blanket rule that makes the rules for stills photography different from those for television feeds.
So huge concerns have been expressed since the publication of the proposed rules, and I think it is worth re-examining these matters.
Lastly, I would say that, yes, I was on the Standing Orders Committee, as Dr Cullen said. The committee does work by consensus, but I think the committee got it wrong in this instance. We all get it wrong sometimes. The Government has backtracked on policy, the National Party has backtracked on policy, and we have all made mistakes in our time. Getting it wrong is nothing to be ashamed of. What members should be ashamed of is if we refuse to rectify it. That is really the issue. Issues were raised in the select committee around these matters, in any case. The weight of opinion was against it; that is fair enough. But the public concern is a good reason for us to go back and review these rules. As Gerry Brownlee said of the Dominion Post, if the media have concerns they can talk to MPs, and Parliament will look into the matter. Well, let us do that.
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) Link to this
I want to say at the outset that I am not persuaded that the Standing Orders Committee got it wrong in its consideration of these matters. It spent some considerable time doing so. It drew on comparable international experience, and it sought to develop a regime that would be more liberal than the one we have presently, particularly given the changes in television coverage. The rules around satire and denigration I will return to separately, but they, I think, have taken away much of the positive substance of these changes, and I think it would be foolish for this Parliament to now overreact by going back the other way.
We were confident in the select committee that we had the rules crafted properly and that we had provided for better coverage and more flexibility, and I think we should let them have a run. These are sessional orders, and, as others speakers have said, they can be changed at some stage over the next year or so. But I think it would be foolish to change them before we have even started them, so for that reason I do not support the amendment that has just been moved.
As this debate has unfolded over the last few days, it has struck me that the media and the Parliament have one point in common. We both crave credibility. Parliamentarians are acutely conscious that their standing in the public is somewhat lower than the lowest. I point out that the media often does not rate a great deal more highly. So although we see, as parliamentarians, a need to protect and respect this institution through the way in which it is presented, which might lead some people to view us as being overly cautious and concerned with our reputation and image—no bad thing, I say—the media, for its part, also wants to be viewed in an equally responsible and credible light.
That common ground then becomes the point at which we start to separate. We as parliamentarians say—and I go right back to 1936, when the Labour Government of the day first instituted the broadcasting of this Parliament—that broadcasting, telecasting, or some other form of transmission of what goes on here is the best way of ensuring that the public of New Zealand gets a true and an accurate picture of what is happening. The media say that their critical role is to inform, to analyse, and, I guess, to enable the readers and the viewers to make critical decisions based on the judgments they are putting before them. That is all very well in theory, but the practice of the last few days, as this debate has unfolded, has been somewhat different from that.
I have spoken to a number of journalists, none of whom have expressed concern about their ability, as a result of these changes, to seriously report what goes on in this House. That is not an issue. The issue for them seems to be the restriction on their ability to satirise and to denigrate, and that, to me, says something about the core of the problem. This is not about whether Parliament can be properly presented to the people of New Zealand, and whether the voters who collectively decide our individual and ultimate fates can be better informed about what goes on here. That seems to have become a secondary issue to the view that the media has a right not just to inform but to satirise and to denigrate.
I think what has got out of balance here is the issue of what the fundamental responsibility is. I have no objection to satire and denigration. It is part of our stock-in-trade most of the time. But I think that to say that that becomes the primary purpose, which is the way that the debate seems to have unfolded in the last few days, somewhat, to be colloquial, puts the cart before the horse. I think it is important that Parliament puts a stake in the ground and says that we are about being open, and we are about being as transparent as possible—hence these new rules for the telecasting of Parliament. We are not, contrary to much of the commentary, changing the rules at all with regard to still photography. They remain as they have been. But at the same time we are about enhancing the credibility of this place.
I think that to get hijacked, as we are in danger of doing by the side issue of how satire is portrayed and what the rights of the media are to satirise, is to miss the point. Satire will continue to occur. One simply does not need to take this feed. A tape can be taken off any broadcast anyway and used for those purposes. I see that the Minister of Health is here, and I hope he does not mind if I draw attention to his abilities in this regard. Some of the examples that have been portrayed this week of outlandish behaviour by members of Parliament that would not be permitted under these new rules, actually relate to the Minister and one of his colleagues dancing, not in Parliament but somewhere else altogether. So presumably those broadcasts could continue, and we could continue to see his skills—
Darren HughesThe whip says that we will not, and I think that is probably correct.
The point I am making is simply this. I think this debate has lost a lot of its perspective. This is about the rules for the telecasting of Parliament. Parliament is the highest court in the land. It is entirely proper that there are some boundaries around how its presentation occurs. The media will always continue to satirise and to lampoon—that is a legitimate and strong historical tradition. But it is not a principle of democracy to start from the presumption that the first thing to be preserved is the right to satirise and to lampoon. That is a consequence; it is not a substantive principal argument.
I want to see these rules be given a run. They may not be perfect. We can always review and change them. We do that constantly as it is, anyway. I want to see New Zealanders have the chance to observe their Parliament in action in a full and an accurate way. When people talk about Parliament, they are amazed when I tell them that what they see on television at night is probably 10 percent of the worst 10 percent—the excerpts from question time, the unruly behaviour, and so on—and that 80 to 90 percent of what goes on here would occur, whichever party was in Government, without contention and debate, as members constructively get on about their work. People are stunned when they hear that, because that is not the impression they have been given by the way that this place is portrayed. I think we do ourselves and our country a disservice if we continue to be lulled into a sense of saying: “Well, let’s actually accept that the portrayal of this place is as it should be.” Then we have debates about why we do not have civics courses in schools to educate young people about the political process and how Parliament works. Part of the reason why that call is as strong as it is, is that people feel disillusioned by what they see—which gets back to the way that this place is presented and reported.
So this is really a chance for us to put in place some rules that are sustainable, fair and reasonable, and balanced. I think it would be wise for us to let ourselves have a run at them, then, in the wake of experience, to decide where changes are to be made. On that score, although I respect the amendment that Mr Tanczos has moved, I think that it is a little premature. I think it would be prudent for the recommendations of the Standing Orders Committee to be adopted and for these new rules to be put in place, and reviewed, as to how they work out, at a more leisurely pace.
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) Link to this
I rise to support the amendment of my colleague. I think that we MPs are taking ourselves too seriously over this issue. I think we are being too precious. Ridicule cannot be banned; that is absolutely ridiculous. I think we ridicule ourselves by trying to ban it. Satire cannot be banned; that is ridiculous. I think we will attract the very ridicule we are fearing by seeking to ban it—to prohibit it. I think we need only to read the letters in the Dominion Post today to see the sort of ridicule that this unfortunate decision has already attracted on to this House.
As my colleague said, the members of the Standing Orders Committee probably were not thinking too deeply about these issues. They did not hear from the media, as they ought to have done, and, frankly, in my view they got it wrong. You know, this happens. It happened with the microchipping. We had to admit that Parliament had got it wrong and we could seek to rectify it. So I think we need to acknowledge that the committee has got it wrong and that we need to give it a bit more thought. We need to re-examine the issue, and we need in particular to realise that we should stop taking ourselves so seriously and being so precious.
We should just think for a moment about how ridiculous it is that we in this House are trying to ban ridicule. It is a bit like prohibition. You know, people try to prohibit the use of marijuana and so that encourages its use. This is the same sort of thing: by trying to prohibit the ridicule and satire of this House, I am absolutely certain that we will encourage it. We will have media people all over the place, up and down the land—not just those from Eating Media Lunch but others—inevitably having the temptation to ridicule us, to satirise us, and, indeed, to denigrate us.
Frankly, much of the behaviour in this House is behaviour that should be ridiculed and probably is ridiculous. It may be that by allowing more open coverage, I hope, we will encourage better behaviour in this House. We need to remember that it was not very long ago that Onslow College students came and did a survey of behaviour in this House, and they said that they would have been expelled from their school for the bullying and appalling behaviour that takes place in this House—they would have been expelled. Some think that the behaviour in this House is very clever and funny, but a lot of the time it degenerates into bullying and abuse. That sort of behaviour, frankly, deserves to be exposed, deserves to be ridiculed, and deserves to be satirised.
I think the one other issue concerns the question of why we are having one rule for still photography and another for TV and film. I have asked what the underlying principle is—what is the reason, what is the thinking behind this? But I have not had a satisfactory explanation. There is not one, as far as I can see. It seems to me that that is another instance where the people on that committee have got it wrong. What is the point of passing what effectively is a rule that has no justification—that does not stand up to scrutiny? I think that that is another rule that needs to be rethought.
In summary, I seek to support my colleague’s amendment. I implore members to support it, to acknowledge that we have made a mistake, and to acknowledge that it is ridiculous to seek to ban ridicule. In so doing we will hold ourselves up to ridicule, satire, and abuse, as has already happened. In making this ban we will encourage exactly what we fear. Let us stop being so precious and taking ourselves so seriously. Let us drop this ridiculous prohibition and support my colleague’s amendment.
A party vote was called for on the question,
That the amendment be agreed to.
Ayes 6
Noes 111
- New Zealand Labour 49
- New Zealand National 47
- New Zealand First 7
- Māori Party 3
- United Future 2
- Progressive 1
- Independent 2 (Copeland, Field)
Amendment not agreed to.