Brendon Burns

The Government must look more widely at its broadcasting budget and revenues before demanding cuts in services at Radio New Zealand, says Labour Broadcasting spokesman Brendon Burns.

Brendon Burns said that Labour MPs today supported a rally attracting 200 people at Parliament, while he spoke to another gathering outside Radio New Zealand House in his Christchurch Central electorate.
 
“Surveys show that more than three-quarters of New Zealanders support the job done by Radio New Zealand.

“This is our sole remaining public, non-commercial broadcaster and it provides unrivalled quality service. Radio NZ deserves to be encouraged to continue providing its excellent news, current affairs and other programming, not told to look at reducing its on-air hours or other cuts.”

Brendon Burns says the Government should look across its broadcasting spend at what efficiencies might be applied to support Radio New Zealand.

“All up, the state has a net flow of more than half a billion dollars into and out of broadcasting. Finding $1 million from that array of funding and revenue would be easier than finding savings from Radio NZ’s under-pressure $38m budget — and that sort of money would make a lot of difference to it.”

Brendon Burns has today launched an electronic petition and website – Hands off Our Dial – www.handsoffradionz.co.nz to provide an ongoing site for people to register their support for Radio NZ.

“In less than a week, a Facebook page has attracted more than 14,700 fans. New Zealanders know that demands for efficiencies and partial commercialisation of Radio NZ is the start of a slippery slope.

“The Hands off Our Dial website will provide a way to maintain the pressure on a Broadcasting Minister who only last June introduced a new Radio NZ Charter, affirming a commitment to quality non-commercial services which he now wants to slice, dice and charge for.”

Canterbury people should be worried about comments by Prime Minister John Key in relation to allocating water in the province without genuine community involvement, says Labour’s water spokesman Brendon Burns.
 
“John Key’s main concern seems to be about getting things done fast, but if speeding up the allocation of water by non-accountable people is the Prime Minister’s definition of efficiency, Cantabrians have every cause to be worried,” Brendon Burns said.

A review of Environment Canterbury has suggested axing its role in water management and giving this to a regional water authority appointed by the Government. John Key said yesterday that from a purely economic perspective all the evidence supported more efficient allocation in the South Island and he believed this could be well balanced against environmental issues.
 
Brendon Burns said: “I support more greening of the Canterbury Plains so long as it doesn’t mean more browning of our waterways. John Key’s comments suggest he wants rapid water allocation for quick economic outcomes.

”Bowling Ecan and replacing it with a government-appointed board will facilitate such an outcome, but it won’t make Canterbury a better place to live in if water quality continues to degrade.”
 
Brendon Burns said that after years of handing out water consents with no restraint, Ecan had begun more recently to resist the pressure of big farming interests whose record on environmental outcomes was woeful.
 
“We’ve lost our birthright of being able to swim safely in Canterbury’s lowland streams, with dairying the biggest contributor to what’s happened.
 
“Ecan has been overturned in the Environment Court trying to stop extraction in red-zoned areas by corporate interests who can buy the best science and lawyers. That’s part of the reason Ecan had been one of the slowest to approve resource consents,” Brendon Burns said.
 
Brendon Burns has backed the Ecan-driven Canterbury Water Management Strategy which recommends a five year period of improving existing water quality before any new water is allocated under tougher, new environmental standards.

Canterbury water management would be better served by enforcing tougher, new environmental requirements than by passing responsibility to a new tier of un-elected local government, says Labour’s water spokesman Brendon Burns.
The Government today released a review of Environment Canterbury’s performance chaired by former National Minister Wyatt Creech. The review recommends establishing and appointing a Canterbury Regional Water Authority.
Brendon Burns says the report correctly identifies the pressure Ecan has been under to manage the goldrush for water that has occurred in Canterbury in the past decade, leading to it having the slowest resource consent approvals.
“What is not fully acknowledged is that Ecan has begun to come to grips with those demands after years of giving away huge volumes of water without proper consideration and allowing major deterioration in surface water quality. The Ecan-lead Canterbury Water Management Strategy is a template for potential win-win environmental and economic outcomes.
“I am the last to defend how Ecan councillors have performed — the Auditor-General last year upheld my complaint against four of them who were conflicted in voting against part-charging farmers for the costs of water management.
“But at least those councillors are accountable. This report suggests appointing Regional Water Authority members, funded by ratepayers to manage Ecan’s water functions, and leaving Ecan with most of the rest of its responsibilities. We have already seen the Government undermine local representation in Auckland; we don’t want the same in Canterbury.”
Brendon Burns says the Government should use its time considering the Creech report to develop clear national policy statements on water and give the new Environment Protection Authority some real powers to enforce water standards, with tough penalties for those who pollute or over-abstract.
“This would assist Ecan and other councils which face increasing demand on water resources from intensive agriculture and other users, without a suite of sufficient powers to hold them to account for breaches of water quality.”
The Christchurch Central MP says he does see merit in reviewing Ecan’s role in public transport, given most of this activity falls within the Christchurch City Council’s boundaries.

There were clear signals at today’s Commerce Select Committee that the new charter for Radio New Zealand is under threat from a Government choke on funding, says Labour broadcasting spokesman Brendon Burns.

Radio NZ’s chair, chief executive and chief financial officer appeared in front of the committee on financial estimates.

Brendon Burns says that under questioning from committee members it became obvious that Radio New Zealand’s board believes an updated charter for state radio, introduced last year by Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman, is under threat from the Minister’s demands for ongoing cost-savings.

“Dr Coleman introduced the new charter in an amendment bill last June, reaffirming that Radio New Zealand must continue to inform and stimulate people, reflect our identity and our place in the world.

“Now we learn that Dr Coleman is contributing ideas about how Radio NZ could cut costs,” Brendon Burns said.

“It’s still unclear whether he, or a frustrated board that wants to uphold its charter commitments, are putting up such nonsense ideas as not sending reporters to cover the Commonwealth Games, turning off National Radio from midnight till 6am, or axing FM coverage other than in Auckland.

“What is clear, however, is that the charter the Minister was happy to introduce six months ago would be breached by these sorts of cuts.”

Brendon Burns says Radio NZ today confirmed that such cuts will impact on its high standards as the nation’s only remaining public service broadcaster.

“The Government needs to focus on value rather than just cost. Three out of four Kiwis see Radio Zealand as providing a valuable service. It has dedicated staff who have long been paid salaries below prevailing rates.

“If Dr Coleman was committed to a future for public service broadcasting, he would be instituting the review of competition that he canned and looking at how to best ensure we have viable public-owned radio and television models into the future.”

Christchurch-based pokie trust Eureka is still playing politics with local sports groups, says Christchurch Central MP Brendon Burns.
 
Eureka Trust has today issued its grants donations for the year to last November.
 
Although Eureka gave away more than $5m in pokie funding last year, it says in its full page Press ad that it has had to cease funding sport (excluding schools.).
 
Brendon Burns says Eureka’s statements are nonsense on several counts.
 
“First, Eureka’s advert shows it has given away many hundreds of thousand of dollars to sports bodies in the latest grants.
 
“What it is trying to do is maintain a fiction it developed last year. After some of us blew the whistle on the inappropriateness of Eureka generously funding racing stakes from pokie money, it said it could also not fund sport. This was centred on it choosing to define that sport was not a charitable purpose.
 
“Eureka continues playing politics on this point on the basis of narrow and prescriptive legal advice.
 
“It ignores advice such as that from the Minister of Internal Affairs, National’s Nathan Guy who issued a media statement last September headlined, “Sport can still receive gaming society funding.”
 
Brendon Burns says as MP for an electorate with many needy organisations desperate for locally-generated pokie funds, he welcomes the removal of funding for racing stake money in Eureka’s grants statement.
 
“When hundreds of community welfare organisations and sports groups continued to miss out on funding, the case for gambling monies funding gambling could not be sustained. I am more comfortable with local racing clubs continuing to get a modest share of funds as their facilities are also used for a wide range of other activities.
 
“Eureka trustees are not only maintaining a charade about not being able to fund sport in the latest grants statement. They continue to make curious funding decisions, such as again giving generously ($43,000) to the Midland Rail Trust, when most community organisations got fractions of that amount. Midland has received more than $200,000 over the last five years and never missed out.”
 
Brendon Burns says Eureka also continues to advertise for applications for funding, without stating what happened to its plans of last year to merge with the Air Rescue Trust.
 
“I think an organisation with well-paid trustees managing millions of dollars of on behalf of the public need to step up and explain themselves much better than this shambles.”