Merger Charterchat - Part 3

“Thank you very much for inviting us to appear before you again,” said Bernadette Cavanagh, chief executive of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, responding in kind to the welcome extended by Angie Warren-Clark on behalf of the Social Services and Community Select Committee to the ministry’s annual review at Parliament on Wednesday 16 February.

“Thank you so much for appearing before us,” said Warren-Clark, a former domestic violence advisor and women’s refuge manager now in her second term as a Labour list MP, in an opening salvo of greetings more typical of an art exhibition opening than a formal public hearing in a parliamentary committee room.

A critical part of Parliament’s financial scrutiny role, annual reviews (known as financial reviews up until 2015) enable MPs to delve into the spending of government departments and agencies in the previous financial year as well as their current operations.

For the first time in 20 years, however, Radio New Zealand will not be required to turn up at Parliament for a hearing of its annual review before a select committee. Responding to a request for the reason for not requiring the presence of RNZ’s chief executive and board chairman this year, the clerk of the Social Services and Community committee explained in an email on Monday 28 February: “The committee has decided not to hold a hearing of evidence with RNZ this financial scrutiny round. It will still ask RNZ questions and is required to report to the House.

“For context,” she added helpfully, “the Social Services and Community Committee gets referred 23 entities to review each year. Because of this it does not hold a hearing of evidence with every entity every year.”

Busy, busy. This year, however, the committee did find time for hearing financial reviews of all the other government agencies involved in broadcasting — TVNZ, NZ on Air, Te Mangai Paho, Maori TV and the Broadcasting Standards Authority. As the Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s plan, being pushed through Cabinet by Labour’s Broadcasting Minister, Kris Faafoi, for a new “public media entity” involves the disestablishment of both TVNZ and Radio New Zealamd, the committee’s decision to hear from the state television company but not its public radio is more than just a little ominous.

Sadly, the public radio’s chief executive, Paul Thompson, and its board chairman, Jim Mather, will not be on hand to answer questions of interest to listeners and taxpayers. No warm fuzzy greetings for them this year.

Thompson, for instance, could be asked to explain why Concert FM’s funding has remained static while RNZ’s total government revenue increased by 22% from $39 million in 2018 to $48.4 million in 2021. Another question: How is funding split between National Radio, Concert FM, the website and the operational costs of the $4 million video distribution system? Mather could be asked to expand on his belief, reported by Waatea news on Monday 14 March, that “a merger between RNZ and TVNZ represents a huge opportunity for Maori.”

These issues will not be covered in the committee’s written questions which follow a fixed template. RNZ has to provide answers to them by Thursday 31 March in time for the annual review debate in the House, always scheduled to be held before the end of the month.

Meanwhile, back to the committee’s annual review of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and its chief executive, Bernadette Cavanagh, a daughter of former National prime minister, Jim Bolger, and a high-flying diplomat before taking the top job at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage in 2018.

“Gosh, well, a lot has happened in the 12 months since we last appeared before you,” she began, adding that “Covid continues to have a really significant impact on the cultural sector, whether that be in the arts, heritage, or broadcasting or media.”

Delivering the cultural Covid-19 recovery programme had been a priority for the ministry. “With the arrival of the Delta strain in August, the ministry engaged again with our sector to understand what the impact would be and to test whether any changes were needed to our current settings,” she reported. As a result, $37.5 million went into a Delta relief package and two new funds were established: a Cultural Sector Emergency Relief Fund and an Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme.

The answers that the ministry gave to the committee’s written questions on Wednesday 9 February revealed total spending on contractors and consultants in 2020/21 to be “approximately” $11,634,917. Of the 98 firms in the list supplied by the ministry on Monday 14 March, two-thirds were said to be “employed as a result of Covid-19”.

Although the list was provided almost a month after the ministry’s annual review hearing, Cavanagha faced one question about money from one of the committee’s two National members, former Catholic priest and prison chaplain, Simon O’Connor, in his fourth term as the MP for Tamaki.

“Hey, to Bernadette and the team, thanks as always,” he says, going with the informal vibe already established. “A lot of money’s being thrown around, but what I wanted to ask you about is the Cultural Sector Regeneration Fund, because, from what I can see, about $60 million was allocated; only about $20-something million was then appropriated, and the actual spend is about $6 million.

“In other words, a lot of money talked about, but the actual delivery is quite low. And . . . with all this money that’s going out, how are you ultimately measuring this? How do we know it’s good spend?”

Cavanagh says “Great. Thank you very much” before calling on her Deputy Chief Executive Investments and Outcomes, Joe Fowler, to answer O’Connor’s first question “because he’s more across the figures than I” before addressing how the ministry measures a “good spend”.

She says it’s something that “we have been putting a lot of thought and effort into. What we’ve got is, I guess, three overarching objectives for all of our funds, and it’s really supporting economic recovery, supporting a vibrant and innovative sector, and enabling better access and participation. And so we have been doing some research and getting some reports done on the impacts of the funding so far.”

Emily Fabling, Deputy Chief Executive (Policy and Sector Performance) then reports on feedback showing that while jobs and activity were preserved loss of confidence had been greater in “audience participation” than in “practitioners’ participation”.

“And so,” she says, “the next stage of work is looking at the impact of the expenditure on not just maintaining the delivery of arts, culture, and heritage productions—if you like—but also the audience participation going forward and the confidence of audience to participate in the sector.”

More work for consultants there. They, at least, will not go hungry.

National’s other committee member, their broadcasting spokeswoman, Melissa Lee, South Korean-born former journalist and TV producer, now in her fifth term as a list MP, also had questions for Cavanagh about the public media entity.

More in Part 4. Stay tuned.

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