Money well spent on Radio NZ

To those who say Radio NZ should not be funded by taxes as they don't listen to it I say this; I hope I never need a coronary unit or cancer treatment but I’m glad my taxes provide those – and no amount of private medical insurance ever covers the cost of major trauma events – only the state can provide for that. And the Government needs to look beyond Radio NZ  for a resolution.

Labour did give Radio NZ a $2.6m increases in our last budget. I am not proposing we tax more to give them more. Rather, the Govt should look across the $500m+ total it invests/receives from the entire broadcasting sector. Finding $1 or $2m there is going to be a lot easier than finding such savings in Radio NZ. For instance, I’d like to know (and have asked at select committee) what the state-owned transmission company Kordia spend on maintaining, perhaps even extending UHF coverage to tiny wee pockets of reception. If we are spending big money here, that’s worth looking at, especially when analogue signal switch-off is no more than 4 years away. Reapplying such funds to Radio NZ would make a helluva lot of difference.