Fee no higher than $90?

Press, 25 July 1986, Page 5

Fee no higher than $90?

The broadcasting licence fee is unlikely to rise beyond $9O, the Minister of Broadcasting, Mr Hunt, suggested last evening.

Mr Hunt discounted a news media assertion that the licence fee would rise from $45 to $lBO. Although he did not say what the new fee would be, he said it would not be half the $lBO figure. Speaking earlier to the Yaidhurst branch of the Labour Party, l Mr Hunt repeated his claim made in Dunedin a fortnight ago that the licence fee was grossly under-priced.

In his Dunedin address, Mr Hunt had said that the

$45 fee was set in 1975. Based on the consumers’ price index, the equivalent figure today would be $lB2. “There is clearly an urgent need for a substantial increase in the 11-year-old public broadcasting fee,” he said. Equivalent fees in other countries would be $159 in the United Kingdom and $223 in Denmark. Australia had no licensing fee, but the Australian Broadcasting Corporation received a Government grant. This worked out to be much higher than the present New Zealand fee, he said. Mr Hunt said that no

broadcasting organisation, particularly in a small country, could depend on commercial revenue if it was to meet the full range of the community’s needs. Programmes produced in New Zealand were essentially non-commercial, designed to reflect and develop New Zealand’s identity and culture. They could not compete with overseas programmes on a cost revenue basis.

The hourly cost of Television New Zealand’s inhouse productions was $33,000 but the standard fee paid for, more expensively produced foreign programmes was $2BOO an

hour, Mr Hunt said. The Broadcasting Corporation had many noncommercial features. These included servicing remote rural areas, minority-interest programmes, advertising-free broadcasts on Sunday, and subsidising the Symphony Orchestra.

Mr Hunt also told a gathering of about 30 people that only one main decision had been made as a result of two reports into Post Office services. This was to separate its banking 1 , postal, and telecommunications functions.

“There has been no de-

cision taken to close any post office in this electorate,” he said.

He also said that a number of post offices had been closed since he became Postmaster-Gen-eral, and others might have to close in the future. He said, however, that the Morris-Mason Report had not led to any decision being made to close any post office in New Zealand.

Mr Hunt also said the reorganisation of the Post Office would include The appointment of unionists to the board of ail three corporations.