Popular music has a vital role in helping us define New Zealand as a unique, dynamic and creative nation. We have proved that through the recent successes of bands such as Fur Patrol, Zed, Hinewehi Mohi, and King Kapisi, such popular music icons as Neil Finn, Dave Dobbyn, and Bic Runga, and stepping back a little further in time, Ray Columbus and the Invaders and John Rowles. These artists have more than held their own both on New Zealand radio playlists and offshore.

New Zealand popular music has enormous potential for growth as a vibrant creative industry, but its cultural potential is limited unless it is available to a wide audience.

That is why we see the urgent need for an increase of New Zealand music on our airwaves. The radio industry can build upon its achievement in recent years in raising the levels of New Zealand music broadcast, and its work to date monitoring and publishing those levels of New Zealand music, by developing a self-regulatory system for increasing these levels further.

I would like to hear from the commercial radio industry about how an Industry Code of Practice for New Zealand Music could operate and have asked them to present proposals to me by Monday 1 October 2001.

During this time I plan to meet with key players in the radio industry to discuss the Government's objectives and design parameters for a system for increased levels of New Zealand music on radio.

If that process fails we will need to look at a mandatory quota system to ensure that New Zealanders hear more of their country in their music and for us all to experience the cultural and economic advantages that brings.

Hon Marian L. Hobbs
Minister of Broadcasting