Māori Television Service Bill

I was just explaining to the Committee the amendments that the Greens are putting forward to Supplementary Order Paper 77 in the name of the Hon Parekura Horomia, and I will continue with that. The amendments that we have put forward will mean that any third party who may lease the UHF spectrum will have to commit to prime-time broadcasts, primarily in te reo, so that te reo is not relegated to obscure times when no one is watching the television. At other times te reo programmes will have to be prioritised. Any third party will have to commit that the service delivery takes into account the needs of te reo learners, both children and adults, and ensure that practical access to as many people as possible is made available.

Those amendments reflect our concern about the current General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) commitments: that those commitments do not adequately protect Māori broadcasting. We know that a request has been made to abandon funding for Māori broadcasting. There remains a GATS reservation in respect of Māori broadcasting, but the limits of that reservation are not clear. There is no reservation to prevent foreign ownership or delivery of te reo programming. For example, the reservation may protect the funding of Te Māngai Pāho but not necessarily the use of the spectrum for Māori broadcasting, nor the service delivery of Māori programming to the country.

The Greens’ amendments will ensure that any third party will be required, through its business plan, to prioritise te reo, and to commit to delivering a broadly accessible service. That is an essential protection in this legislation. We urge all parties in this Committee to vote for those amendments.

I rise to speak to Part 2 of this bill. Once again, I say that for something that was supposed to be a flagship project for this Government, the Māori Television Service has been an utter shambles from the very beginning. Almost every step that has been taken towards the provision of the Māori Television Service has faltered. It seems to many members of the public that this group of people just cannot get anything right. We have seen director after director—a virtual game of musical chairs in terms of directorships—move on and off the board, with alarming regularity. The service has been an absolute embarrassment.

Nobody has really explained how the television service will play its part in preserving the language. On the Opposition side of the Chamber we feel it is vital that work is done to preserve the language, but we would argue that if we took that $55 million per annum and put it into teachers, Māori-language programmes, and school programmes, in particular, the whole country would be much further ahead in terms of learning the language. If members compare the Māori Television Service—which is being based on a Canadian model, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network—with that network, they will find that even though Canadian cable broadcasters are forced by legislation to carry that channel under a “must carry” clause in the legislation, only about 1 percent of Canadians watch the channel. I would like the Minister to answer this: how can this New Zealand channel play a part in preserving the language if nobody will watch it, or if very small numbers of New Zealanders will watch it? Broadcasting into the ether is not enough. There is no way that the language can be preserved if the service is on an obscure part of the Sky remote and nobody watches it.

I turn to clause 47(3), which states: “The Crown must not incur any liability to the Service or expend any money for the use of the Service under an appropriation by Parliament unless—(a) a final statement of intent has been presented to the House of Representatives by the responsible Ministers; and (b) the responsible Ministers have agreed to the output agreement prepared by the board …”. To the Minister sitting in the chair, the Hon Parekura Horomia, I say that that clause is a bit late, because we on the Opposition side of the Chamber would like to know what has been happening within the Māori Television Service for the last 3 years. Certainly a number of liabilities have been incurred under that Minister’s responsibility, when in fact the Māori Television Service has had no legal status in relation to the law, at all.

We have seen a lot of high-profile liabilities being incurred, heard a lot of debate about directors’ fees, and seen some programming projects that have gone bad. In just the last month we saw that Slightly Upbeat Productions has not paid any of its bills. It has left a lot of people with unpaid bills, and those people have incurred a lot of costs when it came to producing programmes. We are about to hear about another one of those issues. A number of programmes that Te Māngai Pāho has funded are open to question. I say that that particular clause is quite late, because the Māori Television Service has been going out and spending a lot of money, signing leases, signing programming contracts, and signing up staff.

While we are on the subject of staff, I would like to get back to another high-profile staff member. I would like to read from the Māori Television Service’s website. This is the part I did not manage to read the other night. Reading from the website notes, I learn that Mr Davy is an accomplished recording and video producer. He is a composer, a songwriter, and a musician. He has extensive experience in drafting and managing international licensing and royalty agreements. He has authored two books, The Platinum Formula and The Art of Record Producing. Would members believe that neither of those books exists? This bit is very interesting: “His non-conflict directorships include being founder and commissioner of the Asian Hockey Association.”, I say to Mrs Wong.

💬 Pansy Wong: Really?

Yes. Mr Davy is “a member and adviser of the Middle East Round Table for International Relations. He is also a member and adviser of the BC Securities Commission.” Of course, the only truthful thing we know about Mr John Davy is the fact that he is Canadian.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I call Deborah Coddington.

💬 Rodney Hide: I hesitate to say that there is bias.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 Rodney Hide: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. What rule was the Chair applying in calling Deborah Coddington before me?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Mr Hide, you may not remember this, but you had a call yesterday on the same part of this bill that we are now debating.

💬 Rodney Hide: Oh, that is right. I got it in before I was thrown out of the Chamber.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Yes. You had a call at 9.36 p.m. last night.

I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak to Part 2, and to continue from where Katherine Rich finished off. She talked about the clause that mentions the statement of intent, and said that it was 3 years too late. It is actually longer than that. If we go back to 1997, we find that taxpayers’ money was being spent on setting up the Māori Television Service and commissioning programmes, doing research, and consulting huge numbers of the Māori community. That was all being done without the benefit of legislation like this, which enables that to happen.

The other area where this part is too late, because we have already gone down this road and blundered into trouble, is clause 28, which deals with directors having a conflict of interest. I suggest that that is also too late. We should go back and look at some of the people who were involved in the steering groups, back in 1997, for setting up a Māori television network, and then look at some of the companies that have received funding from Te Māngai Pāho. Let us not forget that the Māori Television Service and Te Māngai Pāho are interconnected, in that the funding of $13 million a year for the television service is only for the actual running of it, and the $155 million that will be spent by 2005 is for the making of programmes. Many of those millions of dollars have been spent on programmes before this television service has even come within cooee of going to air.

But I will come back to the issue of a conflict of interest. I put some questions to the Minister about the full list of grants that have been made for funding. It is very interesting to look at the companies that have been given millions of dollars to make these programmes. If we look at the companies, and then do a search at the Companies Office to see some of the directors behind those companies, well lookee here, we find they are the same people who were involved in advising the Government on setting up the Māori Television Service, and the same people who have been given money from Te Māngai Pāho to make a lot of these television programmes.

Iki Animation Ltd is just one of them. It has received several million dollars. Cinco Cine Film Productions appears again and again. We have no idea about the quality of those programmes. The only way that we can judge them is by looking at what has already gone to air, before the Māori Television Service was set up. If we take the judgment of some of the people who watch those programmes, I would say that they will not be terribly successful.

What are the boundaries within this legislation for the quality of programmes when we have a conflict of interest, which really just amounts to snouts in the trough—the restrictions on the same people appearing again and again, who are involved in both the setting up of the service and lining up for the funding? That is already happening. It has been happening for several years, and I really do wonder why the Minister even bothered to put this clause in. We will address schedule 2 later on—I know that—but nevertheless Part 2 refers to that schedule.

I have received some correspondence from a young 18-year-old Māori person who was in the gallery the other night watching this debate. She emailed me and stated that as a young 18-year-old Māori who is studying politics, she is very concerned about the Māori language. She is appalled by the standard of spoken Māori on some of the shows like Pūkana, and Mai Time. She said that the language is poor, including that used on the Māori news and the current affairs shows. The presenters come across very poorly and unprofessionally, and she said that they represent a really fake attitude to Māori things.

I move, That the question be now put.

This is very important legislation, and I applaud the Chair for allowing more calls. There are two clauses in Part 2 that I would particularly like to speak to. The first one is new clause 28A, which refers to the fact that the Māori Television Service will be broadcast on the UHF frequency. I read with interest the introductory speech on this bill by the Minister of Māori Affairs. He promised that the Māori Television Service would be encouraged to embrace sunrise, not sunset, technology. To that end the service had to broadcast, according to the Minister, in such a way that its programmes would be technically available throughout New Zealand. I do not see how this bill supports that.

The National Party certainly will hold the Labour Minister of Māori Affairs to the promise he made when introducing this bill that the service would be broadcast using sunrise technology. But instead, the Māori community will get second best. The platform for the service is only UHF. That means that all those people will have to pay $200 for a new aerial and the tuning of their television sets. I do not know whether the Minister has the mandate for that. Did he tell the Māori community and other people who want to watch Māori television that they will have to pay $200? I think the Minister owes this Parliament and the public an explanation of that. Who will pay the $200? I think that is a fair question. Can the Minister take a call to explain why he thinks UHF is sunrise technology? Why is the other platform not being used? The Opposition parties and the public are listening intently to this debate, so the Minister owes us a duty to stand up and take some calls in order to answer some very serious questions.

The other issue I wish to speak about is clause 28, “Duties of directors”. That clause states: “A director of the board, when acting as a director, and the board acting collectively must—(a) act in good faith, honestly, and with integrity;”. I would like the Minister to reflect, take a call, and explain to us the actions of some of the directors. For example, what happened to the first appointee, as pointed out by my colleague Katherine Rich? I have just learnt, like most people, that apparently the first chief executive, Mr John Davy, is in charge of some Asian hockey service. I wonder whether Mr John Davy can speak Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, on top of his other skills?

💬 Hon Parekura Horomia: Yes.

The Minister reckons that John Davy is fluent in Chinese—as fluent as I am in the Māori language, I bet! What happened to the board that appointed Mr John Davy, who ended up in jail? The board was supposed to act with integrity. Where is the accountability?

The situation becomes worse. After finding out through the media—and by the way, the media has been doing all the hard work in finding out that Mr John Davy was not worth the paper that his name was written on—about Mr Davy, he was not got rid of by the board but through an external source. Then the chairman of the board, Mr Derek Fox, started to interview for the next possible candidate for the vacant position. Mr Derek Fox sat on the selection committee and asked questions, apparently making sure that none of the candidates came up to scratch. What did the board do? It had a 5-minute break. Mr Derek Fox left the room, and we learnt that the board voted three to two, with one proxy vote, to appoint him as the chief executive.

The Minister really needs to take a call and explain to the public whether that was an example of a board of directors acting in good faith, honestly, and with integrity. If it was, we might have to re-write the legislation.

I move, That the question be now put.

The main thrust of this section is the purpose, and part of the purpose is the Treaty of Waitangi obligations. I say to our Minister that obviously there is some attraction to the Treaty of Waitangi, but I believe that will just be a fuzzy feeling for our Māori people—just another fuzzy thing to try to entrap our people into something that is going down the wrong track.

I want to touch on the teaching of te reo. I ask our Māori members why we do not leave it to the kōhanga reo, to the kura kaupapa, and to all the programmes the polytechs currently run. I know that there are private te reo classes running here, there, and everywhere. I mention my fellow MP’s kōrero last night about learning from television. I am not an expert in that particular area, but I think the information he gave last night is very important. I do not believe that this is the right forum for our young people, or people like myself, to learn te reo. I give an example: my daughter Renée, who is currently at St Joseph’s College, did not go to kōhanga reo as a baby, or as a 5-year-old. She went straight into kura kaupapa Māori and is now a very fluent speaker of te reo. All I am going to say to the Minister is that it was already happening in a qualified way in those particular areas I have mentioned.

I want to talk about the directors. We have heard this afternoon, and we have heard through the papers before, all the negativism towards Mr Davy, who I think had a job somewhere in the world—whereabouts was it?

💬 Rodney Hide: Afghanistan.

It probably was Afghanistan, but through the grapevine I did hear: “Haere ra, John Davy!”, which means: “Get on your way, there is no more work here for you!”. With regard to the directorships of this particular television station, let us not get into the nepotism. Let us keep away from that. If this bill goes through, neither we nor the Minister want that landing on our heads like it did on Mr Davy. I want to spell out some things here. Mr Davy had an advance on his salary. He had an impeccable CV. If I had been sitting on that board, the first thing I would have asked Mr Davy is if he was that good, where was his credit card to get an advance on his rent and on his car? Quite frankly, the directors did not smell this man coming, so I advise the Minister to beware who he puts on the board.

I want to touch on the quality of the programmes. I have seen some of the previews of those programmes. I hope there is some te reo that matches the kōrero they are speaking. With those hop-pop ideas they have, I am sure that there will be some real quality te reo. I will be interested in Mr Gudgeon’s interpretation of some of the te reo they will be putting in those programmes. Let us be aware that we are using taxpayers’ money. Let our whānau across the floor be aware that there are other important things. There is marae development, and I must say that New Zealand First, in coalition with National, put $3 million—only a snippet—into marae development. That can be trebled, because that is the foundation of our people, and that is where we must build our strength from—not from some television station. That should come later, not now.

Land development is an issue, but I want to talk about membership. The member from, I think, National, talked about that issue. Membership will cost something like $200, but who the hang will be able to afford to pay that? I know what they will join up to. Because Super 12 is here, they will join up to that. They will not join up to this.

I am just looking back through the bill, and I might just be moving quietly aside here, but let us talk about banking. Why is the Government putting the banking with the Bank of New Zealand? Why is it not going with Mr Anderton’s big bank, the Kiwibank?

I move, That the question be now put.

I have great pleasure in speaking on Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori, and I am looking forward to the Minister taking a call and explaining to us exactly what—

💬 Rodney Hide: We’ll be waiting a long, long time.

That is right. We might be waiting a while, but it is absolutely relevant. I am very glad to be using the new name prompted by the fine member for National, Georgina te Heuheu. The contribution by Edwin Perry was an absolutely relevant and excellent one.

💬 Ron Mark: It was a gem.

It was indeed a gem, because he asked why we are using the medium embodied in Part 2 of this bill as the flagship to promote te reo Māori and tikanga Māori. I asked the question yesterday. What is the evidence base behind this medium being the one that will make the huge difference in promoting Māori language? From the report of the Māori Broadcasting Advisory Committee, I pointed out just how perilously precipitous the fall in the usage of te reo has been over the years. It might be very well for the Minister not to listen to this, but I would like him to take a call and tell the Committee about the evidence base behind using $55 million on a Māori television channel that has a body corporate structure and clearly has had so much difficulty over the past 2 to 3 years. Will the Minister take a call and tell us what the evidence base is behind using this very important resource on this very important question? I go over it again: in 1973, the status of te reo was that 13 percent of Māori had high fluency in it. In 1995, it was down to 8.1 percent of Māori with high fluency in te reo. By June 2000—probably at the beginning of this Minister’s position as Minister of Māori Affairs—we heard that only 4 percent of Māori had high fluency in te reo.

As Edwin Perry was saying, there have been some wonderful results through the kōhanga reo movement. The question I have to ask is why we are spending all that money on a television station that is very unlikely to reach a large number of Māori for the reason that he said, which is that there will be a cost of $200, and for many that will be prohibitive. As my colleague Pansy Wong so rightly pointed out in respect of clause 28A, the Minister was the very one who said that he would encourage sunrise technologies, not sunset technologies. Surely, those sunrise technologies are the ones that would be relevant and of high quality, and ones that had been developed through time that would hit the right target—those young Māori between 0 and 5, or 0 and 10. That is the crucial time.

💬 Simon Power: 0 is young.

The whole point is that instead of a television station that will not reach such a large portion of Māori, can the Minister give us the evidence base that this extremely unwieldy structure will be effective. I really would like him to take a call on this point, because it is absolutely crucially important. If we look at clause 24, “Appointment of directors”, it was on 15 March 2002 that the Minister of Māori Affairs, Parekura Horomia—

I move, That the question be now put.