Jones Shane: Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJones Shane: Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:14932. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon SHANE JONES (Labour): Tēnā koutou katoa. A little bit of whakapapa—kinship—which eclipses political affiliation caused me to be over there on the other side of the House for a mercifully short period of time. I stand to provide a little bit of background and history in respect of this bill the Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Amendment Bill.It is important that we think right back to the efforts at Waiwhetū Marae where in the 1980s the original kohanga reo was established. Then there was a push to achieve recognition in the time of the Hon Koro Wētere for Te Reo Māori. That led to—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: A great man.Hon SHANE JONES: Well unlike the current Minister of Māori Affairs he was a great man. Then that led to Te Reo being regarded as a taonga as a manatunga. That led to the Māori Language Commission being formed and a host of other bodies. Māori Television has had a rather chequered history but we stand quite staunch in promoting it as an institution that plays a key role in the revival and dissemination of our language usages and customs that are often regarded as following in the wake of language development. It relies now on modern technology that the current Minister in his dealings with the Minister for Communications and Information Technology—i.e. I am talking about the spectrum which is now the new highway—and the current activists and future users of the language should look to. It is a shame that the Minister has failed miserably. Never have we seen a worse outcome for language activists.Indeed on Māori Television only tonight Piripi Walker one of the key members of Ngā Kaiwhakapūmau i te Reo—i.e. those who seek to provide permanent status of the language—was very diplomatic a little bit like myself. He did not quite say in candid terms that the Minister has been asleep not at the wheel but at the helm at the prow in the puku and climbing up the sail of this waka. Minister I say to you that this is a piffling contribution. On the day this is going through he has been told to keep quiet and accept this modest improvement whilst spectrum rights have been denied to the Treaty partner.A Government is entitled to treat an iwi how it likes but the Māori Party is not entitled to diminish to destroy or to betray the dreams of the Māori people and that is what has happened today. That is why although we stand and we see some modest improvements associated with this bill it is a very bleak day.It comes down to the quality of advocacy. I have had my differences with earlier Ministers of Māori Affairs. I had my differences at one stage when a former Minister Tau Henare decided to appoint Joe Williams who had been a lawyer and a judge of the Māori Land Court as a consequence of his intervention—a very bright guy but we were often at odds with each other about the iwi thesis. But that was a Minister who showed courage and boldness. This has been around for so long that members of the Māori media community and iwi have lost sight of where these improvements actually came from. But they are emblematic of the very lacklustre tired and largely irrelevantcontributions that the Minister has made. It is like keeping a rugby player who has faded to a point where he is better to be on the bench permanently.I had my misgivings about the Māori Television Electoral College. We had discussions on our side of the House and the sense was to allow the college to refine its processes and improve its own set of accountabilities. But a number of the organisations I have referred to as waka kihau which is the Māori way of saying in English ghost ships. We need to be absolutely sure because of the value of taonga and the capacity being transmitted that they do not decide to follow some whim of the Māori Party and promise to 72 iwis that they can all have their own radio station—an absurd idea—or their own TV station. This requires bulking up the resource bulking up the talent not atomising effort. I think it is very very sad on this particular day that Māori Television is covering onTe Karere evidence of the abject failure of the current Minister and his colleagues to have an inch of influence with the dowager of Te Wai Pounamu otherwise known as the Minister of Broadcasting. If there was ever evidence where the power imbalance lies here Māoridom have had it shown to them today.Unfortunately I do not have time to digress into the inordinately large consultancy fees associated with the Te Puni Kōkiri report. Some is related to the bill because it says “strategic advice”. But rest assured that scores of Official Information Act questions are being composed as we speak to seek justification as to why the Minister has been unable to attract enough talent into that particular organisation. Has that caused a delay in this bill being at the point it is? There were earlier reports lying behind this bill. One was by a panel called Te Kāhui o Māhutonga. It includes the Māori word for the Southern Cross Te Māhutonga. I think that Te Māhutonga the Southern Cross a key feature of navigation needed to be imprinted in the Minister’s mind so that he had a sense of how to navigate progress—not go round in circles not give in so easily and not be forced to back down whilst talking tough to the hapū and the iwi. These might sound rather jarring remarks but this is a robust House. It is the highest court in the land and we are drawing to an end. It is important that our people as they watch an improved version of Māori Television over the Christmas holidays contemplate the need—and the importance—for the Minister to receive a very sharp reminder of his total irrelevance to the behaviour and the conduct of where the power is which is not with the Māori Party.I need to come back and talk a wee bit more about dramas around the chief executive officer. At the end of the day the board appoints its own chief executive officer and I hope that it reaches a decision with alacrity. It has been very disturbing to learn that the former Minister the Hon Georgina te Heuheu put herself in a position that was very very awkward supporting a candidate who apparently—I have no evidence of this—left under a cloud from Television One. But all of it only goes to damage the perception initiated I must confess by the very idle approach shown by the Minister towards Māori broadcasting. When Koro Wētere and Parekura Horomia were around they had dramatic support from the highest levels of Government. Indeed I would say even in the time of Winston Peters and Tau Henare—they had their differences. That is cool. I occasionally have my own differences with some of my colleagues. That is part of being Māori in Parliament. It is exaggerated by the media. It occasionally happens with the Greens and I wear that often as a badge of honour but that is another matter.I would say that this bill although it collects our support shows that too little has been done. If you want Māori communities to improve the quality of language and the frequency of language and to broaden the language out so we overcome the cringe factor with regard to our Pākehā cousins in Aotearoa and other ethnic groups it needs leadership. Unfortunately the Minister of Māori Affairs for the last 5 to 6 years—intolerably long—has provided hopeless leadership. It is one thing to be a good hail-fellow-well-met sort of character but when you are dealing with powerful personalities as is the case in the National Cabinet there is no place for the old figure—i.e. of the 1950s—“Pai kare it’ll be right.” That belongs in the past. The quality of advocacy that has caused the collapse of Māori aspirations today in relation to spectrum rights—there are spectrum rights. There most certainly are. Indeed Labour went some way to recognising an entitlement there and made a grant to shunt forward Māori participation in the new emerging information and communications technology sector.It is important that we not overlook that the value of the language eclipses the efforts of politicians. Fortunately the language will live on in spite of the miserable efforts of the current Minister. That is cool that is politics etc. and that will change next year. But Māori Television has a bright future. Its future however depends on its board of governors choosing the right chief executive officer and Te Pūtahi Pāoho the waka kihau—the ghost ship—ensuring that this capacity and taonga is used to achieve the ends of the legislation which is to popularise the language throughout New Zealand as an ongoing feature of our indigenous identity and a contribution to multicultural New Zealand. Kia ora tātou katoa.