Franks Stephen: Maori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Maori) Bill — Third Reading 
Franks Stephen: Maori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Maori) Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:5353] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT NZ) 
: 
 ACT regards this piece of legislation as racist. We see it as having no justification other than racism. It has no reasoning other than of drawing distinctions between New Zealanders on the grounds of race or ethnic origin. We are going to make sure that the taxes raised from all who earn or buy goods: in other words taxes raised without race distinction—other than the recent amendments that the Minister of Finance has pushed through to give privileges to Maori companies—are now to be allocated to broadcasting on a race basis. 
Members have referred to the alleged duty to promote te reo. First there is no such duty. The interpretation of taonga and including language as a taonga is on the face of it a patent nonsense. Article 2 promises exclusive enjoyment and protection of taonga. [ 
Interruption 
] I ask Dr Cullen—that fantastic historian who has just given the Labour Party an elucidation of the treaty—whoever heard of exclusive enjoyment of a language? It has somehow slipped his mind that to have exclusive use and possession of language is an absolute nonsense. How could anyone who had anything to do with the drafting of the treaty ever in their wildest moments have thought that someone would say that a language could be exclusively used and possessed—unless it was some kind of secret cabbalistic language; a kind of Latin that only the initiated were allowed to use. Dr Cullen of course—that wonderful historian descended from the academic clouds to lift the Labour Party out of its bog—did not even try to find a way out. Instead he just dug its members in deeper. He pointed to the Maori text as though that made a difference. That does not get the Labour Party out of its problem. It is still applying a completely spurious view of a document that is actually very straightforward—that said that 19th century English property rights were to be extended to all the citizens of New Zealand equally. 
Having looked at the background let us ask what this bill actually does. This bill sets up a service that will in fact ghettoise Maori in this country. At the moment we have a lot of mainstream programming. We have  
Marae 
  
Waka Huia 
  
Te Karere  
and  
Pukana. 
 There is a whole range of programmes that quite correctly are being broadcast at times when other New Zealanders can enjoy seeing them. We have programmes that make Maori language and culture seem attractive and that is the only way that a minority language has any long-term prospect of surviving. It survives if it seen as an elite and high-status thing to do—as a way of asserting membership of a privileged group and that is just what has been happening. When we see people wearing greenstone tiki or bones around their necks we can laugh but that is a way of giving the culture a status that means that it will actually survive. By giving Maori money and telling them to go and play in their own sandpit Pakeha have discharged any sort of requirement to pay attention to that part of their culture. Then of course it is highly unlikely that we will see it survive. 
That is assuming that the openly acknowledged ambitions for this bill are the actual ambitions. Sadly of course they are not. The treaty as a living document is a political excuse. If the Government really wanted to advance te reo it would have been looking at simple things like market research to see how much of the target audience has UHF and at how many of the target audience will actually watch this station. How many of them will switch off Sky to go that channel which hardly any of them are equipped to look at? If the Government really wanted to advance te reo it would also have looked at the relative benefit of spending $55 million on this ghetto station as opposed to spending $55 million to buy prime-time programming on Television One. 
If that were the real objective that is what the Government would do but that is not the objective. In descending order of decency there are three other objectives. First there might be an argument that Maori and their culture have been insufficiently reflected on State broadcasting and that this initiative is redressing an imbalance. That is pretty patronising but still does not answer the problem that this initiative might be the least beneficial way of doing that—though it is perhaps an underlying argument that would be worth debating if someone wanted to raise it. A more sinister reason was exhibited even during the period when the channel was being set up: this is a financially corrupt measure to ensure the employment of small elite. It establishes a slush fund to hand out goodies to people who can swank around producing programmes at a cost far in excess of normal commercial rates and be protected from competition by their connections. This is a device to ensure that there is a supply of money that can buy off the potential challenge to the political elite that has hogged power in the Maori seats for so long. 
This is a gross source of patronage and worse a source of political corruption. This bill sets up a service that enables the Labour Party to try to protect—I imagine vainly as I think New Zealand First will take them despite this effort—the stranglehold that Labour has on Maori seats. There is nothing in this bill that even starts to protect the political neutrality of the Maori Television Service. Even Italian State radio has a requirement that the board be appointed with the consent of parties from both sides of the House to at least try to ensure that there is some pretence of political neutrality. Instead this bill allows Ministers to set up without any kind of system to protect political neutrality. This bill can turn the Maori Television Service into propaganda for any cause it likes. 
There is no requirement for the service to be politically neutral balanced or secular. It is directed to create programmes that reflect vague things like “cultural and spiritual values”. There is no requirement to combat superstition. It is only a short time in New Zealand’s history since Maori and Pakeha politicians were supporting legislation like the Tohunga Suppression Act. The Labour Party is now establishing a television channel—the most influential medium we have—that is not only free to but encouraged to go out and promote superstition. 
There is no requirement in the charter to uplift or educate or be objective. There is no requirement—no power in fact—to insist upon quality programming. It is all left to a set of political compromises between Government Ministers and the electoral college. At a trivial level there are no effective protections against conflict of interest. The board of this body is exempt from even the liabilities that ordinary company directors face. For example unlike the board of almost every other body in New Zealand this board does not face liabilities under the Building Act the Resource Management Act or the Health and Safety in Employment Act because it has been given a privileged status.