Mallard Trevor: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Mallard Trevor: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:671;Page:17889] 
9. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he have confidence in all Ministers involved in the MediaWorks frequency payment arrangement? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Does he agree with Steven Joyce’s statement of 10 March 2011 that there was no Government loan to MediaWorks and with a similar statement on  
Q+A 
 last Sunday made by Bill English? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Why then did the arrangement require the approval of the Minister of Finance as a loan under section 65N of the Public Finance Act? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Because that was the accounting treatment required under the Public Finance Act. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Was Cabinet advised that this arrangement was a loan requiring the authority of the Minister of Finance under the Public Finance Act? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Not to the best of my knowledge but I do not have the papers with me. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Did he personally sign or give a specific authorisation for his electronic signature to be attached to his original answers to written questions Nos 2043 and 2044 in 2011 which said that he had not had any discussions with the board or senior management of MediaWorks about the deferral scheme? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: From memory it was about “meetings”. I did not have a meeting with them; I ran into Brent Impey at a function. In the newspapers he is actually described as saying that he was just showing me around. He said he would like to come and see me about the licence. That was it. It was very light. The conversation was a couple of sentences. I have hundreds of encounters like that with people every week. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am somewhat at a loss. I know that we are not allowed to table answers to written questions and we are not allowed to argue about answers. But the Prime Minister said the question was about meetings. I have his reply which was about discussions. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member knows he cannot litigate by way of point of order an answer given. He can put down further questions in the future if he wishes to pursue a matter and he can ask further supplementary questions today of course. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Did he read the advice from Deloitte in its report on this proposal? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: To the best of my knowledge no. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Was he told that the Deloitte conclusion was that “the licence purchases at the prices contracted with the Ministry should be affordable without compromising the longer term financial viability of the companies … This conclusion does not change even for the worst-case scenario modelled.” and that this issue was a problem of the low capitalisation of MediaWorks by its Australian private equity owners; if so what is the public interest in bailing out Australian companies that do not properly capitalise their New Zealand subsidiaries? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: At the time the Government approved that offer it was approved for a number of companies. Every company in that sector was able to take up the offer. It was brought to us by the Radio Broadcasters Association and it was considerably changed by Cabinet. The fact that some companies chose not to take up the offer shows that it was not as good a deal as that; if it was a sweet-heart deal every company would have taken it up. I might add that members on the Opposition benches seem terribly confused because last week David Cunliffe— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I think the answer— 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: It is quite a salient point. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Opposition does not deserve to be attacked. Accusing—[ 
Interruption 
] I am on my feet. Accusing parties or members of being confused in this place is kind of an attack. The Prime Minister had given a perfectly good answer and did not need to add that last bit to it.