Curran Clare: Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: 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:14922. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Māori Television is New Zealand’s indigenous broadcaster. It provides a wide range of local and international programmes for audiences across our country and also online and it is internationally recognised. Māori language is at the heart of Māori culture and New Zealand’s unique cultural identity and the Māori Television Service’s vision for Māori language to be valued is that it is to be valued embraced and spoken by all. Māori Television was launched in 2004. It is almost 10 years old—and I think that that is a really important point first up to acknowledge in this House today—and in those 10 years it has largely achieved its objectives.I want to pay particular tribute here today to my colleague the late Parekura Horomia for his courage and determination in establishing Māori Television. It could be described as a taonga so today I put it to you that we should keep it that way. I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Jim Mather as the outgoing Chief Executive of Māori Television who through recent years has steered New Zealand’s only publicly funded television station to a place of great value in New Zealand’s broadcasting environment.In contrast though the appointment process of a new chief executive is currently under public scrutiny—high public scrutiny—and is certainly under a cloud due to the highly questionable and certainly botched process under the auspices of its current chair and former National Party MP Georgina te Heuheu. This process which reeks of cronyism and dodgy practice resulted in a highly regarded and experienced board member Ian Taylor resigning from the board over the process used well before questions were asked in this House. Government Ministers have subsequently ducked for cover because they know that it is a bad look. The Minister of Māori Affairs who is the Minister in charge of this Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Amendment Bill should recall that Māori Television is in the good place that it is in today because of the utmost care and transparency that surrounded its appointments and mandate after some mistakes were made in key appointments at its beginnings.A publicly funded media organisation should be scrupulously independent from Government Ministers and MPs past and present. Neither the shareholding Minister nor Māori Television will make public the detailed reasons why Ian Taylor left the board but when that information comes to light as it surely will then the role played by the board chair will be exposed and we will certainly have more to say on this matter. Her role will be exposed and her position may well be untenable.This bill appears on the face of it to be quite straightforward but it certainly is not. Labour is supporting this bill but I want to explain to the House some of the complex issues surrounding it and the questions that remain. It does seek to make some minor changes to the functions of Māori Television to strengthen its focus on the language and the culture but importantly it allows for the current analog spectrum that Māori Television runs on to be switched to digital which frees up more spectrum for up to possibly eight digital services. This is important and this is why we are debating this bill under urgency because that has to happen by the beginning of December—by 1 December. What is the date today—what is the date today?Hon Members: The 20th.CLARE CURRAN: It is 20 November. That is pretty close so it actually has to happen. That is why we are debating this bill under urgency today and I think we should all acknowledge that.This bill also requires the Crown to transfer the management rights to Te Pūtahi Pāoho over that spectrum for the establishment of a digital terrestrial television network over a 20-year period. As the Minister has acknowledged there certainly was concern raised in the Māori Affairs Committee about the membership and governance of Te Pūtahi Pāoho and I put it to you that without those questions being asked that situation would never have come to light and there would have been potential mismanagement by an organisation that has been revealed to contain organisations within it that do not even exist any more.Even the commentary on this bill which was agreed to by everyone on the committee says: “We consider that the current situation exposes Te Pūtahi Paoho to criticism as some of the constituent groups appear to be defunct. We recommend that this issue be addressed with some urgency”—which the Minister has acknowledged is being undertaken but—“… We were also assured by the relevant officials that this wasbeing addressed. We [noted] that the relationship between the Crown Minister and Te Pūtahi Paoho needs to be clarified which would be [we hoped] achieved by the amendments we recommend [in this bill].” This could be described as a dog’s breakfast of a management situation that we are putting this newly converted spectrum into and this is something that this side of the House remains concerned about.It raises questions around whether the Government has its house in order in passing a bill that transfers the management of valuable spectrum to an organisation that is clearly not properly constituted or properly functioning. In the Committee stage of this bill I would like the Minister to answer more questions on that matter and on what is intended to be done about it because it also raises questions about what this spectrum may be used for down the track and who will ultimately make decisions on its use. I do have three questions that I would like to put on the record today around that and they are: will any revenue from the potential sale or lease of surplus frequency be returned to Māori Television? If that was to occur will any surplus—i.e. that not required by Māori Television—have to be offered back to the Crown first or to Kordia; if so how would its value be determined and why? And this is an important one: why does Māori Television itself not control the full frequency? I ask why this organisation which is about to turn 10 years old does not have control over that frequency which it was set up to have. It does have the pride of place in our country and should be given the full value that it is accorded.This brings into question the wider question of the spectrum for public use. Māori Television is our only publicly funded TV station. It is not a public broadcaster in the real sense of the term. It has a particular mandate. We no longer have a public television broadcaster in this country since this Government axed TVNZ 7.Until very recently we had another problem because we had no broadcasting spectrum that was owned by the Crown—and will not have until members on this side of the House get into Government and decide to reintroduce public television in New Zealand. But there was not any spectrum. Interestingly just weeks ago on 23 October we had an announcement from Sky television that it was handing back to the Crown four multiplexes or groups of analog spectrum which is the equivalent of 30 to 35 national TV channels. Sky has been sitting on this unused spectrum for years. It had to make a decision by the beginning of December to either convert it to digital or hand it back which raises questions—raises many questions—around this.First of all I have just a couple of things to say and two observations. The first is to say thanks to Sky. Thanks for returning that spectrum. Secondly those frequencies should remain with the Crown. But the questions are: when was the Government advised formally or informally that Sky was handing this back and what was the relationship between this on the face of it magnanimous decision to hand it back with no demand for payment and the wet bus ticket decision of the Commerce Commission just 1 week before—while Sky’s contracts with the internet service providers reduced competition and probably breached the Commerce Act—that it was not going to do anything about it? Why did Sky wait until the last possible minute to hand back this spectrum? This raises many questions about the way the Government manages spectrum what that spectrum will be used for and whether that spectrum will be sold.