te Heuheu Georgina: Maori Television Service Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled 
te Heuheu Georgina: Maori Television Service Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Speaker Recalled 
[Volume:607;Page:4987] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (NZ National) 
: 
 There are certainly some things to be said about the preamble. The preamble sets out the background to this bill both in Maori and in English. It traverses the history of the litigation starting with the Waitangi Tribunal litigation and then Privy Council findings. Having done that under the heading “Background in English” there is quite a weak kind of objective that establishes the Maori Television Service so that Maori have a secure place are recognised actively promoted blah blah blah. Nowhere in that preamble—and I want the Maori members to hear this—is there anything that basically states that the establishment of the Maori Television Service is in satisfaction of the Crown’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi. That is most of the problem with this bill—it is a mishmash of social objectives and so-called treaty objectives and Maori are none the wiser. We cannot have that mishmash. The litigation that went before both the Waitangi Tribunal and to the Privy Council was the Crown’s obligation under the Treaty of Waitangi. If this service is being set up in satisfaction of that obligation then there is no room in here for social objectives. Those might flow in the long term but certainly not in stating why the Crown is setting this television service up. 
Quite frankly the preamble is absolutely deficient. It gives no clear explanation or recognition of the purpose of this service or of the reasons for it being set up yet it clearly sets out the background to the litigation but the background only. That is a major flaw. The Maori Television Service Board came before the select committee and pointed that out. The board proposed some changes to the preamble that would make it very clear just what this television service is about. The board suggested something along the lines that the Crown had agreed to establish and fund Maori television as a principal means of satisfying its obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi to actively protect our te reo Maori. There is nothing of that in this preamble and in my view the bill is flawed from the start. That is a slap in the face to all of those tribes and individuals who since the late 1980s have pursued this matter and particularly in the early 1990s when the Crown moved to dispose of its broadcasting assets. That clearly was the motivator for Maori to take their action to the Privy Council. 
I ask the Minister the Hon Parekura Horomia to take a call to explain not just to this Committee but also to Maori involved in all of that litigation why he is not prepared to have a clear statement in this bill that says without any equivocation whatsoever that the establishment of the Maori Television Service is the means of satisfying the Crown’s obligation under the Treaty of Waitangi to actively protect the Maori language. This mishmash of a bill will have a serious impact if Maori take it in their minds at some future date to say: “This wasn’t in satisfaction of the treaty obligation. We will go back to the Government”—and that is likely to be the National Party in Government—“and say that the Government has not fulfilled its treaty obligation so what will it do about it?” 
I want the Minister to take a call to tell us why he is not prepared to put some clarity into this bill. It might be a big ask for that Minister because a notion of “Parekuraisms” has developed in the public arena. But he has an Associate Minister sitting there in John Tamihere and he is reasonably clear in expression.