Faafoi Kris: Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: 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:14954. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak in the third and final reading of the Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Amendment Bill. Someone earlier on in this debate mentioned the word “taonga”. The translation of that word in to English is treasure. The previous speaker Claudette Hauiti thanked Sir Graham Latimer and I also want to pay tribute to a former colleague Parekura Horomia because this is one of the treasures that Pare left us. I think that from what I have seen from the Minister of Māori Affairs at the Committee stage when he was in the chair and in his third and second reading speeches he absolutely understands that the Māori Television Service or Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori is a treasure. The notion of treasure—and the translation of the word to treasure—in Māori is I think more than just something of worth and value. It is also something that has to be respected.I think that although this bill does deal with the spectrum the increase in the use of Te Reo and getting more coverage of Māori issues and the culture to Māori and non-Māori there are some issues within this bill that we have concerns about. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Minister because I thought he went some way to addressing a lot of the concerns that we have. We do still have some concerns as to how that may play out—certainly where it pertains to the spectrum—but there have been some other issues at Māori Television recently that have concerned us in particular around the process of the appointment of the chief executive role.I wanted to take some time to talk about the concept of taonga because the Māori Television Service with the hard graft of many people has the very important job of protecting the language. It is not the only avenue that this Government funds and that previous Governments have funded to protect the indigenous language of Māori. We do not have that language anywhere else in the world so to make sure that we have an avenue through which we can see and hear Māori voices and Māori people celebrating educating and I must add entertaining is very very important.So the spirit of the place is different from that of any other public broadcaster that we have in New Zealand. Television New Zealand (TVNZ) a State-owned broadcaster appeals to the masses and it is not its remit to basically look after Te Reo or the Māori culture. That is the job of Māori Television and it is a very special job. I think that we have seen some messy scenes in the process of the appointment of a chief executive. So what I would like to see is maybe some independence there in terms of a governance model to make sure that we do not have any ugly scenes—whether it be from that side of the House or from this side of the House—and to make sure that there is some independence at a governance level so we do not see this kind of thing happen again.Metiria Turei: Does TVNZ do that?KRIS FAAFOI: No I do not believe that it does. That was a response to Metiria Turei. But we cannot let a taonga have a dirty mark like this put on top of it. That is absolutely wrong. So I think that that is the challenge that I might put out to the Minister—to make sure that it does not happen again and that we have some sort of separation from this place to make sure that that kind of thing cannot happen again. I am not calling into question the people behind the decisions that get made but in this case there seems to have been a close personal relationship with an individual who went for a job and also an employment record and then some criticism of questions that were asked on this side of the House. We do respect that the Māori Television Service is a very special broadcaster that it is a treasure and that we need to respect it as a taongaand make sure that these kinds of things and these issues do not happen again. So we respect that and we need to make sure that that is respected as well.In relation to the use of the spectrum—because a large part of this bill is about the spectrum contrary to other speeches that have been made in this House—it is very important for the future of digital technology. The way that it can be used and utilised in the future means that what might be junk today could be very very important when it turns into digital technology in the future. In effect you can take an analog signal and turn it into eight digital signals. The ownership of that spectrum has been moved from the Māori Television Service to another entity Te Pūtahi Paoho and is going to be managed by it. I thank the Minister because when he was in the chair he said that the management of that will be taken with a view to making sure that in the future if any of that spectrum is going to be utilised by anyone other than the Māori Television Service we have been told by the Minister—Hon Todd McClay: Like an old rerun ofCoronation Street. Stop him.KRIS FAAFOI: You can go watchCoronation Street if you want. You are not making any contribution here. We have been told by the Minister that it will be very important to utilise it especially for the use of Māori culture. So I would like to hope that that follows through to ensure that it is utilised for the purpose for which it was originally given to the Māori Television Service.Around the larger overview of the spectrum resource—because the Māori Television Service is not the only entity that has had part of the spectrum allocated to it—the Government’s management has been at best haphazard but it has got an opportunity to make good with the packet of spectrum that has just been given back by Sky. Clare Curran has spoken about the timing of that but regardless of it the Government now has four packets of the spectrum that it will have available to it which it can either do nothing with or can as we have seen in the past hock off.But what we on this side of the House would like is for the Government to ring-fence one of those packets of the digital spectrum which can broadcast eight television stations for any future use around public broadcasting or potentially regional broadcasting. It is very very expensive at the moment for regional broadcasters to get themselves a piece of the spectrum action but it is also going to be very expensive for any future Government that wants to start up a public service broadcaster if there is none of the spectrum available to it.We have seen what the Government has done in its commitment to public broadcasting over its 5-year tenure. It closed down TVNZ 7 and TVNZ 6. So given its track record over the last 5 years I do not hold out much hope for the Government taking a forward-looking approach to any broadcasting. In fact it is a challenge to the Government that maybe if it did reserve some of the soon-to-be-available spectrum that has come across from Sky it might have at least a passing interest in public broadcasting. So that is my challenge to the Government to make sure that if it has any long-term vision for the spectrum—[Bell rung] I just wanted to keep it going; Tim Macindoe is very happy—it does square away and ring-fence the spectrum. But unfortunately I do not hold out much hope of the Government having a long-term vision around that spectrum or public broadcasting.But just to return to the bill and to wind up this is an important bill for the future of the Māori Television Service. It is doing a very good job of meeting its objectives and making sure that it promotes educates and entertains to make sure that the Māori culture is promoted. It is unfortunate that there are some messy scenes at the governance level. I would hope that when the review comes back to the Minister of Māori Affairs and the Minister of Finance we look at another way to independently deal with thesesituations so we do not have messes that do not deserve to be anywhere near the Māori Television Service.