Burns Brendon: Urgent Debates — Rugby World Cup—Broadcasting 
Burns Brendon: Urgent Debates — Rugby World Cup—Broadcasting 
[Volume:658;Page:7193] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I guess the question that is posed by this debate this afternoon is whose ministerial career is going to be the most damaged by the debacle we have seen over the last fortnight involving the free-to-air coverage of the Rugby World Cup. There are no less than seven Ministers including the Prime Minister involved. No one has been in charge. No one has been looking after taxpayers’ interests. No one has actually been ensuring that this nation gets the best from the coverage of an event to which taxpayers are contributing hundreds of millions of dollars. It is almost at the point where New Zealand On Air might fund a soap opera entitled “Who is in charge of the Rugby World Cup?”. 
Today in the House we have seen the unedifying spectacle of the Leader of the House for the second time in a week being caught short on his knowledge of what is actually transpiring in Cabinet in relation to the Rugby World Cup. Today he attempted to deny that in fact the Government had made the decisions it made only yesterday in Cabinet. We have to ask what on earth the Minister has got the delegation for in relation to the associate Rugby World Cup portfolio that involves “general assistance in the portfolio” if he does not know what the heck is going on. How is he exercising that responsibility as a Minister in that portfolio? Is this job simply a photo opportunity when it comes to the Rugby World Cup or is he actually doing some work in relation to that portfolio? Last week he was attempting to deny that Television New Zealand (TVNZ) had been given the indications of funding by this Government to counter-bid against Maori Television. 
The second Minister in the line-up of those who have failed to deliver in respect of this imbroglio is the Minister of Broadcasting Jonathan Coleman. I do not think we have ever seen a situation quite like this. This Minister has been badly damaged by the outcomes of the last week. Questions are being asked for example by Maori Television’s Chief Executive Jim Mather. When have we ever seen a chief executive in the State’s indirect employ even challenging a Minister’s veracity publicly on no less than three counts? Who publicly has said that the option of funding TVNZ was basically throwing Maori Television the crumbs and that the bid by TVNZ was being structured to be wholly untenable and unattractive to Maori Television? I ask members to look at the column last weekend by Deborah Coddington a well-known friend of this party who said that the broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman has to have serious questions asked of him as “Mr Haughty” trotting down the corridor looking like a possum caught in the headlights when asked whether he had tipped off TVNZ about Maori Television’s bid. I ask the Minister if he is going to take the call to answer the question—not to repeat the possum performance but to tell us the truth: what happened and what was given to TVNZ by way of information because the House and the nation deserve to know. 
Let us look at the track record of Pita Sharples the Minister of Maori Affairs. He has come out of this proclaiming “peace in our time” waving the piece of paper saying that Maori Television is covered in glory by the announcements of yesterday. In fact it is a face-saving scenario attempting to extract the best possible face and mana for the Maori Party. But the whole thing has damaged its credibility not only in the eyes of the general public but I think also amongst Maori as well. Its members have put a very brave face on the announcements of yesterday. But if Maori Television is going to be the lead broadcaster in an event of the size and scale of the Rugby World Cup that actually means one has a few more rights than other broadcasters that are involved. Maori Television has emerged from that sadly with that kind of outcome. So we had had Dr Sharples I think actually probably threaten to pull the Maori Party out of the coalition last week to extract the sort of outcome we had announced last Wednesday. 
I will also talk about the Prime Minister’s role in this. What an irony for Simon Bridges to suggest that John Key comes out of this showing first-class leadership. My goodness! If this is first-class leadership I would hate to see him exercise third-rate leadership because he has scrambled to try to find a solution to this in what has been an evolving fiasco of extraordinary proportions. He has acknowledged that. In the considerable understatement of last week he said that Ministers needed to take a fair share of responsibility for what transpired. Now he is announcing that he is pleased with the outcomes. Obviously Dr Sharples is delighted with the outcome and of course they will maintain that this is a good outcome. 
But this is not the first shambles and it will not be the last because this Government’s hands-off policies on broadcasting have been exposed for what they are. Let us accept that broadcasting cannot be left alone to the vagaries of the market. Let us have some leadership from the Government.