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:14952. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you to the Minister of Māori Affairs for his speech. Thank you to the Minister for his engagement during the debate on this bill the Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Amendment Bill. Tonight it feels as if there has truly been a debate with some meaning in this House on a piece of legislation that actually we are in agreement on because Labour supports this bill. As I think everyone will have noticed we have reservations. But actually having a real debate where the questions are asked and there is an attempt to engage and to answer them is what this Parliament should be doing on every single piece of legislation where there are questions and where there is genuine debate and genuine engagement from the other side of the House. So I would like to make that point because I think it is an important point and I do hope that there are members listening and taking note of that.There is too much debate too much superficial debate in this Parliament on important pieces of legislation where the other side of the House refuses to engage because it wants to push a piece of legislation through. So all credit to the Minister of Māori Affairs who has genuinely attempted to answer some of the questions that have been raised. Even if those answers are not necessarily as fulsome as we would like they have been genuine attempts and we acknowledge that.I do want to again make mention of the importance of Māori Television to our country and as a great example of what can be done in the area of public broadcasting. Māori Television has become as has been noted by a number of people tonight the default public television broadcaster in New Zealand. However it does not have the mandate to be a full public television broadcaster. It does not have the funding to be a full public television broadcaster. Because of the absence—because there is a gap—of public television in this country it has ably attempted to fulfil that although its primary mandate is around the promotion of Te Reo and the importance of Te Reo in New Zealand and we absolutely applaud that and support it. Again tonight I want to acknowledge the work done by Parekura Horomia in helping to set up Māori Television and his vision lives on and hopefully will live on for many decades to come through this broadcaster. On that going to the appointment process—the important appointment process—of a new chief executive which has taken up much time in the debate tonight we on this side of the House are watching very closely.I think that there is a will in New Zealand for Māori Television to lead the way and to do that it must be above all question and must not have any shadows hanging over it in terms of how it is being run and the governance structures and the way that those decisions are being made. I certainly think those points have been made well tonight and I certainly think that the Minister has been listening.I also want to acknowledge the work done in the Māori Affairs Committee by all members of the select committee and in particular by my colleagues Shane Jones; Parekura before he passed away; Nanaia Mahuta; and Rino Tirikatene. They were all members on that committee and they have all contributed today in the House on this issue. Also I note a number of the issues were raised and my colleague Kris Faafoi has been very vigorously debating the issues around the spectrum its management and how it is going to be used. Those issues that were raised in the select committee must also remain on the record and that is the composition and the governance of the electoral college Te Pūtahi Paoho and how that is working out. I think that certainly tonight there has been constructive discussion around that.It feels as if there is constructive movement towards resolving some of those issues but I certainly want to make sure that the House knows how that plays out. How those management and governance arrangements play out will certainly be being watched very closely in the future in respect of not only the general management of MāoriTelevision but also the management of that spectrum because our concern is that there are other plans or there may be other plans. I have heard what the Minister said tonight around the future use of that spectrum around lifting the bar and around quality as well as quantity of programming on Māori Television. But we certainly are concerned that there may be other plans for that that may impinge on the ability of Māori Television to develop in the way that it could and should in our country in the next 10 years.So that issue remains as does another issue which is a critical issue and a wider issue because it goes to the Government’s management of spectrum generally right across the board. This is a very topical issue at the moment because if we are going to embrace the digital environment both in broadcasting and across into the mobile technology space then we have to have a consistent logical plan that has the interests of New Zealanders at its heart and is about a true competitive environment in the mobile technology space and in the broadcasting space. It is about the ability for all New Zealanders to access television services and to receive a high-quality public broadcasting service through their taxpayer-funded money.Unfortunately though at the moment we do not have that. We do not have a strategy. We do not have a plan. It is all very ad hoc and we saw yesterday the Minister for Communications and Information Technology Amy Adams make an announcement that she was going to undertake to put out the remaining spectrum in the 700 megahertz band which is the information and communications technology side of it the mobile technology side of it which could have been and should have been held back for strategic purposes. Oh no—in order to make a quick buck because that is where the Government is at it is going to be put out to the highest bidder through auction. What we could end up with and what we are likely to end up with is an environment that is not as competitive as it could and should be and where there is likely to be movement towards that 1990s approach to a monopoly in an important growth market for New Zealand.Then we also have as has been mentioned by me and Kris Faafoi the hand-back—the interesting and somewhat inexplicable last-minute hand-back—of an important body of the spectrum by Sky TV in the broadcasting environment to the Crown with no idea and no public discussion about why what deal was done around that how it is going to be used whether some of it is going to be kept aside for the public arena or whether it is going to be hocked off as well. These are important questions. They go to the Government’s ability to manage an important market. This is a market and an environment that crosses broadcasting and telecommunications space. It is called convergence in case the members on that side still have not woken up to the fact that that has already happened and that there should be a strategy in place. Unfortunately there is not and these things are being managed in a very ad hoc way. Government members are really hanging their heads a bit at the moment because to be honest none of them could get up and give a speech on this topic. That is what is required.We support this bill but we have reservations about it. We will be watching the governance processes very closely we will be watching the appointment process for the new chief executive very closely and we will certainly be providing a comprehensive strategy for the management of these important parts of our economy and our broadcasting environment.