Mallard Trevor: Urgent Debates — Rugby World Cup—Broadcasting 
Mallard Trevor: Urgent Debates — Rugby World Cup—Broadcasting 
[Volume:658;Page:7191] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I find that there is not a lot in what the member who has just spoken Te Ururoa Flavell said that I disagree with. In fact there is a lot that he has not said. I think that right in his final comments he might have lacked a little bit of ambition for the Maori Television Service and broadcasting. It is my view and I speak as someone who has listened in particular in the area of Parekura Horomia to the He Kaea Amohia Trophy broadcast totally in Maori on iwi radio stations in Mr Horomia’s electorate that it is a good thing to do and that real progress could be made if there was a simulcast in the Maori language in that way. I have found that even the radio broadcast was not that hard to follow because of the degree of transliteration between English and Maori in rugby commentary. 
I agree with what Mr Flavell said about the Maori Television Service the way it has been set up and the leadership role it has been taking in public broadcasting. It has been doing a very good job. It is something I have spent some time on. I spent some time with the people involved in it when I was the Minister of Broadcasting and I have been very impressed with the work they have done. I think they did a massive con job on Pita Sharples. I do not know how they convinced him that he could breach his ministerial responsibilities and not take a paper to Cabinet in regard to the original bid. I do not know how he could beat both the Te Puni Kokiri Minister and the Maori Television Service Minister at the same time—that he could play both sides of the street in a negotiation in a way that Ministers should not be able to do. But I congratulate them on having the ability to work through this in the way that they did. 
I point out that I do not support taxpayer money going into what is essentially a commercial bid. I did not support it when Dr Coleman promised on 2 October that he would do it for Television New Zealand. I did not support it when Dr Sharples said that he would do it at an earlier stage; and I do not support it now that the Prime Minister is doing it. I want to ask members opposite what we are doing this for. I make it clear that I regard some of the senior executives of Rugby World Cup Ltd and the International Rugby Board as personal friends. I have spent a lot of time with them. I have watched the organisation grow. I have a particular interest in the area and I will be seeing more of them in the relatively near future when I am given leave that I will put an application in for soon. They will not be happy with me for saying this but I do not see a good reason for us to inflate the bid for the New Zealand free-to-air rights with taxpayer funding when there is no beneficiary other than the Rugby World Cup and the International Rugby Board and to be a little bit fair the New Zealand Rugby Union by way of the dividend that comes back from the Rugby World Cup will get a little bit of additional funding as a result of this bid going in. 
But what person in this House thinks that a single household will buy a set-top box to watch this event if it does not already have one? People can watch it on Sky. They can watch it on any of the 19 big screens that will have live broadcasts around the country as it occurs not slightly delayed. Every match that Maori Television broadcasts and the opening and closing ceremonies will be on either Television One TV3 or both. So I just ask this question: why would someone who is not already interested in the Maori language who does not already get Maori Television make the investment that will be necessary to get it through this method and therefore what will the return be? 
I want to ask some other pretty important questions. Why was it that a Minister—or Ministers—leaked the commercially sensitive documents or if not the documents the amounts the figures to the representative of Television New Zealand? 
Hon Annette King 
: Derek Fox said it was McCully. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Derek Fox said that it was McCully. We understand the cause of the tension over a period of time between those two. Other people said that it was Bill English who also had that information. I just want to know what standard of ethics John Key is running in his Government when things that would get people barred as directors for breaching the Securities Act and probably the Commerce Act as well—that is another whole set of areas—is something that he will not even ask his Ministers about. I feel sorry for Jonathan Coleman because he did not know whether he had leaked it when he was interviewed by TV3. We are told by the documentation—and he can say that I am wrong—that he never knew and that his office was not given those figures. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: We were. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Oh they were given them. Oh I am sorry they were given the figures! They were; he has nodded. So there is another possibility—that in fact when he was confused he might have been right and he had leaked them. Of course we know that Mr Brownlee had the figures as well. I am not sure whether Mr Brownlee would know how to pass them on to Television New Zealand or even how to work a cellphone to get the number of the particular person who when the evidence all comes out will make it clear which Minister it was who gave him those figures. 
I ask the Prime Minister what process he has in place to make sure that members who have conflicting portfolios manage those conflicts properly. Pita Sharples is the Minister of Te Puni Kokiri and he is the Minister in charge of the Maori Television Service. When Labour had those conflicts it would always delegate to another Minister one or other of those roles. That is the proper way of doing things. It makes sure that there is accountability. If we had a Cabinet paper we had two names on it: one being the Minister who is generally responsible for both and the other to whom there had been a delegation in order to make sure that proper transparency and accountability was there. But we heard that for months and months Pita Sharples was playing both sides of that road and that is not good enough. Just because he is new just because he is outside Cabinet and especially just because he is from the Maori Party none of those are good enough reasons—none of them—for having a lack of accountability in that area. 
The other question I ask is what will happen to Murray McCully. Is he to be allowed to do what he did to Leith Comer and get away with it? Is that a new standard for treating chief executives? And by the way while he is at it why does he along with Gerry Brownlee not focus a little bit on how all the leverage from the Rugby World Cup is slipping out of our hands and how there is not a proper programme in the United Kingdom associated with the All Blacks tour this year to encourage businesses to have their conferences in New Zealand during the Rugby World Cup. Why can we not have the UK taxpayers subsidise through tax deductibility their conferences their meetings in New Zealand and at the same time boost sales to the Rugby World Cup and especially high-end hotel sales? But there is no promotion happening there. 
By the way what is happening as far as the volunteers are concerned? Have members opposite been told— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: How wide is this? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I tell that member that it is not nearly as wide as he is or his speech. What is happening with the volunteers? We have two volunteer programmes. We have a volunteer programme for the Rugby World Cup and we have a volunteer programme for Murray McCully’s tourism group. People who are volunteering now for McCully’s programme think they are volunteering for the Rugby World Cup but they are not because McCully cannot agree on the branding. People are answering the website they are volunteering in droves they think they will get a Rugby World Cup T-shirt but they will not. They will not get it and the reason for that is that Gerry Brownlee the Minister for Economic Development and Murray McCully have not got their acts together.