Turia Tariana: Maori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Maori) Bill — Third Reading 
Turia Tariana: Maori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Maori) Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:5286] 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Associate Minister of Maori Affairs (Social Development)) 
: 
 Sometimes I cannot but be amazed at what I hear in this House when it comes to anything to do with Maori development. I hear people talking about unwitting taxpayers having to pay for the Maori Television Service and there is no consideration that Maori people pay tax too. We are big taxpayers. Not only that; one should think about where those “unwitting taxpayers” got their wealth from originally. I think we should have a few history lessons around here before members start carrying on in the way that they do—trying to make us feel as if our hands are always out for a handout instead of a hand-up to where we should have been in the first place. 
The retention of te reo is a very important aspect of our treaty rights. Te reo is our access to our culture. It is who we are as a people. It is our whakapapa. It is the essence of who we are. Those of us who have had the misfortune to lose te reo or not to have te reo because of the way in which we have been educated to think about ourselves know that loss far more than anybody could say. 
I am always surprised when the National Government is critical of any Maori developments. When one thinks about the history of government in this country and the number of years that the National Party was in Government one has to ask what it has done that has assisted our people to go forward to take charge of their own development and to be independent people. Yet it criticises every single move that this Government makes to try to address those issues. Anything that is about positive development is negated by those in Opposition. I think that is tragic. 
I was thinking about Derek Fox. There is nobody better suited to be the chief executive officer of Maori television. He is a living taonga. Under article 2 of the treaty he should have been appointed as of right to be the head of Maori television. Name someone better! We sit in this House and listen to people putting down every action that our people take. If we look at the developments that are taking place—[ 
Interruption 
] Is it not funny? I one day heard that member’s party talking about tikanga in the House—about members shouting across being rude and being negative. But what do we see right now? 
Actually the member would be surprised to know that I agree with him. I do not agree that we need to be negative about personalities or the issues that are confronting us. I want to be positive and I say that we need to be seeing positive images of ourselves. We need Maori television. The media are so negative about our people. Our young people need to have hope about their future and the way for them to have hope is for us at least to have control over this form of media; for us to have the ability to communicate right into the sitting rooms of our families so that they can see the positive things—and there are many positive things happening throughout our country. 
That is the reason I totally support Maori television. I see it as a tool for our development a tool that we absolutely need. Sure some mistakes have been made and there may be some mistakes made in future but we have had agencies make mistakes with our people with the result that millions of dollars have gone down the tubes and do we hear anybody in this House complain about that? No. But the moment the money gets into Maori hands and mistakes are made it is a damned different story and some of us are sick of it. I am sure there are some people on the other side who really are sick of it as well. 
There is a huge opportunity with Maori television. Large amounts of really positive information that are stored away can be brought out and put on to Maori television so that we can take advantage of it and be educated about a whole range of things. 
I go back to retention of te reo because that is why the television service has begun. I have heard people in the House asking why we do not do that through Television One or TV3 or whatever. Television has been around a long time and what do we see? We see that 5 minutes of  
Te Karere 
 has grown to 15 minutes. We see very few positive things on television about our people. Even  
Te Karere 
 buys into the mainstream television thing of negative reporting. It reports every negative event. How many times when we get around the country to really positive events do we find a television camera there? Kaore; there is none. I think the Maori Television Service is a really really important development and I like to think that those of us in the House who are tangata whenua will see it as such. I hope that our friends in the United Future party will look to the positive rather than continuing to look to the negative and will see the potential of this television service.