Hutchison Paul: Maori Television Service Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Maori Television Service Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:5069] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I have great pleasure in speaking on Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Maori and I am looking forward to the Minister taking a call and explaining to us exactly what— 
Rodney Hide 
: We’ll be waiting a long long time. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: That is right. We might be waiting a while but it is absolutely relevant. I am very glad to be using the new name prompted by the fine member for National Georgina te Heuheu. The contribution by Edwin Perry was an absolutely relevant and excellent one. 
Ron Mark 
: It was a gem. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: It was indeed a gem because he asked why we are using the medium embodied in Part 2 of this bill as the flagship to promote te reo Maori and tikanga Maori. I asked the question yesterday. What is the evidence base behind this medium being the one that will make the huge difference in promoting Maori language? From the report of the Maori Broadcasting Advisory Committee I pointed out just how perilously precipitous the fall in the usage of te reo has been over the years. It might be very well for the Minister not to listen to this but I would like him to take a call and tell the Committee about the evidence base behind using $55 million on a Maori television channel that has a body corporate structure and clearly has had so much difficulty over the past 2 to 3 years. Will the Minister take a call and tell us what the evidence base is behind using this very important resource on this very important question? I go over it again: in 1973 the status of te reo was that 13 percent of Maori had high fluency in it. In 1995 it was down to 8.1 percent of Maori with high fluency in te reo. By June 2000—probably at the beginning of this Minister’s position as Minister of Maori Affairs—we heard that only 4 percent of Maori had high fluency in te reo. 
 As Edwin Perry was saying there have been some wonderful results through the kohanga reo movement. The question I have to ask is why we are spending all that money on a television station that is very unlikely to reach a large number of Maori for the reason that he said which is that there will be a cost of $200 and for many that will be prohibitive. As my colleague Pansy Wong so rightly pointed out in respect of clause 28A the Minister was the very one who said that he would encourage sunrise technologies not sunset technologies. Surely those sunrise technologies are the ones that would be relevant and of high quality and ones that had been developed through time that would hit the right target—those young Maori between 0 and 5 or 0 and 10. That is the crucial time. 
Simon Power 
: 0 is young. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: The whole point is that instead of a television station that will not reach such a large portion of Maori can the Minister give us the evidence base that this extremely unwieldy structure will be effective. I really would like him to take a call on this point because it is absolutely crucially important. If we look at clause 24 “Appointment of directors” it was on 15 March 2002 that the Minister of Maori Affairs Parekura Horomia—