Winston Peters: Broadcasting deal raises plenty of questions

If broadcasting is about information, let's have the news on this one.
Is it an accident that a recent deal between Government and some members of an industry starts on April 1? On this date private radio broadcasters were to pay $96 million for the renewal of their frequency rights.
In the midst of a governmental financial crisis most of the $96 million will not now be paid on time.
For in a secret deal, payment is to be deferred over 50 months, at what amounts to a business overdraft rate of 11.2per cent.
That this is the "appropriate" overdraft rate will be news to thousands of small New Zealand businesses paying much more.
In this secret deal the Government is acting as a bank and granting a loan in unique circumstances to just some members of one industry. That much is known, but not the names of the eight radio companies which now enjoy this deferral of debt payment for a further 20 year lease renewal of their radio frequencies, without which they could no longer operate.
Whether others could have replaced these eight companies no one knows, because the Government jettisoned its free market principles.
It decided not to test the radio frequency market by giving others a chance to buy the frequencies.
The Government gave eight companies a unique deal. Pay later. Why?
Remember, most of these frequencies relate to a privatisation policy where radio frequencies went to tender back in the early 90s. The broadcasting minister then was Maurice Williamson, at whose feet no doubt this industry bows five times a day in prayers of gratitude.
The tender process back in the early 1990s had an inexplicable feature.
Usually tenders are won by the highest credible tenderer.
Every day private citizens and businesses tender with this understanding. However, the radio frequencies tender process works differently.
The Bolger Government put radio frequencies up for tender, but it did it this way. Company A might bid $1 million for frequency X. Company B might bid $100,000 and Companies C, D and E bid $10,000 each.
The tender obviously went to Company A, the highest bidder, but to borrow from Shakespeare, "there's the rub".
Company A didn't have to pay what it tendered, $1 million, but rather the amount of the second-highest tender, $100,000. (Company B's offer).
This is called a "Vickery Sale" and it has been the subject of significant query, if not downright disbelief, from international commentators.
Now if this sounds to you like a system designed specifically to defeat market forces, or the law of supply and demand, then you're 100 per cent right.
For some it was a licence to print money.
No reasonable person minds hearing stories of self-made business successes, but when you are talking about this industry, the fawning political admiration of it is all a bit rich.
The minister responsible for this latest deal is Communications Minister Steven Joyce, whose explanation is that had Cabinet not done so, the radio frequencies market may have collapsed.
That has got to be the most extraordinary explanation and is as incredible as the process followed when the radio market began just over 20 years ago.
And where was the Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman when this financing arrangement was decided? Working out how to starve public radio and television of funds even further?
They are already on a five-year funding freeze and further cuts are on the way.
1XX, an independent station in Whakatane, Radio Rhema and The Radio Network are all paying their own renewal fees.
Which begs the question: Why was this giant-size mattress made available only to some companies?
Now just to recap the facts. Private radio in this country only really began, outside of Radio Hauraki's dashing efforts, with the then Labour Government's Broadcasting Act in 1989 and then the Vickery sales process under National.
The real issue here is what sort of privatisation is this?
Does it really operate in a market, and why can't New Zealand-owned businesses, facing all sorts of pressures from the international and domestic credit crisis, get the same treatment given to foreign-controlled businesses?
Why can't transport companies get a deferral of their road tax? Or Joe Bloggs obtain a "pay over the next four years" similar gratuity?
It seems what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander.