Willie Jackson: National Radio a 'disgrace' over Maori issues

Maori Party co-leader Dr Pita Sharples (L) with Willie Jackson on Radio Waatea. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

It is an outrage that National Radio does not have a Maori voice, writes Willie Jackson, CEO for the Manukau Urban Maori Authority, and co-owner of Waatea and George FM.

National Radio is Pakeha Radio.

Well, that's what the New Zealand Herald headline said after I blasted National Radio when after six years, they decided to take our Waatea Maori news contract off us in May.

"Pakeha Radio" was actually a name that Maoridom's top broadcaster, Derek Fox, coined and Foxy, I believe, was right on the mark.

OK, I will admit that there was some sour grapes from me, but I challenge anyone to try and keep their composure after the way National Radio has treated us and Maori over the years.

Radio Waatea was contracted to provide daily news bulletins during the week of approximately two and a half minutes in duration four times a day. For that we were paid $280,000 a year which covered four journalists and our admin costs. And that was our national broadcaster's commitment to the indigenous people of this country during the working week.

With no more than 10 minutes of Maori stories a day, that equated to 0.1 per cent of National Radio air time. That's about as close as you can get to nothing, zero, bugger all. But, hey, they were giving us 0.8 per cent of their $36 million annual budget, so I guess that's something!

Now, sure, we didn't have to take the contract but Maori rarely get much of a choice. It's either crumbs or nothing so Maori news providers have been taking crumbs for many years now.

Of course we always hoped for better days; more airtime, more Maori programmes, more of a chance to showcase Maori issues. And while National Radio management were always polite, they never made an effort to increase the pitiful amount of time or money devoted to Maori stories.

So it's fair to say that I was more than a little miffed when they decided to cancel our contract. And then they rubbed salt into the wound when they said that National Radio would be producing Maori news in-house, which is really what they should have been doing years ago.

But the reality is they never wanted a Maori news service serving the needs of Maori or Pakeha who were interested in things Maori. They were only interested in investing the hundreds of millions of dollars that flowed into their organisation annually on everything else and the crumbs that were left were given to news providers like Waatea.

Apparently now they would have us believe that they have this new-found interest in Maori issues.

However, the real story is that National Radio have had some of their millions put on hold by the Government so they have had to make cuts. So it was no surprise that the first programme they cut was Maori news and then they trotted out their spin that their new in-house production would be good for the nation.

Their actions and attitude towards Maori is nothing short of shameful. Successive Governments have allowed National Radio to treat Maori in this way. And, sure, they can pat themselves on the back because Simon Mercep and Katherine Ryan are able to pronounce a few basic Maori words, but the Government really needs to intervene to ensure that a Maori voice is heard on a station that is meant to reflect this country's identity.

Surely National Radio giving Maori only 0.1 per cent of the programming time requires some response from the Government?

How much longer will Maori have to put up with this outrage? If you really believe that National Radio does reflect Maori, then for starters, try finding a Maori face on their website. Believe me, you won't. There's no doubt that my old mate Foxy is right when he says "National Radio is Pakeha Radio," but add to that National Radio is a national disgrace!