John Armstrong: Fraser’s payout comes at bad time for Labour

When the fuss surrounding the resignation of TVNZ's chief executive dies down the one thing everyone will remember is that Ian Fraser got a $300,000 golden handshake.

It may not be a proper golden handshake. He may yet have to sing for that supper by working out the remaining six months of his $600,000 contract in some lesser capacity, rather than walking away now with the money.

But whatever happens, it will be remembered as a golden handshake.

That is embarrassing for Labour which made huge, holier-than-thou political capital out of the long list of golden handshakes that National forked out in the 1990s.

The timing is also unhelpful for Labour. The revelation comes after news that some state sector bosses may have got pay rises of up to $60,000. Labour is also having to absorb the collateral damage incurred from bringing Winston Peters into the Government and his going back on his word in accepting the "baubles" of ministerial office.

The new Administration has a tarnished look before it has even made it into Parliament and the Governor-General has outlined its plans in the Speech from the Throne.

That happens next week. But Labour will be quietly counting its blessings that Parliament did not resume a week earlier, allowing a fired-up National Party to exploit the turmoil at the state-owned broadcaster.

The first ministers' question-time is not scheduled until late next week - by which time TVNZ may be satisfying the Prime Minister's desire that it report the news instead of creating it.

In the meantime, apart from Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey throwing his hands up in the air and saying he doesn't like it, there is nothing Labour can do about the golden handshake.

However, Mr Maharey seems to have heeded a lesson from the fiasco last December over the doubling of Judy Bailey's salary to $800,000. Back then, Helen Clark lambasted TVNZ for having a "culture of extravagance", thus raising expectations that the board would be disciplined, only for ministers to sheepishly back off when some directors actually offered their resignations.

The buck still stops at his desk. But this time Mr Maharey has been more cautious, stressing that he cannot interfere in the state company's operations, rather than pretending he can. The other difference this time is that he doesn't wish to interfere. His argument is not with the board.

The frustration is with Mr Fraser's management style which is seen in the Beehive as responsible for the crisis.

To limit the political damage, Mr Maharey's strategy has been to downplay any notion of a crisis to blunt Opposition demands for an inquiry.

The irony is the immediate crisis of Mr Fraser's resignation is in part of the Government's own inadvertent making.

Mr Fraser quit because he refused to follow the wish of TVNZ's board for him to have a role in contract negotiations with presenters such as Susan Wood.

That request had its genesis in the Government's fury over Judy Bailey's salary. That resulted in the Government ordering the board to "review" the way it set pay levels for senior staff, thus setting in train a course of events which ultimately prompted Mr Fraser's resignation.

His disagreements with his board obviously cut much deeper - he has threatened to resign on previous occasions.

However, one other question remains: how much responsibility for the current mess should be sheeted home to the Government's curtailing of TVNZ's freedom to operate according to strict commercial imperatives and the tensions that creates for a management trying to satisfy competing commercial and non-commercial objectives, and how much is down to power struggles and management squabbles within the organisation? An inquiry might have shed light on that but the Government will not instigate one.