Fox stays 'on call' after quitting

By MATHEW DEARNALEY AND AUDREY YOUNG

Broadcaster Derek Fox will remain "on call" on the Maori Television Service's payroll during a three-month notice period, despite his sudden resignation as chief executive.

The troubled service's chairman, Wayne Walden, said last night that the move was a standard term of state employment contracts and he denied Mr Fox would gain any settlement pay above his salary entitlement.

But the veteran Maori broadcaster stands to receive $36,000 during his notice period, a quarter of an annual base salary of $144,000 disclosed in Te Puni Kokiri documents issued in March under the Official Information Act.

A further $16,000 was identified then as a bonus for getting the planned Maori television channel to air by the end of this year, but the chances of hitting that deadline look increasingly unlikely.

National MP Murray McCully said industry sources had told him it would take a further six to eight months to order transmission equipment once the Cabinet decided what frequencies the service would use, and whether to take up an offer of a Sky Television channel.

"That will take until March or April."

Despite Mr Fox's resignation last week amid an investigation into a complaint made against him by a female employee of the service, Mr Walden said he would remain available in terms of his contract.

"He is going to be on call and it makes sense for us to have him available if needs be."

His board will, at its monthly meeting today, discuss finding a replacement.

Mr Walden confirmed the investigation into a "human resource" issue between the service and Mr Fox had been called off due to his resignation.

Mr Fox at the weekend said he resigned for reasons other than the investigation, suggesting he was worn down by the "bruising and brutal" time of having constantly to defend the service from opposition MPs and other detractors.

But one of the service's most trenchant critics, Act MP Rodney Hide, said the resignation was no excuse for abandoning the investigation.

He also called yesterday for the Auditor-General to investigate the spending of $70.1 million on the service's establishment over the past four years, not counting allocations this financial year of almost $13 million for operating costs and $38 million for programme-making.

Mr Walden insisted Mr Fox's resignation rendered the investigation superfluous. "As far as we are concerned, the matter is closed."



Prime Minister Helen Clark said she knew no details of the complaint, and paid tribute to Mr Fox. "I personally think Derek is a loss and I've described him on many occasions as the pre-eminent Maori television journalist of his generation."