Audrey Young: Maori TV bid tough issue for main parties

John Key has been landed with one of the most testing issues of his premiership in the Maori Television bid for the Rugby World Cup free-to-air coverage in 2011.

It makes the "h" in Wanganui look like small beer.

It presents Labour, too, with a big dilemma in terms of which potential targets to choose in Parliament next week because picking the wrong one could rebound on it badly.

It effectively ends the bipartisan approach Labour and National have taken to the Rugby World Cup, but that is the least of Key's worries.

The issue has pitted the governing National Party against the Maori support party, department against minister, minister against minister, television station against television station, and potentially viewer against Government.

It is divisive on many levels, as the response has shown since last Friday when the Herald revealed that Te Puni Kokiri (the Ministry of Maori Development) will spend $3 million as part of the bid package.

It boiled over at a meeting in the Beehive on Monday, September 28.

Key himself was in Florida on holiday after his visit to the United Nations.

Te Puni Kokiri chief executive Leith Comer and Maori TV chief executive Jim Mather were summoned to the Beehive for a meeting with Acting Prime Minister Bill English, Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully, Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman and Associate Maori Affairs Minister Georgina te Heuheu.

Exactly how long te Heuheu knew of the plan before telling her own colleagues is not yet known but it is thought to have been some time before she sent a letter to English on September 2, two days before the bid went in.

McCully was livid at last week's meeting both at the secrecy around the ministry's plan and the refusal of Maori TV to contemplate shared or sub-licensed coverage.

Word has it that when TVNZ chief executive Rick Ellis heard about the handsome bid, he offered $1 million for the last six games but was turned down flat.

It is highly irregular for the Government to have direct contact with a chief executive - messages at operational level are conventionally conveyed through a board chairman.

But time was running out on the bid and irregular action was taken. The upshot of the Beehive meeting was that the Maori Television board met on Friday last week to approve a new bid allowing for sub-licensing, and TVNZ put in another bid.

The meddling by the Government has caused widespread resentment on the Maori side - the rules change as soon as Maori look as though they are winning.

On the other hand, the Government could say that one of its own ministries "interfered" in a process that will probably skew the result of a commercial process.

The much-loved Maori Affairs Minister, Pita Sharples, has played the ignorance card, having been in the role only one year, and has apologised to the Prime Minister for not discussing it in detail.

Key, with perhaps greater sensitivity than McCully to Maori aspiration that the bid embodies, has said an apology is not necessary.

What is needed is for Te Puni Kokiri to explain its case to the public, Key has said.

Privately there is still disbelief that such a proposal was effectively kept secret from the Government.

Labour has started to excuse the ministry on the basis that there has been no Maori dimension to the huge tourism strategy around the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

The "ignorance" card is one that Te Puni Kokiri and Comer, its veteran CEO, can't use to explain why such a patently controversial and new spending decision was not referred to the Cabinet or senior ministers earlier.

The ministry could plead the case that legally it didn't have to, but this is politics, not law school.

It looks as though it calculated that if it had consulted the Government, someone such as McCully would have ensured it was stopped, so it said nothing until the bid was effectively in.

It is safe to assume one thing, however: it would not have progressed under Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark or her chief of staff, Heather Simpson, without their knowing, and if it had happened without their knowing, someone's head would have rolled.

Why is McCully so vexed about it? The stock answer is to suggest he and a few of his colleagues are anti-Maori. But that is not fair.

The real answer is that McCully wants maximum control - or minimum risk - not just over the Rugby World Cup but over events that will effectively overlap with the general election campaign in 2011.

For McCully, a TVNZ presentation is low-risk and a Maori Television presentation is high-risk.

The coverage may be done so brilliantly that parties such as Act and New Zealand First will be unable to make any mileage out of it at all.

But the vehemence of the public reaction this week to the possibility of 10 per cent Maori commentary in Rugby World Cup matches shows exactly why a political strategist such as McCully is justified in being nervous.

Whether the International Rugby Board cares one jot about what McCully or the Government think when making its decision on the TV bid is another matter - and one would think it does not care at all.

In fact, it would be nothing short of scandalous if the IRB set out to nobble what is evidently a superior bid over the mainstream network. If there are any villains in this, Maori Television itself is not one.

It has copped a lot of criticism in the past week, but it has also attracted a lot of praise from Maori and Pakeha for its professionalism and initiative.

Maori Television is a source of pride in Maoridom.

It is held in affection - almost as much as Sharples is - and therein lies Labour's dilemma.

An attack on the Te Puni Kokiri aspect of the bid by Labour's Trevor Mallard is seen as an attack on Maori TV. Mallard's praise of Maori TV's skills is lost in translation.

Labour must also tread very carefully in attacking Sharples. While it has more than enough material and experience to make mincemeat of the minister when the House resumes next week, doing so would be counter-productive.

It would galvanise Maori support around Sharples and invite a quiet riot within its own ranks.

Labour has more than enough evidence to target McCully over "interference", and te Heuheu for keeping quiet too long, without even getting started on Key.