KEY POINTS:
You have to worry about state-owned television when it pronounces that "sport is critical to the national identity", as it did this week in a submission to the Ministry of Culture and Heritage.
For starters, when are we going to end our pointless navel-gazing and fretting about our "national identity"? We are a country of four million individuals. Just occasionally, some of us might agree on liking the same music, art, fashion, films or sport, but that doesn't stamp us with Brand New Zealand. No country has a "national identity", and only a simpleton stoops to racial or ethnic stereotypes like whinging Poms, loud Yanks, or miserly Jews. You could add to that list, terminally depressed Kiwis.
I'd argue there's no such thing as national identity, unless, heaven forbid, our tireless quest for such is a national identity in itself.
But I, for one, do not wish to be lumped into the same brand as, say, Chris Kahui and Macsyna King, and for sure there are saintly people, like Russell Brown, who don't want to be identified with me.
TVNZ is calling for the Government to split Sky TV into two companies because the rival broadcaster has a monopoly on many sports programmes. TVNZ claimed with a straight face that sports fans have to pay a "sports tax" by forking out $14 a week in Sky subscriptions to watch major sporting events on television.
When you scan the list of free-to-air sports events, however, fans are hardly suffering. Without Sky they can still watch the Rugby Sevens, some Fifa football, the World Netball Championships, the Olympics, numerous motorsport races, the ASB Classic tennis and the Heineken Open. And who has the monopoly on these events? TVNZ, of course, and no doubt it would love to get its hands on a few more, if not for that pesky Sky.
Let's not forget the hard slog and years of financial losses Sky TV endured to get where it is now - owner of Prime (bought for $30 million three years ago) and beamed to some 720,000 subscribers.
That's hardly a monopoly when the 2006 census recorded 1.4 million family dwellings in New Zealand, and that figure doesn't include motels, hotels or commercial premises where a Sky decoder might be installed.
And since TVNZ is so concerned about New Zealanders being forced to pay a tax to see a sporting match, it has to be said if you drive around any poor suburb, where families struggle to meet the mortgage, rent or power bills, the house with no Sky satellite dish sticks out like rude things on dogs.
TVNZ is behaving like the spoilt kid in the playground who thought mummy and daddy had given him everything, only to find the snotty-nosed rough kid who spent his spare time earning money doing unglamorous jobs like delivering circulars can suddenly buy more friends than he can.
So what does TVNZ do? Go whinging to the parents, demanding they take some of snotty-nose's wealth and property off him.
And why not? It worked for the telecommunications companies which couldn't compete with Telecom (we're still waiting for the fast broadband and cheap cellphone calls promised by the lefties who supported this plundering of property rights and publicly castigated my damnation of it). Similarly, TVNZ wants Sky TV split into "at least two businesses - one to make and buy programmes, the other to manage Sky's satellite transmission network and set-top boxes".
I suspect there will be more of this gin-slurping with Government ministers, and it won't stop if National gets in. We can't stand watching anyone else prosper financially. In this country, rich is a four-letter word.
I might even join the queues snaking through the corridors of power, calling on politicians to provide items I could deem essential to our national identity.
Lots of black clothes would be good to endorse the lack of self-esteem, and reverse elocution lessons to reinforce our "dark ells" (as in "mowk" for "milk").
Personally, since cabinet ministers think BMWs are pretty cool, I'd like an X5 twin-turbo 4WD please - a "BMW tax" makes one unaffordable for me.
At least while Clark's in charge of Culture and Heritage, TVNZ's argument that watching more free-to-air sport is vital for our enlightenment will get short shrift.
By her own admission, she'd rather curl up with a good book than slouch on the couch or freeze in the stand watching a game of rugby.
For once, I partly agree with the PM. I don't mind watching the footie, but given the choice, it's an open fire, a wine, the couch and a book for me, too. I don't even have television - clearly my national identity's a lost cause.
