Dialogue: Books, not a TV channel, needed for young Maori

MAURICE WILLIAMSON* says the need to look forward, not back, led him to cross the floor to vote against the Maori Television Service Bill.

Over the past two years, I have asked New Zealanders from all walks of life how many clauses make up the Treaty of Waitangi.

Most get it horribly wrong, with answers ranging up to 100. When asked whether they have read it, most indicate they have not because it is too long.

These are staggering responses considering the treaty, signed in 1840, is considered our founding document and is often quoted as a reason for a particular policy.

I have heard claims that the treaty gives Maori rights to all sorts of things from broadcasting to the starlight. There has been talk of the right to charge for photos of Mt Cook, and discussions on whether Air New Zealand should pay royalties for its use of the koru. Now genetic modification also seems to feature in the long list of breach-of-treaty issues. Surely GM was not a big subject of conversation around dinner tables in 1840.

Anyway, back to my survey. How many clauses are there in the treaty? Three. Given its importance you would think all New Zealanders would be fairly familiar with these three simple clauses. In summary they say:

Article the first: The chiefs cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of sovereignty.

Article the second: The Queen confirms and guarantees to the chiefs the full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their lands and estates, forests, fisheries and other properties.

Article the third: In consideration thereof, the Queen extends to the natives of New Zealand her royal protection and imparts to them all the rights and privileges of British subjects.

Put simply, Maori passed full sovereignty to the Queen. In return, Maori kept their property and would henceforth be given the same rights and privileges as all other subjects. The treaty does not say special rights in addition to all others; just the same rights and privileges as British subjects.

It could not be more simple. Yet what has grown around this simple document has become a grievance industry designed to line the pockets of a number of participants while doing little to further those Maori at the bottom of the socio-economic heap.

Maori have not fared as well as non-Maori. How much of that can be attributed to Government policy, however, is debatable. I will fight to rid New Zealand of any vestiges of discrimination against Maori that may still exist, but I am equally opposed to discrimination in their favour.

Discrimination on the basis of race is wrong. Help should be targeted on the basis of need, not race.

I accept that statistics prove Maori are disproportionately represented in all the wrong areas. They feature significantly higher in crime and prison statistics. They fare badly in most health and welfare statistics, and their performance in education is woeful compared to non-Maori.

I do not accept, however, activists' claims that Maori fail in our education system because it is not sensitive to their cultural needs. They claim all we need to do is make young Maori confident in their culture and language and everything will be okay. That is badly shortchanging these children. The knowledge economy of the future will cast them on the scrapheap if that mentality prevails.

To blame the schools and the education system for poor performance belies the fact that the schools have children for about 15 per cent of their lives; parents have (or should have) them for 85 per cent.

Given we accept there is a problem, we should set about identifying those projects and programmes that make a difference, and then put a real impetus behind such solutions. We must break the poor performance cycle and give Maori children the tools for full participation in the knowledge economy.

The basic tool is literacy. Programmes like Books in Homes, Paft (Parents as First Teachers) and Hippy (Home Instruction Programme for Preschool and Year One Youngsters) are all producing remarkable results, but much more needs to be done.

Instead, under the guise of the treaty, the Government is spending scarce tax dollars on dubious and badly targeted schemes. Now it is putting $55 million a year into a Maori television service. There is no evidence such a service will do anything to improve the overall educational status and achievement levels of young Maori. But it will line the pockets of a handful of producers and presenters.

I feel so strongly about this that for the first time since I became an MP, I crossed the floor and voted against my party.

I did not do it lightly and I did not do it for any discriminatory reasons. I did it because we are failing young Maori badly. The statistics prove it, and putting $55 million a year into television will do nothing to fix that woeful scorecard.

During the 1990s I was appalled to be told by the courts, both in New Zealand and by the Privy Council, that under the treaty the Crown had obligations to Maori in the area of broadcasting.

Again, let's look at the three articles. Where do they cover television, cellular spectrum or GM?

It is one thing to say the Maori language is a taonga and needs to be saved. It is a different matter to then direct the Government to spend millions on radio and television services which may have far less impact than, say, directing the spending into kura kaupapa and kohanga reo language schools.

If the Government still feels compelled by the courts to do something in television, let's stay within moderate and justifiable budgets, not $55 million a year for a few hours of Maori language programming.

While I was minister, we put a lot of work into ascertaining what was a realistic budget. In 1998, when forced by the courts to respond, officials estimated that a quality, cost-effective Maori language channel could be operated for about $16 million a year.

That was on top of a one-off set-up figure of $11 million and the fact that all the UHF television frequencies were reserved and provided free by the Government. It was also in addition to the existing $9.3 million the Maori broadcasting funding agency was spending on Maori language programmes like Te Karere, Marae and Wakahuia.

Since then new technology, like the Sky digital satellite system, has come along and changed the paradigm. This new technology means the system could be run more cheaply and give complete national coverage. But the Maori caucus has again flexed its muscles, leading to the introduction of legislation for a Maori TV service.

So what measures will be used to ascertain the success of this service? There does not appear to be any parameters in the bill that would allow us to measure accurately whether the spending of this money has been of any value - whether the fat cats have scored big-time at the expense of those at the bottom of the heap.

What will be used in five or 10 years to evaluate success? What if Maori language fluency has improved but employment, income, offending and health statistics have all deteriorated? Will that still count as a success?

What if Maori programme producers and newsreaders are being paid Holmes-type salaries but young Maori are still way down on numeracy and literacy performance tables and unemployed? Will that be counted as a success?

* Maurice Williamson was Minister of Communications and Broadcasting from 1990 to 1999.