Maori broadcasting weaves tangled web

By WARREN GAMBLE

On its 10th birthday the troubled Maori broadcasting funder Te Mangai Paho will either be given a makeover, or the news that it has not much longer to live.

The changes will not result from the present imbroglio at the agency over a radio funding manager who doubled as a sports commentator.

Instead they will come from a wider review of the body set up in 1993 after a landmark broadcasting assets case where Maori groups sought greater protection for te reo (the Maori language) through broadcasting.

Associate Maori Affairs Minister John Tamihere says the review, part of a stocktake across government, will look at all options, including retaining a stand-alone agency, giving its functions to New Zealand On Air or "a hybrid arrangement of both".

And if Tamihere has his way there could also be changes to the way the funder works, away from what he sees as an elitist approach pushed by "language Nazis" to a bilingual approach to reach younger Maori and Pakeha audiences who do not speak te reo.

Other broadcasters disagree, saying the focus has to stay on the spoken language if it is going to survive.

There are predictable forces arguing on each side of the debate about the Crown agency which last year allocated $21.7 million for Maori television programmes and $10 million for iwi radio stations and Maori radio programmes.

The present fallout over former Te Mangai Paho radio manager Tame Te Rangi has given opposition politicians more ammunition to fire at the agency and Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia.

A Treasury-led review of the Te Rangi affair released last week found the agency's systems were generally sound, but in some cases had not been put into practice.

The review led to the resignation of chairman Toby Curtis, who was due to step down this month. Chief executive Trevor Moeke may also go as acting chairman Wira Gardiner carries out a fix-it job.

Act MP Rodney Hide, who first exposed Te Rangi's paid sports commentary work for a company he helped to make funding decisions on, has called for the agency's functions to be handed to New Zealand on Air.

He says the case makes it clear Te Mangai Paho is incapable of identifying wrongdoing. But Tamihere says it is difficult for any system to beat an employee described by the review as "recalcitrant".

Audit New Zealand reports of the agency have given it a clean bill of health, including marking it excellent in four out of five measures in last year's audit. The fifth was marked "very good".

Some Maori broadcasters are insistent the agency's retention as a stand-alone body is vital to the development of Maori programming.

Nicole Hoe, whose production company Cinco Cine makes the award-winning children's programme Pukana with Te Mangai Paho funding, says: "If you have a waka and it hits some rough water, there is no need to put a hole in it and sink it."

Hoe says in her experience the agency has rigorous documentation for funding bids. She says if New Zealand on Air took over funding for Maori programmes, the focus on promoting Maori language and culture would be reduced.

Hoe says the language is one of New Zealand's unique selling points, citing the All Black haka as an example.

Willie Jackson, the former Alliance broadcasting spokesman and now general manager of urban iwi station Radio Waatea in South Auckland, says Te Mangai Paho should be retained.

Closing it because "one person had a great love of rugby and got a couple of grand over a couple of years would be absolutely ridiculous".

But Jackson, who recently received New Zealand on Air funding for his political and current affairs radio programme Paakiwaha, says Te Mangai Paho should improve its professionalism.

He shares Tamihere's view that it should also change its funding policies that focus almost exclusively on te reo programmes. Paakiwaha was not eligible for Te Mangai Paho funding because it is in English.

Jackson believes Gardiner, a former National Party Maori vice-president, is the right man to sort the agency out. For his part, Gardiner believes a transfer of duties to New Zealand on Air is unlikely, given it would require a law change.

"It is difficult to imagine how other people could do it. If you try to dismantle the kingdom on the basis of a shoe getting dropped off it, I think that lacks a sense of maturity."

In the middle of the debate is Tamihere, the outspoken minister who has fronted the broadcasting issue ahead of the media-shy Horomia.

Tamihere says he is not wedded to having a separate Maori funding organisation for the sake of it, nor to it being swallowed by New Zealand on Air.

"I think Te Mangai Paho has grown in an ad hoc fashion simply because the Crown forced it to make hasty decisions to move forward," he says.

"We have really got to review what is the best bang for our buck."

The separate funding agency was established by the 1993 National Government facing pressure from Maori court action against the transfer of broadcasting assets to state-owned enterprises.

The case went all the way to the Privy Council, which rejected the Maori case, saying the Government still retained the ability to preserve the language. But the council also left the door open for Maori to come back if the Crown did not take the responsibility seriously.

The former Minister of Communications, Maurice Williamson, told the Weekend Herald he agreed the Maori language should be preserved, but believed education, not broadcasting, was the best way to do it.

He says he wanted to fight the court action which argued that promotion of the language through broadcasting was a Treaty of Waitangi obligation because he could not find anything in the treaty which backed that up. But he says a "swarm" of officials persuaded him not to.

In a series of hui across the country, he says, the main messages from Maori were the creation of iwi radio stations, and the establishment of a separate Maori broadcasting funder.

A persistent criticism of Te Mangai Paho is that its ministerial-appointed board has had little broadcasting background.

But Williamson says that was done deliberately to avoid conflicts of interest in a small industry.

"A lot of people make lots of money being on the gravy train in broadcasting. There is so much self-interest that you have to be wary of."

Tamihere is also wary of the claims from his political opponents and the small pool of broadcasters which may have found a "comfortable niche" with Te Mangai Paho.

In the wider picture, he sees the review as a good opportunity to examine the agency's programming policies, which he has regularly criticised as elitist.

He says 80 per cent of the Maori population do not speak the language, and 75 per cent are aged under 25, many living in cities and listening to rap and hip-hop.

Te Mangai Paho's focus on te reo-only programmes and musicians did not connect with a large part of the Maori community, or thousands of Pakeha who would like an accessible window to the Maori world.

More bilingual, or quality English programmes from a Maori perspective, were needed.

Willie Jackson, who learned Maori as an adult, says the key funding policy should be about quality.

"A quality programme in English with a Maori perspective is much better than some rubbish programme in Maori.

"How do people out there ever understand what the hell we are on about if we confine ourselves to the language and never leave our own cocoon?"

However, Graham Pryor, general manager of Mai Media, disagrees saying the only way to revitalise the language is to have it spoken on air.

No amount of English programmes on Maori issues will do that, he says.

"To make it a living language you can't just have English programmes about Maori things. That is not going to advance the Maori language at all.

The debate between these two schools is likely to provide a continuing lively narrative to the development of Maori broadcasting.