Last week was Scrutiny Week. It is a week where bosses of various public service agencies go to Parliament and explain what they are doing in their agencies and why the Government should support them.
Meet Greg Fleming, National Party, Member for Maungakiekie and supporter of Te Mangai Paho (T.M.P.), the agency responsible for enabling Maori broadcasting. He was at Parliament when the bosses of T.M.P. came to explain what they had done in 2025 and why they should be supported in 2026.
T.M.P. is in dire straits. Many of its well known entities, such as Te Karere and Waatea News have had funding slashed brutally by this Government. The situation is expected to worsen significantly further in the new year. An incoming funding cut of 25% comes on top of a 64% cut to the budget for Te Karere, the major television news programme on TV1 covering Maori affairs. In addition to this, most staff at Waatea News have been made redundant.
A.C.T. have indicated that they would be even more ruthless, and cut funding significantly more than the Government has signalled. Leader, David Seymour says that his own belief is that there should not be any public funding for broadcasting. Whilst non-Maori media would be likely to find a way around this, the same cannot be so easily said for Maori, thereby impacting communities, particularly those in isolated areas like eastern Bay of Plenty, Northland and East Cape where public services are significantly lacking both in availability and quality compared to urban Aotearoa New Zealand.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has defended the cuts saying that other ventures such as Te Matatini were given a funding boost. What Mr Luxon ignores is that Te Matatini is not a broadcaster. Not even remotely close – it is responsible for supporting Maori performing arts such as kapa haka.
Not surprisingly, many working in Maori media are feeling despondent. Ever since this Government came to power it has waged active war on Maoridom, cutting funding, ending initiatives that have helped Maori socio-economic performance and kept tangata whenua engaged in society. It has renewed initiatives that have been widely demonstrated to be failures, such as boot camps for errant teens.
It is encouraging to know that Mr Fleming, who until now had kept a low profile in Parliament, exists. Until now I was under the distinct impression that when former Treaty Negotiations Minister Christopher Finlayson left Parliament in 2017, that National had shed its moderated Maori friendly image for a more hawkish one. It has, but I would like to think if others in the National Party are like Mr Fleming, maybe the hawk has a few rounded edges.
Will he be able to stop the incoming round of slash and burning in an agency that is already almost on its knees? I am not sure that he will, though I certainly hope Mr Fleming tries. Due to the systemic bias – both visible and not – towards anything Maori in the westernised system that we call Government, there is good reason for tangata whenua to be concerned that this is part of a broader offensive, designed to relegate them to the shadows of New Zealand society.
Leftist Kiwi Writes 