Sports Minister Murray McCully is being blamed for stirring
up the debacle over who will broadcast free-to-air coverage
of the World Rugby Cup.
Former Maori Television Service (MTS) chief executive, and
former spokesman for Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples,
Derek Fox said Mr McCully was "donkey deep" in attempts to
spike MTS's bid to the exclusive free-to-air rights.
The Government is financially backing a last minute TVNZ-TV3
bid to screen the free to air games in competition against a
MTS bid.
The Government said its concern was to ensure that all New
Zealanders could get to see the games but Dr Sharples, also
Maori Party co-leader, disputed that coverage was the issue.
Mr Fox said ministers had known about the MTS bid going in
for the rights, after early bids by TVNZ and TV3 had been
rejected by the International Rugby Board.
It was not until Mr McCully became involved that things had
turned to custard.
Officials had been called in for a meeting with Finance
Minister Bill English to discuss the bid, but instead Mr
McCully had spent the meeting attacking the officials about
the bid.
"He is denying he is involved and he's donkey deep in what's
going on," Mr Fox said.
The Government had been first alerted in June about MTS's
bid.
"Then there were howls of outrage last week and the week
before with the Government saying it is not a way to use
Government money, there was no proper process...it is all
nonsense." The Government was now saying it was perfectly
acceptable to use taxpayers' money to back TVNZ and TV3.
"Money is being used to top an existing bid and is being
filed with the knowledge of what that bid is," Mr Fox said.
The coverage issue had also been sorted out.
Mr Fox said he could think of no other reason except
prejudice.
"I think it is scandalous," Mr Fox said.
He also accused ministers of giving TVNZ and TV3 private
commercial information.
This has been denied by ministers.
Mr Fox resigned from Dr Sharples' office a month ago, for
unrelated reasons, and has been working out his notice.
Dr Sharples said today there were a lot of motivations behind
the Government's attempts to trump MTS.
"It's about control, it's about fear of not selling their
tickets and promoting their tickets and I think (they are) a
little bit scared of a bit of Maori language on it." The cup
is being held in election year and that was another factor,
he said.
"I think also the fact that perhaps that it mightn't come off
and that would be so bad for a Government in an election year
to have the rugby world cup not be broadcast suitably...
"These are all contributing factors in my mind -- a lack of
confidence in Maori Television to do it." He continued to
back the MTS bid, which may result in a bidding war if iwi
follow through on providing additional funds.
