Maori television gets more taxpayer money

The National Party’s attacking a decision to pour more money into the mythical Maori Television Service.

“A further $2.35 million to fund programmes for the MTS represents yet another leap of faith at the taxpayer’s expense by Te Mangai Paho,” according to National’s Broadcasting spokeswoman Katherine Rich.

“The granting of funding (on what authority?) for an entity without a legal basis, without premises, without a platform to broadcast its signal, without even a test pattern and defies logic,” she says.

“It is simply unacceptable that the Government continues to spend millions of dollars to make programmes while dithering on the critical decisions which would make Maori Television a reality.

“And it’s even more unacceptable that we still don’t have a start date for this phantom channel, when it was originally due to go to air in the middle of last year,” Katherine Rich says.

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