Quantum Leap: TVNZ Doubled Salaries – In 1996

TVNZ Doubles Salaries – In 1996

Today the Dominion-Post reported that TVNZ presenter Judy Bailey had almost doubled her salary from reportedly around $430,000 to around $800,000 per annum. Scoop after many months of writing letters to the Ombudsman is now able to show that there is a pattern to TVNZ's financial largesse.

In 1997 Television New Zealand released their annual report for the year ended December 1996 – in this report salaries above $100,000 were included for the first time. In this report one salary widely reported to be that of Paul Holmes was above $700,000. The fact that Mr Holmes was supposedly worth $700,000 was widely reported in the media. There were no reports in the media however of what Mr Holmes salary was the previous year - or indeed what the top salary was at TVNZ.

When Scoop made an Official Information Act request to TVNZ Company Secretary/General Counsel, Noel Vautier requesting what the top salary was for the year ended December 1995 he declined to release it stating that no such information existed. After some months of correspondence between the Ombudsman and Scoop, Mr Vautier was finally able to locate the records for the year ended 1995.

Subject: Attention: Kevin List - Official Information Act Request
Date sent: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 15:39:15 +1300
From: "Noel Vautier"
To: duty@scoop.co.nz

I refer to your email of 21 April and the letter sent to you on 13 October by the Ombudsman. As a result of reference to requests under the Act for similar information sought by the Evening Post in 1996, I have now been able to ascertain the following.

The top 10 employees' remuneration paid for the year ending 31 December 1995 were in the following bands:

$400,000 to $410,000 1

$300,000 to $310,000 1

$280,000 to $290,000 1

$270,000 to $280,000 2

$200,000 to $210,000 2

$190,000 to $200,000 2

$180,000 to $190,000 1

Noel Vautier Company Secretary/General Counsel

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