Brownlee wishes MTS all the best

The National Party wishes those running the Maori Television Service (MTS) every success, yet we make no commitment to continued funding, says Gerry Brownlee, National's Maori Affairs Spokesman.

"The preservation of Te Reo Maori is highly important, but I am not convinced that a $45 million television station is the answer.

"Why is this Government happy for kids to sit at home watching Maori cartoons, funded out of the public purse, when we have a serious shortage of Maori language teachers in our schools and when Maori children's literature is virtually non-existent?

"Surely classroom based learning, backed up with reading, is a better and more-cost effective way to go.

Of the 92,000 children's books in the National Children's collection, just over 1,100 contain Maori text. And that doesn't necessarily mean that they are written in Maori, just that they contain the odd Maori word.

"A National Government will review all broadcasting, including MTS and TVNZ. We will not waste taxpayers money on something that proves to be ineffective," says Mr Brownlee.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>