Rugby's not the winner

It doesn't rain but it pours, and not just in Wellington, it seems.

It's a busy day at Parliament today, with the release of Treasury's latest batch of economic data, the new ACC levies being announced, and the growing debacle over the free-to-air rights for the Rugby World Cup.

I'll concentrate on the rugby for now because I'm still waiting for the data on ACC and Treasury. Will update on those later if I have time, but feel free to comment on either topic.

I hate to say I told you so, but I did forecast that the Maori TV bid for the RWC rights was likely to cause a headache for the Government, and so it has proved.

We now have the ridiculous situation where the Government is bidding against itself for the TV rights, and the IRB is laughing all the way to the bank.

On one side of the field we have the MTS, backed by the Maori Party and Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples.

On the other we've got TVNZ and TV3, backed by National and Sports Minister Murray McCully.

Concerned, it seems, about the possibility of punters missing out on seeing the RWC free-to-air games in 2011 if they are only screened on MTS, the Government has stumped up additional cash for a joint TVNZ-TV3 bid to gazump MTS.

That means not only are taxpayers now up for more cash - around $5 million apparently, up from $3 million previously - but it looks like a bidding war may develop, since iwi are passing the hat around to counter the counter bid, if you know what I mean.

It also means a seriously annoyed Maori Party. Sharples said today the Government was "scared'' of Maori language broadcasts of the rugby and worried about the impact on its poll ratings in election year.

Key has told reporters today the process "hasn't been perfect so far'' and he hopes it hasn't done damage to National's relations with the Maori Party. But it's hard to see how it hasn't.

Just two days ago Sharples was apologising to Key for not informing him earlier  that he had authorised Te Puni Kokiri money for the MTS bid. Key graciously accepted the apology but must have known at the time it was delivered that the Government was planning to underwrite a counter-bid.

His senior ministers including McCully, Finance Minister Bill English, and Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman have been meeting about this and its inconceivable Key didn't know.

That makes him look like he's been dealing in bad faith with Sharples over this, and I'm not surprised Sharples reckons there has been "a breach of etiquette and fair play''.

Derek Fox, the former MTS head who is close to Sharples, claims McCully is behind the whole counter-bid, and blames "prejudice'' against Maori.

This has the potential to turn very nasty very quickly if Key doesn't sort it out. At the moment he seems to be reserving his position, but I think it's too late now to claim the Government can't get involved. It already has.

Race, sport, and politics is a lethal cocktail and National can't afford to have any accusations of racism chucked its way, even by Derek Fox.

It's also hard to see how the secondary rights for RWC games could be worth so much money, particularly when the only beneficiaries of the taxpayers' largesse are going to be the Dublin-based IRB.

And given we're hosting the tournament, the fact that we can't even sort out the television rights without getting into such an embarrassing mess doesn't bode well, does it?

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