Ripeka Evans has key job

Tu Tangata, Issue 33, 1 December 1986, Page 38

Ripeka Evans has key job

Julian Mounter, TVNZ’s director general, raised a few eyebrows when he appointed Ripeka Evans to be his cultural and planning assistant as from November. Since her Auckland University days in the mid 70s, Ripeka has often been in the limelight with her support of Maori, feminist and human rights. She’s been labelled a radical and an activist and hasn’t been a favourite of the establishment. In a feature story for the Dominion, Alistair Morrison included this section on her attitude to her new job.

After an exhaustive process and not a little feather-ruffling Television New Zealand director general Julian Mounter appointed her as his cultural and planning assistant. “A lot of people are cynical about television,” she says. “They’ve had 25 years of non-performance in Maori programming and that means there’s a huge agenda waiting.” Without giving much away Ripeka says she is not deluding herself about attitudes within television and says, ominously, she has a “definite job to do.”

She says within a 10-year development plan there must be significant Maori control of broadcasting in some form or other. “The director general said to me that a number of people have commented that it is appalling Maori children turn on television here and think they are in the United States or Britain. “What that statement says is that television bears little relevance in terms of programming to Maoridom.” Television New Zealand is only now trying to come to grips with Maoridom, says Ripeka, and that’s why the job fascinates her.

A clear message has come through the broadcasting Tribunal hearings into a third television channel, she says. It is that both Maori and Pakeha opinion supports an improved delivery of broadcasting to Maoridom. Another clear message was the desire for a Maori television channel. Ripeka is uncharacteristically cagey about expressing a personal public opinion on that contentious issue. “When I got the job one of my uncles said ‘Well, you can stay there until you get a TV channel’. “It’s a Maori objective. Tve always had

regard for Maori objectives. They’ve changed my life.” Are we witnessing the institutionalisation of a radical? Is Ripeka Evans getting soft in her 31st year? “No. The other day Ranginui Walker said to me, ‘You’re getting more bureaucratic and more beautiful’. I prefer the last. I’ve never ever said I want to be a bureaucrat and I never want to be. “But dealing with bureaucrats is part of my work. I think everybody gets tarnished by the brush. It just depends on the degree to which you are able to put into effect principles outside the bureaucracy.

“At the end of the day what matters is that you measure an individual’s performance.” The anger hasn’t gone, she says. “Sometimes I still feel like I did in the middle of that field at Hamilton. But now I know when to apply the anger.” But Ripeka does acknowledge there’s been a change in her strategy, though the message hasn’t changed and the objectives remain as firm as ever.

“Everybody who wants to achieve something changes their methodology. Business development is all about packaging and promotion. Economic development is the same. You’ve got to look at the technology of the time. “Television is the obvious technology now. If Maori people can acquire control why not use it.” Ripeka is adamant the result will enrich the lives of all New Zealanders. “It’s not an exercise in making sure Pakeha speak Maori. The important thing is to make sure our people are able to develop and stand on their own two feet. That has to come before we can talk about any effective partnership between Maori and Pakeha.