John Key must have known that Christchurch could not have hosted rugby games

On Tuesday, John Key said Christchurch's AMI stadium could be capable of hosting Rugby World Cup matches. In response to Phil Goff doubting the games could be held at AMI stadium, Key said it was a question of whether the stadium could be fixed, whether the turf could be repaired.

Key's implication is that Christchurch may be able to host the games at AMI Stadium.

Yet the day before, V-Base board of directors had a meeting and decided that there was no time to repair the stadium, and wrote to Martin Sneddon telling him so. " Due to the lack of time contingency, and the significant risks... the required level of assurance cannot be given to RNZ 2011 Ltd that Stadium Christchurch can meet its RWC 2011 contractual obligations," they said.

The same day Rugbyworldcup.com put this on its website, saying the turf could not be fixed in time for the game and the accommodation gap could not be closed.

It seems unbelievable that John Key would not have know this information when he spoke to the media the day after the V-Base meeting when he said the stadium could be capable of holding the matches. Martin Sneddon knew otherwise and had already made arrangements for replacement venues.

National knew about the Rugby World Cup Maori TV bid in June

post has been updated again
Derek Fox, former media manager of the Maori Party - he resigned a month or so ago for reasons not specifically related to the Rugby World Cup bid and is yet to be replaced - has revealed that Bill English knew about the Maori TV bid for the Rugby World Cup back in June. On June 23, English and Sports Minister Murray McCully were told about the bid. So it sounds a little rich to criticise Pita Sharples for not telling ministers about the bid when two ministers already knew and could find out more themselves.

But they didn't want to find out more - they wanted to stop it. Since then McCully has been "donkey deep" in attempts to spike MTS's bid to the exclusive free-to-air rights. Photocopies of the Maori Television Service bid were personally delivered to the offices of Finance Minister Bill English and Associate Rugby World Cup Minister Gerry Brownlee on September 24.

So the letter English received on September 7 2 from Georgina te Heuheu (the Minister responsible for Maori broadcasting) was not the first time he knew about the bid -but it was the first time English (the shareholding minister for Maori Television) was advised of the $3m amount - although he was aware of the liklihood of Te Puni Kokiri funding.The bid had gone in three days earlier.

That's when it all blew up. The problem was the TPK funding was going to ensure a tax-payer funded bid, perhaps successful if TVNZ earlier rejected bids weren't bumped up. Failing that, only 80 percent of the country would see the game unless MTV sub-licenced the rights.

National had three months warning about the bid. It did nothing apart from supporting a TVNZ counter-bid once tne $3m was confirmed, and then spat the dummy.

It has now sucked the dummy back in and allowed Maori Television Service to process unchallenged with its bid. TVNZ has withdrawn its bid and will have to accept a sub-licensing arrangement. Ka Pai!

update And I see a good night was had at the Green Parrot celebrating this achievement.

Maori Television and the Rugby World Cup

Pita Sharples is angry that the government has effectively scuppered the $3m bid to screen the Rugby World Cup on Maori TV.

I was quite prepared to have to listen to a refreshing commentary.

Jerry Collins has gone down in a rutu mahunga. It's a piro whiu. Aw c'mon ref, he would have scored for sure. No, he's ordered a five-metre kirimiti. Unbelievable! Thirty seconds remaining. All Blacks to put in. Carter is standing deep. Cowan has the ball. He passes it off to the taitapa who charges upfield. Oh no! Taka whakamua!. France restarts - Carter intercepts, passes it to Cowan who quickly offloads it to Cory Jane - who executes a whana whakapiro right on full time! NZ 10 France 9. The All Blacks are into the whakamutunga! Te pai ke! Ka pai, wouldn't you agree, Murray Mexted?

I do think that the political implications of the Te Puni Kokiri proposal have not been thought through particularly well. Sharples approved funding via Maori development so any proposal had to have a convincing development approach.

There has been suggestions that TVNZ and Maori TV should offer a joint proposal. If they were to do so, the implications of a fusion of TVNZ aims with a Maori development approach will need to be considered. Instead, the latest state of play is that the $3m bid as outlined by Te Puni Kokiri has pushed up the price in the TVNZ/TV3/MTV bidding war - with the winner no doubt to be funded by the taxpayer and approved by cabinet.

Update Maori Television responds by claiming things are unfair, criticising government ministers, but says it will not drop its bid.

The next rugby world cup is next week in Melbourne

The next rugby world cup is in Melbourne next week. It is the Homeless Rugby World Cup and we're making our debut this year, given that we have so many asylum seekers and homeless people here now. All those in drug or alcohol rehabilitation are also included so if we had proper drug rehab in this country we'd have more people to chose from and could have been in with a real chance of winning.