150 apply for Maori TV posts

Press, 21 October 1987, Page 9

150 apply for Maori TV posts

PA Wellington Television New Zealand has received about 150 applications as a result of the announcement that it

will recruit 50 Maori people for training in television skills. Television and the Maori Affairs Department jointly announced the programme earlier this month. It will provide the 50 recruits with training in technical, production and administrative areas.

The cultural and planning assistant to television’s director-general, Ms Ripeka Evans, said yesterday that about 150 applications had already been received. A recruitment team would begin travelling throughout New Zealand next week to raise public awareness of the recruitment drive, she said.

Applications for the positions closed on November 16, and successful applicants would be notified just over one month later. Trainees

would begin with television in February. About 30 would work in Auckland and 20 in Wellington. Positions . • available would include floor managers, camera operators, sound technicians, journalists and researchers, and graphic designers. Television’s policy was to ensure that Maoris comprised 12 per cent of its staff by the year 1990. At present, the organisation had about 56 Maori employees of a total of between 1700 and 2000 staff.

Ms Evans said she was confident the 12 per cent goal could be reached by 1990.

Asked if her position at television had been affected by claims. by a National Member of Parliament, Mr Ross Meurant, that she was among Maori activists wanting to overthrow the Government, she said his claims were “more of a nuisance.”