The difference is quite simple, Treaty!

As to free to air, quite simple also, if its free, thats typically what its worth, nothing.

ABC and SBS are free-to-air broadcasters, and they provide more Indigenous-oriented programming than all the commercial stations put together, free-to-air or otherwise. As far as TV goes, the public stations still provide much better quality viewing in general than the commercials in this area, including pay TV. This applies particularly to news, current affairs and documentaries.

That is, unless your tastes are restricted to American dross and/or sport.

Sorry Spindoc, that's just glib inanity.
The free-to-air services are run by accountants, who will always follow the money, and so we get "The Lowest Common Denominator", crud that sells will always win out over better, but less popular, presentations.
And to declare that the difference between NZ and Oz is merely a treaty, lol, that flies in the face of common-sense.
How do you compare them? One was highly successful warrior culture, with one language, belief-system, and power-structure, the other a vast collection of hunter-gatherers with multiple, constantly changing languages and belief-systems. A treaty signed in NZ would be accepted by the whole society, one here would be meaningless, there was no central authority to Treat with, no commonality among the thousands of communities, they didn't even have the concept of themselves as an overall society or culture, and despite the trendies of today, they really were primitives, in every sense. It is highly likely that, if "white-man" had not arrived, the Maoris would eventually have come here, and conquered, and far more harshly than was the actual case. They were following the normal human practice of wiping out the environment of their home, extinctions, de-forestation, all the usual, and would have travelled, they are famous for it after all.

Spindoc
What has "treaty?" got to do with commercial decisions of Commercial TV?

Perhaps I read the original post incorrectly examinator. I thought Stg made the point that “there's a HUGE difference in the air time the Maori get as opposed to what happens here”. I was answering that point and the key difference remains, indigenous representation in our media differs from that in NZ due to the fact that in NZ a treaty exists, in Oz no treaty exists.

There is also some confusion examinator (possibly deliberate) between “commercial TV” and the likes of SBS and the ABC. As pointed out by CJ Morgan, they are all free to air, there is no distinction.

Maximillion, I did not say that the only difference between Oz and NZ was a treaty. StG’s point was the difference in air time. That difference is because there is a treaty and indigenous NZ cannot be so easily dismissed as might be the case in OZ, which is the point being made. If you actually read posts instead of flaring up with righteous indignation, perhaps you might save a little adrenaline.

The rest of your post Maximillion is, well, how can I say this kindly? I can’t so let’s just say incoherent gobbledygook.

Look at the explanations of why Yiddish and so many other languages survive for long periods as sub groups of culture surrounded by larger cultural and linguistic groups.