An almost $20 million budget cut to RNZ is met with ... near silence
Why public interest journalism matters
Australia's national broadcaster is called Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
It's regularly attacked by Rupert Murdoch's Sky News & Australian broadsheet - as well as Atlas Network think tanks such as IPA - as "wasting taxpayers money"
The last Liberal (conservative) leader Peter Dutton also labelled ABC (and the Guardian) as "hate media".
But over 80% of Australians trust ABC.
Here in New Zealand, the government cut RNZ's budget by $18m over four years in the last budget - that's almost $5m a year.
Now RNZ is starting to ask for voluntary redundancies when we already have too little quality media coverage as it is.
But not enough interest or even outrage from Kiwis? Why?
Just two points:
National is moving rapidly on the privatisation agenda. Last year Luxon told media that everything is up for grabs from a privatisation perspective - schools, hospitals, waters etc.
On health1, they've been busy implementing the Noam Chomsky formulate: The standard technique of privatisation: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.
RNZ are the only outlet I've seen systematically cover our health system over the last year and a half RNZ and some other outlets (e.g. Newsroom, Spinoff NZ Geo etc) provide an important service not done by corporate media (NZME / Stuff) and I think it's essential it - and all non-corporate, public interest media - is protected
Paul Goldsmith said when he announced RNZ's budget that: "I expect RNZ to improve audience reach, trust and transparency." i.e. he inferred they are not doing well on those things.
But RNZ is our national broadcaster with a specific charter.
It has been the one to break news such as Casey Costello's smoke free repeal and senior Ministers’ talking points basically being a copy and paste of tobacco lobbying notes. The $216m of tax cuts for tobacco companies. The doctors whistleblowing about front-line hiring freezes when the govt was still lying about it.
No-one else broke those stories - so what was not trustworthy or transparent about RNZ, in Goldsmith’s eyes?
RNZ's charter states its foremost obligation is "to serve the public interest".
To get a sense of what that means, it means caring about thing that most Kiwis would care about, e.g. health privatisation, lies from government, corruption etc - but stories are only valuable if they are contextual, accurate, factual and provide cogent analysis.
After RNZ's budget was cut, they had a few spicy headlines calling out the government, but over the last weeks, they've become again much more of a government press release company - copying and pasting government statements without scrutiny.
The end result may be it veers increasingly away from showing spirit. Without courage, journalism dies. Without the fourth estate, democracy can die.
We should all care.
PS The budget was cut reportedly because RNZ offended the sensibilities of David Seymour, but Winston Peters is also on the record threatening RNZ journalists and funding in April 2025.
Peters said to Morning Report: “"You're paid for by the taxpayer and sooner or later we're going to cut that water off too, because you're an abuse on the taxpayer".”
In response, Christopher Luxon said he would not intefere.
Winston Peters’ 2019 Speech as Deputy PM to Jacinda Ardern
Peters:
In 1965, [in NZ, Sir Hollyoake] was the champion of the News Media Ownership Bill, designed to block Rupert Murdoch’s attempted takeover of the Dominion Post. Holyoake fought hard to protect the ownership of New Zealand media outlets.
He argued the dissemination of news media is something special, and it was more than “a biscuit factory”, as he put it. To quote him -”it is very much in our national interest that we have our own voice or voices to express our national identity and character.”
The barriers to protect the ownership of our media organisations were broken by this country’s neo-liberal experiment, for which we still pay the price today.
My party’s fundamental position always has been and remains that a fourth estate is essential, although sadly the news media is in dire straits.
*This is a reprint of an earlier post I wrote.
**The speech of Winston Peters above is sourced from
Example. Simeon Brown instructing Health NZ to give 10 year contracts to private hospitals despite the norm being short term and in some cases 3 years should have bowled us over
PS Here is the speech by Sir Hollyoake:
This was Hollyoake's opening address:
"I stand entirely on the principle that I believe in New Zealanders owning their own industry, all industry, wherever practicable, and this government has had the trade and development board lay down a series of criteria to that purpose. This country is growing up, and I want to see it owned and controlled by New Zealanders in every possible sphere. The Government has been working towards that end.
There is, of course, also an economic reason – the bleeding away of overseas funds and the paying of tribute to people overseas, in regard to the New Zealand industry in general. This has a special and greater reference to newspapers and news media than to any other form of industry, and this has been recognised by other responsible Governments.
The Australian Government took the oportunity of doing exactly what we are doing, with a limit of 20 percent and 15 per cent, in respect of television and radio, which are owned by the newspapers in Australia, and therefore affects them. More recently Canada, which has a closer neighbour – the United States of America – than any we have, has taken action to protect its people from overseas domination in the dissemination of news media. (...)
I, for one, want to see New Zealand mature, to grow up in its own sense, have its own soul, develop its own character, and have control of its own destiny in all spheres of economy.
I think the dissemination of news media is something special. It is greater tha the ownership of a biscuit factory, or a brick factory, or any other factory. This is my simple faith."
Thanks again to Stephanie Cullen for sourcing.
It’s just appalling re RNZ so many excellent programmes over the day where you are informed and learn with interviews with knowledgeable and expert people across all walks of life cf the led opinion and skewed information you get through the likes of the ZB stations and hosts like Mike Hoking’s, Heather du plessis-allan, Kerre Woodham and Bryan Bridge. RNZ news and RNZ’s investigative journalism has been excellent, mirroring the 4th estate.
Of course the National led coalition Govt doesn’t want transparency and analysis of what they are doing - they only want their messaging out which the ZB network dutifully does - hence the pushback on RNZ.
Those of us that appreciate RNZ must continue to be advocates for its retention and the maintenance of the quality programming that delivers public interest!