Select committee seeks more independence for proposed new public media entity

Thursday, 26 January 2023

The proposed merger of TVNZ and RNZ is “dangerous to our democracy”, National Party members of a select committee have stated in a minority report.

A select committee has recommended amending a bill to reduce the risk that ministers might interfere with the editorial independence of the proposed new public media entity that would be created by the merger of TVNZ and RNZ.

However, National Party members of the committee said the proposed merger still represented a danger to democracy.

There is intense speculation that the merger will be scrapped as a result of a review of government policy initiatives that was ordered by former prime minister Jacinda Ardern before Christmas.

But that possibility has not derailed the Economic Development, Science and Innovation select committee from completing its scrutiny of the law change that would pave the way for the new public media entity.

The bill paving the way for the merger of TVNZ and RNZ received its first reading in Parliament on July 26.

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Several submitters, including TVNZ, voiced concern last year that the new entity could be less independent of the Government than TVNZ and RNZ are today.

That is because the Government has proposed it is established as an “autonomous Crown entity”, which is a type of organisation that must have regard to government policy when directed by its responsible minister.

The select committee stopped short of overturning that decision when it released its report on the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill on Thursday.

But it did recommend building in additional safeguards to protect the new entity’s editorial independence.

Those include a clearer instruction that ministers could not direct the new entity with regard to any “editorial matters” and a new clause that would stipulate ministers had to exercise their powers in a way that was consistent with the new entity’s editorial independence.

The committee also recommended removing references to “broadcasting” from the legislation to make clear that the new entity would not necessary focus in future on delivering traditional television and radio programming and would instead “provide content over a wide range of platforms”.

It also proposed axing a requirement for it to “counter misinformation”, saying public faith in the new entity could be eroded if it was judged to be stifling debate or reducing the diversity of views.

Privately-owned media businesses have voiced concern about potentially unfair competition from the publicly-funded entity.

In an apparent nod to those concerns, the committee recommended that the new entity should be subject to the Commerce Act and should be required to take account of existing media services when deciding whether to launch new services or produce content in-house.

The National Party members of the select committee rejected its report saying the committee had not been able to properly scrutinise the financials behind the merger, which they said would cost the public “upwards of $6 billion over the next 30 years”.

The proposed merger would create a “media monolith” that would have massive implications for the wider commercial media sector, advertisers and the public, they said in their minority view.

While the editorial independence of the new entity would be “somewhat strengthened” by the proposed amendments, the merger would be unjustified, unsafe, detrimental to the media landscape and “dangerous to our democracy”, they said.