Broadcasting Standards Authority will ‘probably’ be scrapped, Goldsmith says

Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith.

The Media and Communications Minister has all but confirmed the Broadcasting Standards Authority will be scrapped.

The Government’s been actively considering the future of the authority, first established in 1989, after it determined it had jurisdiction over online broadcaster The Platform.

Both Act and New Zealand First have said the body should be binned.

Asked about the issue by a voter at a public meeting in Waikanae yesterday, Paul Goldsmith laid out three options; keeping the authority as is, redefining its scope, or scrapping it entirely.

Goldsmith told the meeting the Government will “probably” land on the third option.

Speaking to Newstalk ZB afterwards, Goldsmith said that was his preferred option.

“We haven’t made any final decisions yet, but that’s one of the three options, and that’s where I’m leaning at the moment.

“It’s become arbitrary as to who’s covered and who’s not covered, and so I think probably the tidiest solution is to revert to a Media Council-style arrangement.”

The Media Council is a self-regulatory body, funded by major media organisations to rule on fairness, accuracy and decency. Unlike the BSA, it holds no legal powers.

Goldsmith was asked if, while no formal decisions have been made, it wa’s fair to say scrapping the authority was the direction the Government was going.

“Yes, that’s right,” he said.

He wouldn’t put a timeframe on when those decisions would be made.

Yesterday’s comments are the strongest indication so far that the authority won’t survive.

Last week, Goldsmith told Ryan Bridge TODAY he was “tempted” to scrap the authority.

The Platorm v BSA

The issue came to a head this month when the BSA ruled it had jurisdiction to consider a complaint against Sean Plunket’s The Platform.

The complaint took issue with Plunket describing tikanga Māori as “mumbo jumbo”.

But before considering the merits of the complaint, the authority had to first determine whether it had jurisdiction.

The BSA deemed it was “required to consider under the Broadcasting Act, complaints about The Platform’s Live Talkback programme, because the programme meets the Act’s definition of ‘broadcasting’.”

At the same time, the authority said it had not found it had jurisdiction over on-demand content from the likes of Netflix, AppleTV, Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube, or other overseas entities streaming content for New Zealand audiences, nor over personal online content posted or livestreamed by individuals.

Plunket rejects the decision, claiming Parliament didn’t intend for the BSA to cover online broadcasters when the law was written in 1989, as they didn’t exist.

New Zealand First’s Winston Peters also slammed the decision, saying it was “bordering on fascist”. He called for the BSA to be scrapped.

Act also criticised the decision, having earlier lodged a private member’s bill to disestablish the BSA.

Ethan Griffiths is a political reporter with Newstalk ZB, based in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. He joined NZME as a print journalist in 2020, previously working as an Open Justice reporter in the Bay of Plenty and Wellington, and as a general reporter in Whanganui.