Winston Peters had a fiery confrontation on air with presenter Corin Dann. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Winston Peters had a fiery confrontation on air with presenter Corin Dann. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Opinion by Thomas Coughlan
Thomas Coughlan, Political Editor at the New Zealand Herald, loves applying a political lens to people's stories and explaining the way things like transport and finance touch our lives.
The interview began hot – and it didn’t really cool down. Unusually, it was Peters, the interviewee, and not Dann, the interviewer who askedthe first question, with Peters inquiring at audio that played just prior to his interview.
Things went seriously awry in the second half of the interview, when Dann asked Peters what he thought about Labour and the Greens’ allegation that the bill was part of an imported culture war designed to distract from more pressing issues.
Peters looked past the fact that Labour and the Greens were the one making the attack, instead saying the question was “so typical” of RNZ.
Peters said: “The fact is, 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.
“You’re not hearing both sides of the story, you keep on putting the argument of the woke left. You’re a disgrace to the mainstream media.”
There are two things to pick apart here, first, and most importantly, did Peters err when he told Dann he would “cut that water [ie funding] off”?; and second, was Peters interviewed fairly?
On the first point, Labour leader Chris Hipkins, having consulted RNZ’s governing legislation, thinks there is a case that Peters may have breached the law with the remarks.
“I believe those comments are contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the law when it comes to RNZ’s enabling legislation,” Hipkins said, adding they probably breached the Cabinet Manual too.
The Radio New Zealand Act has a whole section on what ministers aren’t allowed to do. It says ministers (including those not directly responsible for RNZ) cannot “give a direction to the public radio company ... in respect of:
a) a particular programme or a particular allegation or a particular complaint; or
b) the gathering or presentation of news or the preparation or presentation of current affairs programmes; or
c) the responsibility of the company for programme standards".
Peters’ remarks would seem to fly against this – and he did seem to have a very clear idea about how he would like RNZ, Morning Report or Corin Dann to conduct their work.
“Your job is to be an interviewer, your job is when you have me on, you hear what we’ve got to say, when the Greens are on, you hear what they’ve got to say, when the National Party’s on you hear what they’ve got to say, but not you – when it’s our turn you’re interjecting all the time when they come on it’s a very placid lovely interview, isn’t it?,” Peters said.
RNZ Morning Report hosts Corin Dann (left) and Ingrid Hipkiss.
Peters may argue that he was simply giving his own opinion about how journalism might best be practised – any politician, after all, can have a view on basically anything (with notable exceptions).
But you could equally argue that that statement reads a lot like a direction from a minister (the Acting Prime Minister no less) to the state broadcaster of the kind the act does not allow.
The comments about a funding cut were not a direct threat, but anyone at RNZ listening to the interview could easily infer that if Peters didn’t like what he was hearing, the broadcaster might have its funding reduced. That inference is a line Peters should not have crossed.
Politicians, including Peters can, should, and do have opinions on what constitutes good and fair journalism. As the most written and talked about people in the country, it’s only natural they have strong opinion about how they’re portrayed.
As politicians, they decide how much funding RNZ gets and, in very broad terms, what sort of broadcaster it should pay for. As our elected representatives, spending our money, it’s right they do this.
They also, through their policy choices, indirectly weigh in on editorial matters. Labour’s 2017 broadcasting policy to create a digital TV station at RNZ was motivated, in part, by the fact it felt TVNZ did not have the right editorial culture for what it wanted. The Labour Government before that used a charter at TVNZ to offer high-level direction about what it saw as TVNZ’s public function.
Both of these instances show a party and Government having a view on editorial matters, but expressing it appropriately – at a very high policy level.
RNZ has a charter too (the 1990s legislation that gave effect to the very first charter was passed with Peters’ support), which sets out the broadcaster’s role and standards.
The design of the charter is clever – it’s embedded in primary legislation, meaning changing it requires the RNZ Act to be amended by Parliament, enforcing a degree of transparency on any Government that wants to rewrite the rule book. Ideally, the charter is renewed with unanimous support, indicating that all sides of the political divide can agree at least in broad terms, on the rules that govern the broadcaster.
This is what happened the last time the charter was renewed in 2016, when everyone, including NZ First, supported the charter’s renewal.
The next time it’s up for renewal (it’s meant to be renewed every five years, but in typical Kiwi fashion, Parliament often procrastinates) may be a good opportunity for MPs to vent, hopefully in good faith, about what their constituents want from a public broadcaster.
There’s always room for improvement and self-criticism. Many MPs (from both the Government and the Opposition) have a lot to get off their chests on this issue, particularly over the way the media covered the pandemic.
Ideally, Parliament would maintain the political consensus around the charter – although the deterioration in what MPs from across the house think of the media since the last time this was reviewed in 2016 suggests that too may be wishful thinking.
On to the second issue, whether the interview was fair.
In my view, it was.
Interviews like Wednesday’s are not the malpractice Peters seems to think they are – and whatever MPs want to do with RNZ, they should continue.
As Dann told Peters during the interview, Opposition parties were making allegations of him and his party, it was the interviewers’ job to take those allegations to Peters and get his response.
It’s an important part of facilitating a lively and fair discussion between differing political viewpoints. In an interview show like Morning Report, there’s nothing wrong with interviewing someone from one party and putting their views and allegations to someone from another party. It’s not to everyone’s taste, Act Leader David Seymour doesn’t go on Morning Report, as is his right, but he speaks to RNZ’s reporters around the country.
If Peters feels like RNZ seriously got it wrong in that interview, he would be better placed complaining to broadcaster itself or lodging a complaint with the Broadcasting Standards Authority, the regulator.
Thomas Coughlan is the NZ Herald political editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the Press Gallery since 2018.
