It’s an unfortunate sign of the times that public broadcaster RNZ ‘News’ gave significant editorial space for the acting head of a governmental organisation to openly criticise the Government with a politically skewed and misconstrued rant the day after the budget announcements. This was made worse when the individual, Ms Whaipooti of the Human Rights Commission, was given the opportunity to repeat her tropes and fibs on air on ‘Saturday Morning’s segment.
It breaks all the rules of the purported public service ethic of neutrality, not just because of the slanted and biased rhetoric but because she was speaking completely out of her area of expertise and doubled-down with disinformation while she was at it.
Claiming in print, and on air, there was “no extra funding” and “nothing” for “Maori Development” in the Budget is untrue. A cursory look at the documents, both the ‘Supplementary Estimates’ and the ‘Vote Maori Development’, shine a light on her untruths. The SE’s provide for an increase of over $33M dollars (or 48%) for the Maori Development Fund to a cool $103M. Maori Television gets an additional $800k to round up $24+M, while the John Tamihere-led Whanau Ora program is boosted $7M to a whopping $182M.
While it is true that the Maori Development Fund is set for cutbacks, Whanau Ora is set to keep its annual $182M for the foreseeable future while Maori Television is set to almost double, from $24M to $47M! Nice dough if you can get it.
There’s more, but that’s not the point. The point is that Ms Whaipooti is well out of order, and if she wants a public platform to fertilise us all with her skewed, uninformed visions, it should not be from a public service pulpit. She should do the honourable thing: resign, and run for office.
Her rhetoric is entirely unacceptable from her publicly-paid position.
