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Summarised by Centrist
Asked at a public meeting in Waikanae about the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s future, Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith laid out three options: keep it as it is, redraw its scope, or abolish it.
He said the Government would “probably” choose the third, but did not give a timeline. He later told Newstalk ZB that while no final decision had been made, scrapping it was “where I’m leaning at the moment”.
According to Goldsmith, the current setup has become “arbitrary as to who’s covered and who’s not covered”, and he said the “tidiest solution” may be to move instead to a Media Council-style model. Pressed on whether that was now the Government’s direction of travel, he replied: “Yes, that’s right.”
The BSA’s credibility has come under renewed pressure after its recent decision that it did have jurisdiction over Sean Plunket’s The Platform, specifically its Live Talkback programme, while not asserting jurisdiction over overseas streaming giants such as Netflix, Apple TV, Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube, or personal livestreams by individuals.
The complaint against The Platform centred on Plunket describing tikanga Māori as “mumbo jumbo”. However, the authority first had to decide whether The Platform counted as “broadcasting” under the 1989 Broadcasting Act. It ruled that it did.
Plunket argues Parliament could not have intended online broadcasters to fall under a law written before they existed. Winston Peters called the ruling “bordering on fascist” and said the BSA should go. ACT has already pushed in the same direction, having lodged a private member’s bill to disestablish it.
