Summarised by Centrist
The Platform’s Michael Laws critiques TVNZ and RNZ for what he calls the indoctrination of DEI principles. He argues that state-funded media actively promotes identity-based hiring and policy decisions under the guise of fairness.
Laws takes issue with TVNZ’s extensive coverage defending DEI policies and linking them to the Treaty of Waitangi. He points to a 13-page article criticising Donald Trump’s rollback of DEI initiatives in the US while advocating their expansion in New Zealand.
The article, he says, presents DEI as an unquestionable good while dismissing concerns about its impact on meritocracy and governance.
Central to TVNZ’s argument is an illustration depicting “equity” versus “equality”—a common DEI talking point. In the equity model, a young Māori boy is given an extra boost to “level the playing field” with taller individuals. Laws argues this visual misrepresents fairness, as it suggests that some groups require automatic advantages, regardless of ability or effort. “The real message here,” he says, “is that some people will never achieve on their own, so we must artificially elevate them.”
Laws asserts that:
“The moment you tell Māori folk, ‘You poor bastard, you’re disabled because you’re Māori, you’re not good enough,’ you’ve just delivered the most racist message possible.”
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