I've elevated Winston Peters to, Lord Winston.
Go get 'em Winnie. For the record, these people turned on us all. They were clearly serving their paymasters, the criminal Labour government of New Zealand. Now they want to be seen as independent. Yeah...nah...no mercy.
And while we're at it, cut ALL government advertising to only the essentials across all media, not just state owned.
"Well, we'll see the speed at which TVNZ and RNZ - which are taxpayer owned - understand this new message. We'll see whether these people, both the media and journalists - are they independent? Well, isn't that fascinating, I haven't seen evidence of that in the last three years."
He then laughed, and said "you can't defend $55 million of bribery, cannot defend $55m of bribery. Get it very clear".
That last remark was a reference to the Public Interest Journalism Fund, a three-year $55m contestable fund for journalists initially set up to shore up public interest media during the Covid-19 pandemic, which was wound up in July.
This included funding for 219 jobs and 22 industry development projects. Political coverage was exempted from eligibility to benefit from it. The fund was administered by NZ On Air.
RNZ's charter requires the broadcaster to be independent, including providing "reliable, independent, and freely accessible news and information".
While the organisation is funded by the government, by law no ministers of the Crown or person acting on their behalf may give direction to RNZ relating to programming, newsgathering or presentation, or standards, and cannot have staff removed.
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