As the city of Tauranga prepares to elect a new Mayor and Council after three and a half years being run by government-appointed Commissioners, the case for replacing the Wellington City Council with Commissioners strengthens.

The Wellington City Council has been dysfunctional for years, long before the current Mayor took office. However, the situation has worsened significantly during her tenure to the extent it is now almost impossible to see the current crop of Councillors being able to resolve the massive issues confronting the capital city.

The shocking state of Wellington’s water supply, with about 40% of the city’s water being wasted through leaking pipes, has led to derisory headlines around the country. Savage restrictions imposed on residents to conserve water over the summer period have only just been lifted this week, but the Council-controlled company, Wellington Water, which supposedly runs the system, is giving no guarantees things will be any better next summer. And the Council seems powerless to do anything about it.

Central Wellington is a maze of traffic cones as many inner-city streets are realigned to remove parking to allow for cycleways and bus lanes. This completely overlooks the reality that Wellington’s topography means most of the city’s streets are already narrower than elsewhere. Making them narrower still is neither practical, nor safe for either cyclists or motorists. But that inconvenient reality seems to matter little to the Council with its avowedly anti-car and pro-cycling and public transport approach.

Even that is coming to grief. Large double decker buses rumble frequently empty through suburban streets. Commuter bus-stops are being removed in other parts of the city. The city’s much-maligned bus system, last reviewed in 2014, is simply not working and needs to be overhauled. Gridlock continues to choke access to the eastern suburbs and the airport because the Council cannot agree how to resolve it. Central government’s plan for a second road tunnel through Mount Victoria aroused little Council enthusiasm.

When the pandemic struck, and the public servants went home to work, many seemingly yet to return, Wellington’s already struggling CBD became a ghost town, leading to the closure of long-standing, well-regarded city businesses. The subsequent economic downturn, and more latterly the loss of around 4,500 public service jobs because of government funding cuts, are making the situation worse. Wellington faces severe long-term retrenchment in jobs and population.

But the Council clings to the increasingly absurd notion that the city’s population will increase by around 80,000 people over the next thirty years, with absolutely no indication of where the jobs will be for this additional population to fill. The Council’s new housing intensification strategy, based on non-consented approval of up to six storey high Stalinist style apartment blocks, in the inner city and alongside designated commuter routes to house this mythical population increase simply compounds the sense of unreality. Even more bizarrely, the Minister of Housing, who had previously appealed as a person of sound judgment and commonsense, has approved this nonsense.  

The appalling way the Wellington City Council does things was highlighted this week at a Council meeting discussing the city’s long-term plan. A local community leader – allocated a mere five minutes to make his submission on an issue of concern to his community – had the temerity to complain that the Mayor had been working on her phone the entire time he was making his submission. In response, the Councillor chairing the meeting, rebuked him for criticising the Mayor, terminated his presentation, and adjourned the meeting until he left.

Not even the worst of student politicians, which the current ruling clique on the Council seem so reminiscent of, would behave in such an overbearing and childish way. Their pointless and petty behaviour, coupled with an arrogant and smug sense of their own authority, inspires no confidence at all in their ability to prudently manage a Council operating budget of nearly $820 million a year, and an annual capital budget of $566 million. And the Mayor’s seeming indifference to what is happening, simply adds insult to injury.

Increasingly, it seems wishful thinking to believe that the current Council and its leadership will ever be capable of waking up to reality and abandoning their personal hobbyhorses in the interests of making Wellington a functional capital city once more. Worse for the long term, the current shambles means there is no incentive for capable people to put their names forward for election to the Council in the future, so the downward spiral looks set to continue at ratepayers’ expense.

It is going to become more and more difficult for the Minister of Local Government to stand by and watch this train wreck steadily worsen. Ratepayers already face a 16.4% increase in rates this year, with no clear indication of any improvements in service delivery. Sooner or later the government will have to step in and appoint high-powered Commissioners to sort out the sad mess the capital city has become. For Wellington’s beleaguered residents, that day cannot come quickly enough.  

It is no coincidence that two Labour should-have-been MPs are making the most noise about public sector cuts. As assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, Fleur Fitzsimons has been at the forefront of revealing where the next round of state sector job cuts is occurring, and in his role with the E Tu union Michael Wood has fronted the campaign for redress for TVNZ staff laid off in the recent programme cancellations.

 

Fitzsimons will be remembered as the Labour candidate who unexpectedly lost the hitherto safe seat of Rongotai to the Greens' Julie-Anne Genter at the last election. At the same election, after a series of self-inflicted mishaps that led earlier to his Ministerial resignation, Wood was tossed out of the Labour stronghold of Mount Roskill by National's Dr Carlos Cheung. This was only the second time since 1957 that Labour had failed to win the Mount Roskill electorate.

 

Both Fitzsimons (a former Wellington City Councillor) and Wood seem keen to resume their thwarted political careers. Their good fortune is to now be in positions where they can promote their political profiles and attack the National/ACT/New Zealand First coalition government at the same time. Both are doing so with shameless vigour. In addition, Wood has also become a member of Labour's powerful Policy Council, so is already in a strong backroom position to influence Labour's future policy direction, alongside another Parliamentary wannabe, Council of Trade Unions' economist Craig Renney, who reportedly fancies himself as the next Labour Minister of Finance.

 

However, Labour, like most parties, does not have a good record when it comes to political forgiveness, so despite their current very public penance Fitzsimons and Wood may struggle to secure immediate redemption before the next candidate selection round. Political parties have long memories when it comes to electoral failures, especially if that failure contributed to the defeat of a government. This may be especially so in Wood’s case where it has been reported that Labour’s internal polls recorded a critical 4% drop in its support after his repeated failures to disclose various personal shareholdings were revealed.

 

But even if they are to be selected again, neither Fitzsimons nor Wood face a certain route to Parliament. Fitzsimons’ defeat at the hands of Genter was part of the Green wave which washed over Wellington at the last election and shows no signs of abating, Genter’s recent public behaviour embarrassments notwithstanding. While Wood’s conduct failings as a Minister played a large part in his electoral demise, a significant underlying factor in his loss of the Mount Roskill seat was that just under 50% of that electorate now identify as Asian, hence their attraction to Cheung. As that trend intensifies, Wood will increasingly appear the pale, stale, odd-male-out in that electorate.

 

But behind this, a bigger picture is playing out. After the last election, there were few who expected Hipkins to stick around as Labour leader for very long. The conventional wisdom was that he, like most former Labour and National Prime Ministers, would find the return to Opposition tedious and soul-destroying and would quickly move on to greener pastures elsewhere. That may still prove the case for Hipkins, but so far, he has shown no signs of doing so, and indeed looks to be increasingly relishing his role as Opposition leader. In any case, no credible potential challenger to his leadership has yet emerged, nor seems likely to, given the talent in Labour’s current ranks. The likelihood that Hipkins will lead Labour into the next election is therefore increasing.

 

Hipkins is innately prudent, cautious and pragmatic, very much in the Helen Clark mould. His immediately circumspect reaction to the government’s revival of charter schools is an example. While some of his colleagues fulminated against the plan, Hipkins pointed out that the nature of the contracts to be concluded with the new charter schools would ultimately determine whether a future Labour government would be able to abolish them, as they might wish.

 

But Fitzsimons, Wood, and Renney are distinctly more left-wing and doctrinaire, so may find Hipkins lukewarm about their becoming part of his line-up for the next election. (This may be especially so in Wood’s case, given Hipkins’ interaction when Prime Minister with him over the shares disclosure issue.) For his part, Hipkins seems anxious to portray Labour as credible, compassionate, progressive, inclusive and fiscally responsible – not a bunch of wide-eyed ideological enthusiasts ready to cut loose on New Zealand society.

 

The crunch point for Labour, Hipkins, and the current wannabes will be the outcome of Labour’s internal policy review. A pragmatic result, building on the perceived gains of the last Labour-led government, will be a positive boost for Hipkins and his leadership, which in turn should be reflected in the type of candidates selected for the next election. However, a significant shift to the left in areas like economic management, taxation and industrial relations, while potentially beneficial for the likes of Fitzsimons, Wood and Renney, could create real problems for Hipkins’ ongoing leadership, which, given the talent within Labour’s current Parliamentary ranks, are unlikely to be resolved by the time of the next election.

 

So, the public positions now being taken by Fitzsimons and Wood are not just about their carrying out professionally and properly the responsibilities assigned to them by their current employers. Nor are they just about helping promote their personal political agendas, although that is certainly a factor. Rather, they are part of the deeper contest for the future heart and soul of the Labour Party.

I am always wary when I hear that the Controller and Auditor-General has commented on or made recommendations to the government about an issue of public policy that does not relate strictly to public expenditure.

According to the legislation, the role of the Controller and Auditor-General is to make sure that public sector organisations are spending public resources well and making good decisions.  That is as it should be and consistent with what might be expected of good audit practice.

But the Controller aspect of the role is more problematic. Under the relevant legislation, the Controller "can direct a Minister to report to the House of Representatives if the Controller has reason to believe that expenditure has been incurred that is unlawful or not within the scope, amount, or period of any appropriation or other authority” and “can stop payments from a Crown or departmental bank account, to prevent money being paid out if the Controller believes the payments may be applied for a purpose that is not lawful or is not within the scope, amount, or period of any appropriation or other authority.”

Again, that is reasonable and is an important accountability constraint on Ministers who may think they can do as they like with the funds appropriated to them by Parliament.

But, over the years, successive Controllers and Auditors-General have interpreted the function far more broadly and consequently delved into all manner of specialist areas, delivering a view not just on whether spending complied with the appropriation, but whether the activity in question was even justified in the first place. Recent Controller and Auditor-General’s reports have dealt with topics as varied as “Meeting the Mental Health Needs of young New Zealanders”; “Monitoring importers of specified high-risk foods”; and “The fast-track approvals Bill”. This week, the Controller and Auditor-General issued his words of wisdom on the conduct of the 2023 General Election, specifically the processes for counting votes.

Now, these are all important areas of public policy deserving of critical scrutiny, but it is surely doubtful that this can be provided by an office that is essentially a fiscal bean-counter. However, that constraint has never stopped Controllers and Auditors-General over the years poking their noses into areas where they have limited or no expertise, and then reporting with a confidence and certainty that defied that. As an aside, that may explain why so few of their recommendations, outside the fiscal management ones, ever get adopted by governments.

The report on conduct of the 2023 General Election is important. The smooth, fair, and efficient operation of our election process is critical to the functioning of our democracy. That is why Parliament conducts a full public enquiry, to which anyone can make a submission and be heard, after each election to improve the process for the next one. That process has worked well over the years and does not require the intervention of the Controller and Auditor-General at this stage. His office and time would be far better employed examining the profligate blow-outs in government expenditure that occurred under the previous government, as well as some of the expenditure decisions of the present government.

In the early 1990s, as a member of the Electoral Law Select Committee, I pushed successfully for the establishment of an independent Electoral Commission to oversee all aspects of electoral law, educate voters about the political process, and manage the conduct of elections. I envisaged it would become a strong and authoritative expert body. But unfortunately, over the years it has proven too amateur, timid, and wimpish to do any of those things properly. It seems far more comfortable being a cheap policeman, ticking off politicians and parties when they do not dot every i and cross every t with the level of bureaucratic pedantry the Commission likes to wallow in.

There is no doubt the Electoral Commission mismanaged the conduct of the last election. The Chief Electoral Commissioner and the Chief Electoral Officer should be held to account by Parliament and the public for this failure. But doing so via the route of the office of the Controller and Auditor-General, that has no known expertise in either electoral law or running elections, is of questionable value. It almost certainly means those officers will escape any accountability, which probably ensures nothing will change as a result.

Put bluntly, the office of the Controller and Auditor-General needs to refocus its activities on the specific responsibilities regarding the effective management of public expenditure that its legislation requires it to oversee. That should be its unquestioned area of expertise, which means that the Controller and Auditor-General’s enthusiasm to pontificate on so many other areas of government activity needs to be curbed as a consequence.

Ironically, under the present arrangement where the Controller and Auditor-General’s office can butt its nose in, almost at will, specific departmental and agency accountability is being eroded, not strengthened. The primary role is for government departments and agencies to own the policy and procedures for which they are responsible. A busy-body, know-all Controller and Auditor-General’s office merely gets in the way of that.

It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the economy on the brink of recession, massive cutbacks in public expenditure, public sector redundancies and rising unemployment.

Yet the response from MPs to the decision of the independent Remuneration Authority has been unusually muted. Even those who might have been expected to be more outspoken and prone to grandstanding on the issue of MPs’ pay have so far been restrained in their responses.

A factor in this may be that MPs salaries and allowances have been frozen by Prime Ministerial fiat since 2018. Yet according to Statistics Department figures, average household income has risen by just over 19% in that time. The increase in the average cost-of-living is estimated to have been over 13% for the last two years alone. Even though their incomes are higher than the average, MPs and their households will not have escaped the impact of these increases.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has correctly (and courageously, given the way she is still idolised in some quarters) said the freeze on MPs salaries and allowances Dame Jacinda Ardern instituted in 2018 and renewed in 2021 was a mistake, which has led to the current level of increases proposed by the Remuneration Authority. Hipkins properly says these decisions should always be left to the Authority, and not interfered with by politicians. He is right.

Until the mid-1970s, politicians set their own salaries. Since then, the responsibility has been delegated to an independent statutory authority, now called the Remuneration Authority to determine what MPs should be paid, according to clear criteria that have been set out in legislation. This is designed to ensure that the process is transparent and free from any direct political intervention.

By and large it has worked well over the years, although there have been occasions when successive governments have felt the need to interfere with Remuneration Authority decisions because they have been seen as politically unpalatable at the time. The Ardern interventions are the latest, but no means the only, occasions where the meddling of politicians has made the situation more complex in the long term.

At present, the Authority is required to review MPs salaries and allowances at the start of a Parliamentary term and set a rate that will apply for the balance of that term. What has complicated its work this time around has been the six-year freeze since 2018, and the need for a catch-up to address that. It is arguable that this year’s proposed increases would have been smaller, had salaries and allowances been adjusted, not frozen, in 2018 and 2021.

MPs have always indulged in a measure of double-talk when it comes to increases in their salaries. Previously, there have been MPs who have attempted to make a virtue out of publicly declining to accept their pay rise. However, as Inland Revenue advised me when I was Minister of Revenue, MPs do not have the option of declining a salary increase. Because the rate is set by a statutory determination, they are taxed for that rate of income, regardless of whether they accept it or not. Faced with that prospect, most of the grandstanders over the years apparently quietly acquiesced.

Learning the lesson of his housing allowance embarrassment, Prime Minister Luxon has said he will donate his increase – around $50,000 over the next three years – to charity, because he says he does not need it.  Fair enough, but he will still be taxed on that income. However, he will be able to claim the charitable donations rebate of 33% on any donations he makes!

So far, there have been no suggestions of the government intervening to prevent or limit the Remuneration Authority’s decisions. The immediate reactions of MPs suggests that they may be more prepared to adopt a “take it on the chin” approach (a cynic might say, take the money and run) and let the process run its course. In any case, the adverse public reaction to MPs’ pay rises has always been short-lived and seldom deep-seated.

Overall, the Remuneration Authority’s decisions are not excessive and reasonable in the circumstances. They send the clear message that they can be trusted to make responsible determinations, and do not need the interference of politicians to do so.

In that respect, the Authority has set a benchmark which future Parliaments which would be wise to abide by.

 

 

The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives, Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe wryly commented – in a clever paraphrasing of St John’s Gospel – that “greater love hath no man than he lay down his friends for his life.”

Both Gladstone’s maxim and Thorpe’s quip go to the heart of the challenge a Prime Minister faces in managing the Cabinet. The Prime Minister is “primus inter pares” – first among equals – and is therefore responsible for the conduct of the Cabinet’s business. This applies whether the Cabinet is chosen by the Prime Minister (with the agreement of coalition partners) as is the case whenever National leads a government, or selected by the government caucus (again, with the agreement of coalition partners) whenever Labour leads the government.

When Ministers fail to perform, or are seen to be struggling in their portfolios, the expectation is that the Prime Minister will act. Moreover, while they will seldom get kudos for doing so, Prime Ministers certainly attract public criticism for hanging on to Ministers seen to be out of their depth. It is, of course, a careful balancing act, and Prime Ministers, whose very survival depends on the support of colleagues, cannot afford to be seen as either overly protective of weak performing Ministers for too long, or too trigger-happy and impetuous when it comes to getting rid of them.

The ultimate judgement will reflect the Prime Minister’s assessment of the detrimental impact a Minister’s performance may be having on the perception of the government’s performance (and by extension, that of the Prime Minister), and whether a compelling or credible public case can then be made for demotion or dismissal. It is something successive Prime Ministers have been loath to act on too precipitately, with most preferring instead to wait until the now normal pre-election Cabinet reshuffle, or the post-election formation of the new Cabinet, to sort things out.

This week’s demotion of Ministers Melissa Lee and Penny Simmonds need to be seen in that light. While both have been stripped of sensitive portfolios where they were not seen to be performing effectively (Communications for Lee, and Disabilities for Simmonds) both have retained their other portfolios and remain Ministers, although Lee will now be a Minister outside Cabinet.

Three features of Prime Minister Luxon’s downgrading of these two Ministers stand out.

First, the timing. The Prime Minister clearly considered that the problems Lee and Simmonds were having in their respective Media and Disabilities portfolios were unlikely to go away in the short term. They were therefore likely to be too much of an unwelcome distraction in the lead-up to next month’s Budget, where the government will be looking to glean the most positive publicity it can, in what is likely to be a very grim environment. Getting rid of unnecessary, negative distractions now, and passing the portfolios to more experienced hands, was the expedient and prudent thing to do.

Second, the scope. There is likely to be general agreement that Lee and Simmonds had lost the respective plots in the Media and Disabilities portfolios and were unlikely to be able to recover the loss of credibility associated with that, at least in the short term. Few tears are likely to be shed at their removal, but it may have been a different story had they been removed as Ministers altogether. That could have aroused questions of overreaction which would have reflected badly on the Prime Minister’s leadership style.

As it is, he has sent two clear messages – one to both Ministers that they are on their last warning, and that they will be unceremoniously shown the door if anything else goes wrong. The second warning is to all other Ministers about the Prime Minister’s limited tolerance for poor performance and the fate that might await them in such circumstances. Neither will have done him any harm with his Caucus colleagues, nor with the wider public.

However, the third feature is more problematic. Both Lee and Simmonds are National Party Ministers, making it somewhat easier for the Prime Minister to deal with them. It will be a different situation though, should future circumstances involve New Zealand First or ACT Ministers. While the ultimate authority about who serves as Ministers lies with the Prime Minister, any decision to demote or dismiss New Zealand First or ACT Ministers would have to be handled very deftly and would be reliant on the ultimate agreement of the leaders of those parties.

The Prime Minister’s credibility would be severely, perhaps irreparably, damaged if he were to attempt or demote Ministers from New Zealand First or ACT without agreement from those parties. In this context, it is interesting to compare the treatment of National Ministers Lee and Simmonds, with that of New Zealand First Minister Casey Costello who arguably caused the government just as much embarrassment, yet suffered no sanction, over her appalling handling of the smoke-free issue.

The Prime Minister may have flashed his butcher’s knife and laid down Ministers Lee and Simmonds for his life this week, but the wider context strongly suggests that he, like other New Zealand Prime Ministers before him, still has some way to go to live up to Gladstone’s maxim.

       

There has been a positive but restrained response to the deal announced between Stuff and Warner Brothers Discovery to “save” TV3’s six o’clock nightly news bulletin, currently screened under the Newshub label. According to Stuff, the deal will mean that around 40 of the jobs involved can also be saved.

This is cold comfort for the majority of the approximately 300 staff who currently work for Newshub, and the 68 TVNZ news and current affairs staff who were told last week that their jobs would be going over the next three months. There will be many presenters, journalists and production staff from both channels displaced and left looking for work in a local media market which has been decimated by these rationalisations.

That will be bad enough for those affected, but there are also wider implications and consequences that are not yet being spoken about.

The New Zealand School of Broadcasting in Christchurch currently offers a range of courses in “screen, journalism, and digital media”. It says its graduates “go into exciting careers in newsrooms, television studios, radio stations and production houses.” Well, not anymore it would seem. Even before the recent turmoil the school was finding it increasingly challenging to fill the approximately 70 new places it had on offer each year. The scuttling of Newshub and the cutbacks at TVNZ will likely make it nigh impossible to attract new students in the future, because there will be no jobs for graduates to go to in New Zealand.

The School of Broadcasting is a publicly funded entity, and in a time of fiscal restraint the government cannot be expected to look too kindly on continuing to support an agency that now seems set to be training New Zealanders to work predominantly for overseas organisations such as Sky News Australia, or Al Jazeera, in the future.

But while the New Zealand School of Broadcasting is an obvious downstream casualty of the upheavals in Newshub and TVNZ, it is by no means the only one. There are currently around 22 other New Zealand universities and tertiary institutions offering qualifications in journalism and communication. These range from diplomas, through to full degrees and post-graduate qualifications.

While not all these qualifications are specific to broadcast media, there will nevertheless be significant implications for these courses, arising from the Newshub and TVNZ situations. And, consequently, their ripple effect is likely to continue for some years.

It is all reminiscent of the situation New Zealand Railways faced in the 1980s following the Booz-Allen Report. That report recommended an overall size for the railways at the time of about half what it then was. The government accepted the recommendations, and then had to confront the reality that it still had a network of railways workshops at Otahuhu, East Town, Hutt Valley, Addington, and Hillside all geared to producing rolling stock and other equipment at a level that about twice what was required. Massive closures and redundancies were the inevitable outcome as railways struggled to ensure capacity was resized to better meet its needs.

The equivalent situation now faces the Tertiary Education Commission and tertiary providers regarding the future of journalism training. In a country of New Zealand’s size, with its limited media market, it begs the question as to how it was ever reasonable to assume 22 different journalism qualifications and courses could be offered. The shakeup caused by Newshub and TVNZ in recent weeks puts that question into even starker relief. As it surveys the current situation the TEC will need to acknowledge it is more than likely there will be more upheavals to come as journalism is reshaped to meet the demands of the modern technological environment.

In that regard, carrying on as at present is simply not an option. Streamlining the range and type of courses provided to achieve a more uniform national standard, and supporting centres of excellence rather than encouraging course proliferation would be useful initial steps the TEC could take. Students, after all, want to be assured that they will get value for money in the worth and contemporary relevance of the qualification they gain, particularly in what is likely to become to an even more fast-changing industry in the future.

When the interests of those students today and those contemplating future careers in journalism and media production are taken into account, the need to make journalism nimbler and more relevant to today’s environment becomes overwhelming.

While cold comfort to those at NewsHub and TVNZ currently pondering their own futures, a move in this direction would be a step towards equipping the next generation of journalists and media staff with the tools to cope with a rapidly changing work environment.

 

April 10 is a dramatic day in New Zealand’s history.

On April 10, 1919, the preliminary results of a referendum showed that New Zealanders had narrowly voted for prohibition by a majority of around 13,000 votes. However, when the votes of soldiers still overseas after World War I were later added in, the right to drink was retained by just over 10,000 votes.

April 10, 1968, was one of the blackest days in New Zealand history when the inter-island ferry, Wahine, sank at the entry to Wellington Harbour with the initial loss of 51 lives, later to rise to 53. For rugby followers, April 10, 1973, will be remembered as the day Prime Minister Norman Kirk cancelled that year’s planned South African rugby tour to New Zealand. Other sports lovers will recall April 10, 1984, as the day when Dame Susan Devoy became the first New Zealander to win a British Squash Open title, the first of eight such titles she would win.

April 10, 2024, now seems set to be remembered, to paraphrase songwriter Don McLean as “the day the television media died” with Newshub’s confirmation that all its news and current affairs programmes will cease on July 5, quickly followed by TVNZ’s announcements of severe cuts to its news services, including the cancellation from May of flagship programmes, “Fair Go” and “Sunday”.

Newshub’s and TVNZ News’ demise had been foreshadowed some weeks ago, so this week’s announcements were not really a surprise. Many commentators have lamented that the end of television news and current affairs broadcasting, as we have known it, is a significant challenge for our democracy. They argue there will be a loss of diversity of opinion, and that having on to rely on the more limited services that the state broadcaster will now provide runs the risk of pro-government news predominating.

However, a recent survey of New Zealanders’ news watching habits shows a different picture and offers a partial explanation for Newshub’s and TVNZ’s decisions. In short, we have been relying less and less on television as our major news provider for some time now and have also been becoming less and less trusting of television news’ impartiality. While this mirrors an international trend, the decline in viewership and trust levels has been more marked and sudden in New Zealand than elsewhere.

A contributing factor seems to have been the “Podium of Truth”, “Jessica/Tova” circus we endured during the Covid19 lockdowns, and the government’s establishment of the $50 million public interest journalism fund to support media outlets during the pandemic. Whether intended or not, these created the public impression that the government was buying the media’s support to sell its pandemic message. But rather than build public confidence in the media’s credibility, they had precisely the opposite effect.

Add to that, a marked decline in television advertising revenues – Warner Brothers Discovery has estimated that TV3’s annual advertising revenues have fallen by 74% because of the general economic downturn, and the position would be no doubt similar for TVNZ – and this week’s decisions became virtually inevitable.

There have been suggestions of new online streaming arrangements to replace programmes like “Fair Go”, or possible external contracting arrangements to provide contestable new services to both channels, but nothing specific or substantial has emerged so far. While it is not the government’s responsibility to bail out failing industries overtaken by new ways of doing things, the government does have a role to play in preserving the expression of diverse views and ensuring that New Zealanders have access to major national and international news streams.

However, to date, Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee has been disappointingly quiet. She has expressed her sorrow at the likely heavy loss of jobs and said she is taking advice on the issue, but, as the Prime Minister confirms, has not yet made any specific suggestions to Cabinet. The clock is ticking though – by the time Newshub’s doors close on July 5, New Zealanders have a right to know what alternatives will be in place to ensure they can access quality news services in the future.

On that count, the gloom and despondency now understandably affecting those most directly affected, is unlikely to be long-term. New opportunities and ways of doing things will almost certainly arise to replace what has been lost. In the meantime, we should acknowledge with gratitude the service and professionalism of those whose familiar faces we have got to know over the years and wish them well for the future.

Whatever happens next though, April 10, will continue to be a day of national significance.