The media minister was warned of ‘significant potential risks to audiences and New Zealanders more broadly’ if the Broadcasting Standards Authority was disestablished. He proceeded anyway.
This time last year it was facing accusations of “Soviet-era Stasi” behaviour, and this week it’s facing obliteration: the Broadcasting Standards Authority has had quite a 12 months. The bill to disestablish it just scraped in at the very last moment before parliament was dissolved ahead of the election. It didn’t get a first reading, and is unlikely to proceed any further if the current coalition is voted out.
But, if this government does win another term, the Broadcasting (Disestablishment of the Broadcasting Standards Authority) Amendment Bill will make its way through the legislative process, including the select committee stage where public feedback will be sought and the disestablishment plan subjected to further scrutiny.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) is usually tasked with weighing up complaints audiences make about content on radio and TV (and more recently and controversially, the internet), but the shoe is now firmly on the other foot. It has been the one under scrutiny and its future – or otherwise – has been weighed.
There has been little of that to date through official channels, as the Ministry of Culture and Heritage (MCH) noted in the regulatory impact statement (RIS) released as the bill was introduced. “Clear ministerial direction to proceed with disestablishment of the BSA at pace has necessarily concentrated analytical effort on the consequential changes required to make this happen,” MCH officials wrote. “Evidence certainty is low due to these constraints, which have limited opportunities for engagement, evidence collection and broader analysis, with resultant uncertainty about the nature and scale of the impacts.”
The background
Media minister Paul Goldsmith announced his intention to disestablish the BSA in May, a surprise move to many but not, perhaps, to The Spinoff’s founder Duncan Greive (who’d argued that by accepting a complaint about online-only broadcaster The Platform, the BSA had “started the clock on its own dissolution”). But even Greive may have raised an eyebrow at the speed at which it happened.
In March, Goldsmith was telling the BSA to plan for the future, but on May 6 the government announced the body had been given its marching orders. The RIS, designed to inform cabinet decisions on regulatory change, was finalised on June 18, and went through the motions of considering alternative options of sticking with the status quo and of reforming the BSA, despite the fact that “there has been clear ministerial direction to pursue Option A3 – Repeal”.
While the move to scrap it so quickly shocked many, the idea that the broadcasting standards regime was outdated and needed reform was broadly understood. MCH had consulted on a proposal to modernise it early last year, and while increased self-regulation was considered, complete disestablishment of the BSA was not. “The preferred option proposed was to reform the broadcasting standards regime to have platform-neutral regulation of ‘professional media’ in New Zealand,” said the RIS. There would also be “a regulator with a ‘backstop’ role, focusing on system-level outcomes while ensuring audiences have recourse in respect of inaccurate or unduly harmful content; [and] the right to appeal, subject to criteria, in respect of complaints decisions from self-regulatory bodies to the regulator and then the High Court”.
But the proposal remained just a proposal, and the clock began ticking for the BSA. When the authority issued its draft decision that it had jurisdiction to consider The Platform complaint in October 2025, NZ First leader Winston Peters accused it of “Soviet-era Stasi” behaviour, and Act lodged a member’s bill to disestablish it. When the jurisdiction decision was confirmed in April, the government moved swiftly and the BSA was done for.
“Print media already self-regulates through the New Zealand Media Council, and some broadcasters have opted to be part of it. Our expectation is the media council will become the primary regulator for journalism,” Goldsmith said in a press release announcing his decision. “I’m confident that greater industry self-regulation is the most practical way to level the playing field across platforms, and can provide an appropriate level of oversight to maintain ethical journalistic standards and audience trust.”
‘Significant potential risks’
But a process still had to be followed, with an RIS to be presented to cabinet before a final decision could be made. So MCH officials got to work, noting in the RIS that “significant timing constraints” had meant “no public consultation has been undertaken on the proposal to repeal the broadcasting standards regime”. The RIS is clear that “MCH’s preferred option would be to reform the broadcasting standards regime, rather than repeal it and disestablish the BSA”.
The benefits of the latter option were narrow, “and the costs have both wider and longer-term impacts”, noted the RIS. “There is uncertainty about the extent and effectiveness of self-regulatory groups picking up expanded or new functions in the BSA’s absence. There are significant potential risks to audiences and New Zealanders more broadly arising from removing an enforceable complaints avenue and media content standards that support fairness and accuracy.”
One of these risks was increased polarisation, as content that would otherwise breach broadcasting standards through a lack of balance would no longer be addressed, and there may be “potential societal flow-on implications (e.g. trust in media and institutions)”.
Another was the removal of a way for audiences to challenge unfair treatment or depiction, as well as breaches of privacy. The Privacy Commissioner cannot investigate complaints against “news entities”, noted the RIS. “Unless and until the Media Council or another self-regulatory body established processes to compensate complainants, this would leave only the limited and more expensive avenue of court action in tort law.”
It concluded: “We remain concerned about the broader implications of repeal with no further substantive action to uphold the government’s mandate to act in the public interest. The modern media environment does provide a diversity of options which were not available at the time the standards regime was implemented in 1989; however, broadcast and other types of content continue to carry the capacity to cause harm to both individuals and groups, and MCH considers that the government should not retreat from regulation in this area.”
Further analysis accompanying the proposed legislation was released this week to meet the requirements of the Regulatory Standards Act. They identified several inconsistencies with the principles of good lawmaking, including the lack of consultation and the costs of the chosen option outweighing the benefits.
The minister’s “statement of reasons” for these inconsistencies pointed to the parliamentary select committee process providing “an appropriate opportunity for public and broader media sector input”. “As minister, I disagree with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s account of the costs and benefits, and with their preferred legislative approach.”
But will he still be minister when parliament returns for a new term? While Labour leader Chris Hipkins criticised the move to scrap the BSA in May, he wouldn’t say for sure that a government led by him would cancel it. The future of the BSA is once again up in the air.
Discussion about this post