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Otago Daily Times
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Shocking language distraction
Although many New Zealanders commonly use terms which would have been considered offensive decades ago, there are still words we would not expect to hear in our Parliament. One such word was aired last week in the House by Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden. The Hansard record of that occasion shows it as c with square brackets around the next four letters. Curiously, there was no such sensitive punctuation around that word or the f-word when they turned up in some submissions made on various Bills. The words appear in the Hansard record on those occasions in all their dubious glory, as presumably the utterers intended. Research from 2021 on the language which may offend in broadcasting, commissioned by the Broadcasting Standards Authority, showed there had been some movement over the years since 2013, but the top two most unacceptable words in all broadcasting contexts remained the n-word and the c-word. There had been jockeying for the top slot in that time with the n-word considered the worst in the 2021 survey (65% of those surveyed), compared with 57% for the c-word. The question of whether it was acceptable or necessary for Ms van Velden to use the term last week remains. The Labour Party set the scene for its use by asking Ms van Velden about something said in a political column by Stuff 's Andrea Vance. The quote used in the question from former minister for women, Jan Tinetti about the contentious pay equity legislation did not include the sentence featuring the c-word used by Ms Vance. It asked if stopping 33 pay equity claims was not a historic act of economic backhanding other women. But its inclusion of reference to women ministers as girlbosses and a hype-squad, were apparently enough to provoke Ms van Velden to seek advice from the clerk's office about the use of the c-word. She was told it was OK, so use it she eventually did. Her hell-hath-no-fury-like-women-ministers-scorned performance lacked the impromptu brilliance of former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard's tirade against the misogyny and unpleasantness she experienced day in and day out. Women close to having their pay equity claims settled before the new law sent them back to square one, could be forgiven for finding irony in Ms van Velden's passionate statement: "The women of this government are hard-working, dedicated, and strong. No woman in this Parliament nor in this country should be subjected to sex-based discrimination". They might have considered some of the terms used by Ms Vance were misogynistic, shocking, or inappropriate but would that override their view the introduction of the law changes was misogyny writ large? There is no getting away from the fact the question from Ms Tinetti was a dumb move from Labour, allowing the coalition's senior women ministers to take the moral high ground and promote themselves as victims of a misogynistic, unseemly, abusive, and vitriolic attack on them. It is hard to understand why Labour did not just ignore the column. Finance Minister Nicola Willis had already penned a lengthy response to it which was published by Stuff. When Ms van Velden's outburst occurred, around a week after the shock of the introduction without warning of the new pay equity legislation and its subsequent passing under urgency, the furore around it had not abated. While a succession of coalition ministers and the Prime Minister, with a surprising lack of imagination, accused Labour of "outright lies" there are plenty of questions which remain unanswered. Do we know, for instance, how the change in the equity claim threshold for the proportion of women workers in a role from 60% to 70% was arrived at? When there has been no opportunity to test the government's thinking on any of the changes through a proper process, the Opposition has plenty of material with which to keep plugging away at the government. Labour has had to admit its own goal. Its future questioning on this issue must be calm, clinical, and comprehensive — all acceptable "c" words.
RNZ News
04-05-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Two complaints against RNZ broadcasts not upheld
Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly The Broadcasting Standards Authority has not upheld two complaints about broadcasts on RNZ National. The first, on Nine to Noon on 8 October, 2024, marking one year since the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, included two interviews conducted by host Kathryn Ryan - one with BBC Middle East editor Sebastian Usher, and the other with Sally Stevenson, an emergency coordinator with Médecins Sans Frontières. The BSA found that listeners were alerted to alternative significant viewpoints during Usher's interview, and Stevenson's interview was clearly signalled as being from her perspective. In addition, the audience could reasonably be expected to be aware of significant context and viewpoints from other media coverage. The BSA did not uphold complaints against Balance, Accuracy and Fairness. The decision can be found here . The BSA also considered a complaint against National's Saturday Morning broadcast, on 12 October, 2024. This was an interview of a UNICEF spokesperson and humanitarian worker about her experience living and working in Lebanon amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas- Hezbollah conflict. The BSA found the broadcast was clearly signalled as being from the interviewee's perspective and was not claiming nor intending to be a balanced examination of perspectives on the conflict. Again, the BSA said RNZ's audience could reasonably be expected to be aware of significant context and viewpoints from other media coverage. It did not uphold the complaints against Balance, Accuracy and Fairness. The decision can be found here RNZ has initiated independent assessments of its editorial coverage, and the first looked at coverage of the Middle East since the 7 October attack. Its conclusion was that the decisions of the Media Council and Broadcasting Standards Authority gave no reason for concern that RNZ was acting outside its own policy, the Media Council Principles or the standards administered by the Broadcasting Standards Authority. The report can be found here : RNZ : Editorial Reviews
Scoop
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
PSNA Complaint About TVNZ Reporting Upheld By The Broadcasting Standards Authority
It was good to see this PSNA complaint against TVNZ reporting upheld by the Broadcasting Standards Authority. TVNZ showed film which they claimed was of "anti-semitic violence" by Dutch football fans attacking Israeli football fans on the streets of Amsterdam last November. TVNZ described the scenes as disturbing. The film actually showed the opposite - violent attacks on Dutch fans by Israeli hooligans who had engaged in racist "Death to Arabs" chants and attacks on Palestinians and Palestinian flags prior to the game. We pointed out the error quickly but TVNZ refused to issue an apology and said it didn't really matter because the mayor of Amsterdam had said there were anti-semitic attacks so the TVNZ mistake was minor. Imagine if the situation had been reversed. TVNZ would have bent over backwards to issue grovelling apologies to the pro-Israel lobby. TVNZ's reporting over the past 18 months has been relentlessly pro-Israel. They have centred Israeli narratives, Israeli excuses, Israeli explanations, Israeli propaganda points and Israeli spokespeople. Palestinian voices have been sidelined and given rudimentary coverage if at all.
