Latest news with #LDR
1News
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- 1News
'Please walk on me' – flag artwork sparks outrage again
An artistic invitation to 'please walk' on the New Zealand flag is continuing to offend gallery visitors 30 years after it was first displayed. 'Flagging the Future' is just one of several artworks currently on display at Nelson's Suter Art Gallery as part of an exhibition showcasing the multimedia works of Diane Prince who has a long history of Māori activism. Recreated by Prince last year, the artwork features a surveying tripod – 'a talismatic symbol of territorial conquest' by the Crown against Māori, according to the artist – made from flax stalks to symbolise Māori reclamation of their land. However, it's the New Zealand flag stencilled with the words 'Please Walk On Me' which sits at the base of the tripod that has sparked outrage from some in Nelson. The artwork was first displayed in Auckland in 1995 as a critique of the Bolger Government's decision to put a fiscal cap on Treaty of Waitangi settlements but outrage from some at that time resulted in the artwork's removal. ADVERTISEMENT The artwork features a surveyor's tripod made from flax stalks to symbolise Māori reclamation of their land. (Source: LDR / Max Frethey) President of the Nelson branch of the Returned and Services' Association Barry Pont said his reaction to seeing the artwork was one of 'shock horror'. 'Over the years, we've fought under the New Zealand flag and to wipe your feet on it is an insult in my eyes,' he said. 'You've got to give and take a bit, but this is beyond the joke, I think… I don't mind the flag lying on the floor, but not with the wording 'wipe your feet'. That's an insult to New Zealand's flag.' He added that legislation prohibits displaying the flag with the intention to dishonour it, and didn't think the artwork should be displayed in an art gallery that was supported by ratepayers. Nelson RSA president Barry Pont said the artwork as an "insult" to veterans. (Source: LDR / Max Frethey) Mayor Nick Smith said he personally found the artwork to be 'in bad taste' and said he and the council had received 19 complaints about it. ADVERTISEMENT 'I would hold the same view if an artwork encouraged people to walk on the Tino Rangatiratanga flag,' he said. 'I know others may view this art differently and that is just how art is.' He acknowledged the Suter was independent of the council and encouraged the board and director to take on board public feedback of its exhibitions, 'as it is important our art gallery enjoys broad community support'. Exhibition curator Gina Matchitt said that Prince recognised the services of soldiers with 'reverence and compassion'. Another artwork in the exhibition – gas masks woven from flax – even honours Prince's tīpuna (ancestors) who fought in the Land Wars and World War I. 'It's just important to really understand that there's more than one view of our flag,' Matchitt said. 'For Māori, that Union Jack symbolises land loss, language loss, culture loss… the flag actually belongs to all New Zealanders, it doesn't just belong to the RSA.' ADVERTISEMENT She acknowledged that Aotearoa New Zealand's past was confronting for both Pākehā and Māori. However, she said an art gallery was a safe way to unpack those stories and recommended people learn about local Māori history, potentially by reading Treaty settlements for their local iwi, to gain a greater understanding of how Māori were treated during colonisation. Matchitt added that the artwork was particularly relevant in the contemporary context as the current Government attempts to 'extinguish Māori rights'. Suter Art Gallery director Toni MacKinnon said 'Flagging the Future' was a significant piece of the country's art history. Suter Art Gallery director Toni MacKinnon said it was the role of galleries to challenge conventions and provoke thought. (Source: LDR / Max Frethey) 'Its return to public view is both an act of recognition and a chance to highlight a pivotal moment in the career of Diane Prince… 'Throughout history, galleries have exhibited works that challenge conventions and provoke thought – it's part of their role in a healthy society.' Diane Prince: Artist Activist is on display at the Suter Art Gallery until October 5, and is being toured by Porirua's Pātaka Art + Museum. Local Democracy Reporting is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
Newsroom
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Newsroom
Regional journalism boost at RNZ expense: ‘The bleeding hasn't stopped'
Pipped at the post for community newspaper of the year at this month's Voyager Media Awards, Ashburton Guardian managing editor Daryl Holden consoled himself by chatting with Media Minister Paul Goldsmith. He badgered the minister about the open justice scheme, under which media giant NZME was granted $3 million in 2021 for a dozen specialist court and legal affairs journalists, spanning from Whangārei to Christchurch, as well as editors. The scheme's partners included Otago-based Allied Press, which ran a rival community paper in Ashburton. 'I said how our area and the central South Island, and probably through to the West Coast, had missed out with the existing open justice system,' said Holden, who co-owns the paper. 'It was a little bit frustrating.' Fast-forward to Thursday's Budget, and Goldsmith announced he was expanding the open justice team, and local democracy reporting (LDR), which has 16 publicly funded journos in newsrooms, including the Ashburton Guardian, to cover local councils. 'Well, there you go,' Holden said, post-Budget, with Mid Canterbury understatement. 'We were always confident that the LDR scheme would continue, and that's all the noise we'd heard about it. But the extension of the open justice system, and particularly that emphasis in the press release about regional journalism, that is a surprise, and that is fantastic news for a newsroom like us. 'It can be monumental if we've got sort of funding to be able to fill gaps in our news coverage.' One of the biggest complaints Holden heard about the Guardian before he started in March 2021 was the lack of court coverage. He was asked: Is it too controversial? 'We just couldn't afford to hire anyone,' he said. 'Having that funding to be able to do that is important for democracy. It shows if you do something really wrong, that perhaps it could get covered in the newspaper to show people that democracy is working.' The Government announced $6.4m in new funding, over four years, to boost council, court, and community reporting. 'It will get funding into regional newsrooms so that more local frontline journalists can report on the things that matter to their audiences,' Goldsmith said in a statement. 'If NZME is struggling, and if Stuff is struggling, it doesn't take Einstein to work out that smaller community newspapers must also be doing it tough.' Daryl Holden, Ashburton Guardian Gavin Ellis, the former NZ Herald editor-in-chief, who reviewed the open justice and LDR schemes for the previous government in 2023, said: 'That's a good move, and I think it'll be generally applauded.' There was less cheering, perhaps, for Goldsmith's other announcement – cutting state broadcaster RNZ's annual budget by 7 percent, or $4.6m a year, to $62.3m. 'Government-funded media must deliver the same efficiency and value-for-money as the rest of the public sector,' the minister said, while noting RNZ's annual budget increased $7.3m in 2020, and $25.7m in 2023. The cuts were imposed over four years, for a total of $18.4m. Conan Young is a journalism lecturer at University of Canterbury, who worked for RNZ from 2004 till 2023. His last role there was as local democracy reporting editor. He said the broadcaster spent some of its new money on hiring top journos, like national crime correspondent Sam Sherwood, and strengthening its investigative team. 'You'd certainly say their journalism is a lot more muscular.' But the full benefits were yet to flow through, Young said. 'For RNZ to be on the brink of something quite special and really important, given the state of newsrooms around the rest of the country, to hear about this huge funding cut is really gutting, not just for RNZ, but for journalism in general.' As the MediaRoom column reported last year, RNZ has experienced an online surge, with its monthly unique readers skyrocketing from 422,000 in September 2018 to 1.56m in August 2024. But big media companies – struggling because overseas-owned digital platforms are hoovering up advertising revenue – can see RNZ as a subsidised rival, taking away their online audience. 'There might not be any love lost there,' Young said. Yet RNZ has become a news distributor akin to the now-dead NZ Press Association, funneling free copy to those who want it, including its supposed rivals. In the context of the Government's overall budget, $18.4m is tiny, he said, but it's a huge cut for RNZ, constraining its ability to invest in journalism. 'It seems incredibly mean-spirited, and almost not really reading the room, in terms of where media is at the moment,' Young said. 'There are so many things the Government could be doing to actually make a difference, such as getting tech platforms to actually pay their fair share for the content that they use to bring in their audiences.' The phrase mean-spirited might conjure up memories of last month's abrasive performance on RNZ's Morning Report programme by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, who told host Corin Dann: 'The fact is, you're paid for by the taxpayer and sooner or later we're going to cut that water off, too, because you're an abuse on the taxpayer.' After Thursday's Budget, the Act Party trumpeted the cuts in a newsletter to supporters, saying: 'Additional savings have been found in all parts of government: from cuts to 'bilingual cities', more debt collection from legal aid recipients, and a reduction in funding for RNZ.' Ellis, the former NZ Herald news boss, said there may be a political motive behind the RNZ funding cut – 'not by National but by the other coalition partners, I don't know'. Peter Thompson, associate professor in media and communications at Victoria University of Wellington, is vice chair of the advocacy charity Better Public Media. He said the cut 'looks a little bit like political retribution'. 'I'd really like to believe that's not the case but, really, National is showing its true ideological colours. It really doesn't seem to like public media.' A responsible Budget, as the Government tried to paint it, wouldn't have undermined public media when the industry was in crisis, he said. To muddy the waters somewhat, Young, the university lecturer, doubted Peters had a hand in the funding cut. 'Everybody knows that he actually loves the media, and he would love nothing more than to come on Morning Report and be interviewed – in fact he does, quite regularly.' (Newsroom asked Peters' office for comment on Thursday evening.) Goldsmith, the Media Minister, told Newsroom: 'Funding decisions are made by Cabinet as part of the usual annual Budget process. Budget decisions are not made by individual ministers.' Despite RNZ 'operating in a period of tightened fiscal constraint' – which, several commentators said, was actually a political choice – Goldsmith expected the public service broadcaster to improve audience reach, trust and transparency. Ellis responded: 'It's rather counterintuitive to think that you could do that by cutting budgets.' The broadcaster would try to protect its newsroom, he believed, but given its tight budgets, and little wiggle room, it may have no choice but to leave vacancies unfilled. 'Over the four years that this is supposed to be enforced, it will have the effect of cutting their newsroom resources.' Young, of the University of Canterbury, said he would be surprised if journalist jobs were lost as a result of the cuts. In a statement, RNZ board chair Jim Mather said: 'While we are naturally disappointed with a funding reduction, we acknowledge the Government's fiscal challenges at present as well as the headwinds affecting the wider media sector. We will now carefully review our plans to ensure we continue to strengthen trust with audiences and provide outstanding public media that matters for New Zealanders.' Merja Myllylahti, a senior lecturer at the AUT research centre for journalism, media and democracy, co-authored the recently released Trust in News report, in which RNZ was perceived as the country's most trusted brand. While the minister demanded value for money, RNZ was already showing value, Myllylahti said. 'It's expanding online quite rapidly, and it has become a major news hub for the online news as well. Personally, I feel it's not the right time to cut [funding].' When budgets were cut, spending reduced, and that hit newsrooms, she said. 'Normally it's journalism and journalists who suffer.' She believed more should be invested in public service journalism. In Finland, where Myllylahti is from, the public broadcaster, Yle, employed 3000 staff and had an annual budget of about €600m ($NZ1.15b), for a country of about 5.6 million people. Right now, however, its funding is being cut, and hundreds of jobs might go. Lara Greaves, an associate professor of politics at Victoria University of Wellington, said cuts to RNZ, or media funding in general, stretched already thin resources, to the benefit of politicians. But it wasn't just media funding being chopped. Greaves noted cuts to research and academia, including 'those who criticise the Government as a routine part of a healthy democracy'. 'Taken together, this is all quite worrying.' Thompson, of Better Public Media, said the $18.4m cut to RNZ should be viewed in the context of RNZ's funding freeze under John Key's National-led government. 'Much of the extra funds that it received under Labour was really putting right a much, much longer structural problem.' For years, Better Public Media has been advocating for the Government to impose a small levy on digital services, expanding the telecommunications levy. For example, Thompson said, if there was a 1 percent levy on roughly $2 billion of digital advertising that would generate $20m a year for journalism. Thompson said strong public media supported democracy, and an informed public, by creating a media entity not beholden to advertisers and mass audiences. Publicly funded media could fill gaps not covered by struggling commercial businesses. One supposed solution to the industry's funding woes was Labour's Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, but Thompson preferred the levy model. It's hard to predict the Government's next move. While in opposition, the National Party called Labour's bill a shakedown, but then, in July last year, Goldsmith said the coalition would make changes and pass it by the end of the year. Except it didn't. Progress on the bill was paused before Christmas. On Thursday, Goldsmith said 'modern legislation' would ensure the media sector was financially sustainable for years to come. 'I am considering submissions from the recent consultation on media reform.' More information would be released 'in the coming months'. Let's return to Ashburton Guardian's Daryl Holden, who was relishing the prospect of applying to NZ on Air for more funding. Last year, he told Parliament's economic development, science and innovation committee the media industry was bleeding to death. Since then, TV3's Newshub closed its newsroom (Stuff now provides its bulletin), and there's been a wave of newspaper closures, and layoffs. 'The bleeding hasn't stopped,' Holden said, after the Budget. 'Let's put it like this – if NZME is struggling, and if Stuff is struggling, it doesn't take Einstein to work out that smaller community newspapers must also be doing it tough.'
Otago Daily Times
22-05-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Move to up Māori street names
Oreti Rd sign in Invercargill. PHOTO: MATTHEW ROSENBERG Te reo Māori street names are on track for a boost in Invercargill as the council takes steps to ensure they are more readily available. In March, an Invercargill City Council meeting revealed confusion about its policy for street names, after a developer failed to bring a single te reo option for consideration. It was revealed their inclusion was "highly recommended" but not compulsory. On Tuesday, the council looked to fix that issue by suggesting an amendment to its policy, meaning one of three names brought to the table would need to be in te reo Māori. The council's mana whenua representatives would also be involved in the process, ensuring the whakapapa of an area was considered in naming. Council manager strategy, policy and engagement Rhiannon Suter said the process enabled the council to support developers by connecting them with mana whenua representatives for feedback. In the rare circumstance a Māori name could not be provided within 20 working days, three English names could be presented. "We've agreed that this pragmatic approach should result hopefully in the outcome that everybody is wanting to see," Ms Suter said. "Certainly, that has been the steering provided to us from previous committees, that we would like to see more te reo Māori names ultimately utilised through the district." The change in policy relates to new name applications and is being made under a scheduled review. It is yet to be approved at full council, Tuesday's decision being a recommendation at committee level. A report prepared for the committee noted it was not appropriate to create a list of pre-selected names because whakapapa meant the location needed to be considered. ■LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
Scoop
22-05-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Tauranga Rally Urges City Council To Cut Rates Amid Proposed 12% Hike
About 250 people attended a rally at Tauranga's Memorial Park urging the city council to reduce rates. Act list MP Cameron Luxton spoke to the crowd before they marched to The Strand in the city centre on Sunday. Rally organiser Jan Gyenge wanted Tauranga City Council to find $40 million in savings because she said the proposed 12% rates increase was 'unsustainable'. If the council could save $40m it could deliver a 0% residential rate increase, she told Local Democracy Reporting before the event. Gyenge said the rally went well and there was great engagement from the attendees. The crowd stopped outside the new council offices on Devonport Rd and sported signs asking council to 'stop the spend' and 'respect ratepayers'. The rally was not the end but a platform for people to share their concerns, Gyenge said. Last week the council heard from submitters on its Annual Plan for 2025/26. The plan received 968 written submissions and 96 people asked to speak to the council directly. The council would deliberate on its Annual Plan on May 26. Mayor Mahé Drysdale previously said the plan tried to strike a balance between investing in the city and affordability for ratepayers. The council had already found $29m in savings to get to 12%, and was working to find more to get the final number down to 10% or lower. - LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
1News
22-05-2025
- Business
- 1News
Auckland's rapidly growing south spreads around food producing land
A strategy to help support one of Auckland's fastest growing regions with housing and its thriving farming industry has been approved by Auckland Council. The southern rural areas, which included the Franklin Ward, was expected to increase by 89,900 people, 37,500 households, and 16,500 jobs by 2052. Auckland Council recently approved the new Southern Rural Strategy, which supported the region to accommodate its growing population, while enabling industries such as farming and food production to thrive. 'The southern rural area is expected to account for approximately 15% of Auckland's overall population growth over the next 30 years," Franklin ward councillor Andy Baker said. The area was one of the New Zealand's primary food production regions, with abundant natural resources and some of the most productive land in New Zealand. "It's strategic location, close to airports, seaport and key export markets, helps to further cultivate these industries." In a statement, Baker said the strategy provided direction for where housing choices, industries and employment opportunities would grow, "in a way that supports the area to thrive economically and ecologically". It included strengthening the role of Pukekohe and Waiuku as rural service towns, focused growth in existing urbanised settlements and avoided growth outside settlements, and minimised urban growth where it could have negative impacts on rural production and industries. The strategy also made sure there was sufficient infrastructure to support new development, supported safe access for residential and rural production users with transport and access needs, and celebrated the Māori and Pākehā heritage of towns, villages and other areas. The strategy covered the full Franklin ward. It also included some rural land from the Howick, Manurewa, and Papakura local board areas. The strategy did not cover the area's quickest growing towns — Drury, Ōpaheke and Pukekohe — which already had community-backed plans to guide their growth. Consultation on the Southern Rural Strategy took place in October to December last year. Deputy chair of Auckland's Policy and Planning Committee, Angela Dalton said the strategy supported the southern rural area to grow well. 'This is a vibrant region, where traditional industries thrive alongside emerging sectors," Dalton said. "The strategy is about balanced growth, that minimises the impact on the environment while improving housing choices and socially connected communities." By making the most of existing infrastructure, and focusing on projects that delivered multiple benefits, the council was helping set up the region for a resilient and sustainable future, she said. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
