John Pagani
How easy it would be for Radio Live to get out of this: make some time available to other parties, and bam they've fixed it.
Instead, they're off defending the indefensible in a statement obviously drafted by lawyers - and therefore incompetent.
The PM's Hour is a radio show for the Prime Minister of New Zealand and will be for anyone in that role. It was not election coverage. We carefully thought this through and took advice to ensure that The PM's Hour was neither election programming nor election advertising.
Yeah, unfortunately having the prime minister on the radio as host of a programme is a balance and fairness issue, and no attempts to talk around the issue changes that. If you got advice that you could do it, you have a case in negligence against your advisers. Retain new lawyers today. In fact, if anyone can let me know who the Radio Live lawyers are, I would like to name them, so other clients can be warned of their professional incompetence.
Except that it's possible the lawyers didn't say 'you can do this'. They merely focused on the pinhead of 'election advertising'. That is like saying a drunk driver may not have broken the speed limit.
We fully understand our responsibilities as a broadcaster and the rules around election advertising and programmes - our advice is that The PM's Hour is neither, but we understand that a complaint has been made about the programme so we will not comment further on this aspect.
Oh but you will be commenting. We are days, if not hours, way from the Facebook page being set up to find out who advertises on Radio Live and what those advertisers think about being partisan. There will be a BSA hearing, and before long we will be in court.
Look, I know a bit about talkback: I've got a box somewhere downstairs full of awards for producing the best talkback in the country. I understand the
attraction of the programming idea. But the idea that you can have a talkback programme fronted by the leader of the National party within the regulated broadcast period, and somehow claim that you don't need balance, is ridiculous.
If they want to say they should be able to have on whomever they like, whenever they want, to talk about whatever they want, then that is a coherent and justifiable position - but it is not the law today. And they don't get to unilaterally redefine the law or broadcast standards.
Someone needs to sit down Radio Live management and get them out of the bunker. What they are doing now is turning a very minor issue into something that is going to damage the reputation of the station.
The issue is made more sinister by the fact the radio station used to be owned by a senior Cabinet Minister, and received a generous no-questions-asked taxpayer bailout, apparently arranged through a quiet chat in the PM's shell-like.
Take the overly protesting statement "It has nothing to do with radio spectrum licensing payments." The fact you even need to make that statement indicates you are politically compromised in the first place. Imagine One News having to say "our coverage of this issue has nothing to do with the fact we are government owned." Merely asserting the statement is meaningless. The problem is they are hardly going to say "we're giving Phil Goff an hour, and the government that gave us a bailout through a sweetheart deal can get stuffed." They are compromised whether they like it or not. That ought to be persuading Radio Live of the need to behave even more responsibly. And if they don't, then the dots connect themselves.
And then we have a National Party election strategy designed to avoid policy altogether. The party hasn't even released a single election policy yet. It's entire strategy is to focus on the PM talking about his cat, and avoiding 'politics'. To therefore insist that the PM not talking about politics a few days before an election is 'not political' is taking the piss.
Radio live knows it. Everyone knows it.
Some of the conservative commentators around the place need to brush up on their Voltaire. If they are confident in their ideas they should support equal air time for Phil Goff. Because if they are right, and Phil is wrong, then exposing him to more air time will allow the rightness of their ideas to prevail. If they don't support hearing more from him, then it hardly sounds like they're confident Phil is wrong, does it?
