{"id":379487,"date":"2026-04-14T20:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T20:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/379487\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T20:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T20:11:08","slug":"broadcasting-standards-authority-will-probably-be-scrapped-goldsmith-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/379487\/","title":{"rendered":"Broadcasting Standards Authority will \u2018probably\u2019 be scrapped, Goldsmith says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking to Newstalk ZB afterwards, Goldsmith said that was his preferred option.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t made any final decisions yet, but that\u2019s one of the three options, and that\u2019s where I\u2019m leaning at the moment. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s become arbitrary as to who\u2019s covered and who\u2019s not covered, and so I think probably the tidiest solution is to revert to a Media Council-style arrangement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Media Council is a self-regulatory body, funded by major media organisations to rule on fairness, accuracy and decency. Unlike the BSA, it holds no legal powers.<\/p>\n

Goldsmith was asked if, while no formal decisions have been made, it wa\u2019s fair to say scrapping the authority was the direction the Government was going.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, that\u2019s right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He wouldn\u2019t put a timeframe on when those decisions would be made.<\/p>\n

Yesterday\u2019s comments are the strongest indication so far that the authority won\u2019t survive.<\/p>\n

Last week, Goldsmith told Ryan Bridge TODAY he was \u201ctempted\u201d to scrap the authority.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Platorm v BSA<\/p>\n

The issue came to a head this month when the BSA ruled it had jurisdiction to consider a complaint against Sean Plunket\u2019s The Platform.<\/p>\n

The complaint took issue with Plunket describing tikanga M\u0101ori as \u201cmumbo jumbo\u201d.<\/p>\n

But before considering the merits of the complaint, the authority had to first determine whether it had jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

The BSA deemed it was \u201crequired to consider under the Broadcasting Act, complaints about The Platform\u2019s Live Talkback programme, because the programme meets the Act\u2019s definition of \u2018broadcasting\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, the authority said it had not found it had jurisdiction over on-demand content from the likes of Netflix, AppleTV, Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube, or other overseas entities streaming content for New Zealand audiences, nor over personal online content posted or livestreamed by individuals.<\/p>\n

Plunket rejects the decision, claiming Parliament didn\u2019t intend for the BSA to cover online broadcasters when the law was written in 1989, as they didn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

New Zealand First\u2019s Winston Peters also slammed the decision, saying it was \u201cbordering on fascist\u201d. He called for the BSA to be scrapped.<\/p>\n

Act also criticised the decision, having earlier lodged a private member\u2019s bill to disestablish the BSA.<\/p>\n

Ethan Griffiths is a political reporter with Newstalk ZB, based in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. He joined NZME as a print journalist in 2020, previously working as an Open Justice reporter in the Bay of Plenty and Wellington, and as a general reporter in Whanganui.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking to Newstalk ZB afterwards, Goldsmith said that was his preferred option. \u201cWe haven\u2019t made any final decisions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1124,5195,3795,8555,2223,40623,1073,6722,111,43,139,69,13491,312,34752,11422,1533],"class_list":{"0":"post-379487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-authority","9":"tag-be","10":"tag-broadcasting","11":"tag-communications","12":"tag-confirmed","13":"tag-goldsmith","14":"tag-media","15":"tag-minister","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-probably","21":"tag-says","22":"tag-scrapped","23":"tag-standards","24":"tag-will"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}