Tuesday, 2 August 2005

Dunne slams TV3's 'stupid arrogance'

United Future leader Peter Dunne tonight slammed the 'stupid, arrogant and anti-democratic' decision by TV3 to exclude his party from its televised political leaders' debate next week.

"This is utterly disgraceful - TV3 is making a public fool of itself," he said.

"Whether TV3 realises it or not, it is the voters of New Zealand who decide who shall and shall not be in Parliament, not a few faceless television executives whose concern is more for convenience of programming, rather than robust democratic debate.

"TV3 is always first in the queue when it comes to grabbing taxpayers' money to make programmes, but it has signally failed to do its duty to taxpayers by excluding parties in Parliament from one debate.

"Voters will now see that TV3's political coverage has all the intellectual depth of a carpark puddle and is in marked contrast to the attitude taken by the other television networks, TVNZ and Prime, which are planning proper, full-scale debates.

"TV3's claim that it is constrained by lack of studio space is a pathetic insult. Not even Robert Mugabe would come up with a dumb story like that when he limits democratic debate.

"I call on TV3 to reverse this ridiculous decision and pay the voters of New Zealand the compliment of allowing them to make up their own minds about who should be in Parliament," said Mr Dunne.

ENDS

© Scoop Media