Mediawatch: How A Budget Is Covered

Sunday, 25 May 2025, 2:25 pm
Article: RNZ

Colin Peacock, Mediawatch Presenter

The sudden scrapping of pay equity claims was hailed as "saving the Budget" by ACT leader David Seymour, while Finance Minister Nicola Willis insisted it was not a book-balancing move.

When reporters and analysts went into the Budget day lock-up, the estimated saving was the first number many looked for - and it led the coverage once the embargo lapsed.

The sum certainly startled presenter Ryan Bridge.

"$12.8 billion. Almost half the savings over the entire Budget period," he spluttered on the Herald website's live-streamed video coverage (which doubled as a practice for the Herald Now livestream launching this week).

But NZIER economist Christina Leung, who had been previewing the Budget for broadcasters since dawn, was not surprised - or energised.

"It was a boring Budget to be honest," she told Bridge.

The Three Gals, One Beehive podcast labelled it "a yeah, nah Budget." At the Spinoff, Bernard Hickey declared it merely "meh". Other pundits labelled it a 'true blue' Budget National would expect to deliver in times that are tight.

But the tepid reaction was mainly because they already knew where $3b of fresh state spending would go, thanks to the pre-Budget announcements staggered in advance to maximise media coverage.

Big ticket items like defence, rail, acute healthcare and more were old news by Thursday. Substantial sums committed to costly medicines via Pharmac last year were also already baked in.

The finance minister was managing expectations for reporters by teasing it as a "No BS" budget with no "unicorns and rainbows".

The same message was also driven home hard by the media, though The Herald's business editor-at-large Liam Dann did not need imaginary animals. Instead he used the word the government was trying to avoid.

"Austerity is an ugly word - but that's what experts call it when there's no new money to spend," said Dann in an explainer for the Herald.

"It is a Budget that promised little and therefore did not disappoint," The Post's editorial pointed out on Friday.

"There is now no question Willis' Budget was built on the backs of thousands of underpaid, hard-working New Zealand women" who had taken one for the team of 5 million, the paper said.

Big tech given a swerve again

"The government is leaving the hard work of growth and recovery to businesses," The Post added - and pointed out it would be slow.

But some businesses were off the hook.

Just two days before the Budget, the government abandoned legislation to impose a 3 percent tax on the New Zealand revenues of online search and social media platforms. BusinessDesk reported the Digital Services Tax Bill was forecast raise around $320 million over four years - and almost $100m a year in additional tax revenue after that.

Revenue Minister Simon Watts told Newstalk ZB Donald Trump's threat to punish countries taxing US corporations was a factor in scrapping the law change.

A bill to oblige Facebook and Google to pay for locally-produced news is also languishing on the back-burner. Many pundits believe the Fair Digital News Bargaining bill may be scrapped soon too, in part for the same reason.

And while incremental financial tweaks revealed on Budget day inevitably became the focus of the rolling coverage, it obscured some of the structural stuff.

Last week The Listener's political writer Danyl McLauchlan noted "mostly trivial payments and cuts announced each year (are) presented as 'winners' and 'losers' in Budget media coverage, without considering the vast, submerged commitments frozen-in from decades of previous Budgets."

The biggest of all was superannuation, he said, which was "untouchable so long as Winston Peters glowers at Willis from across the Cabinet table."

The Post noted that while KiwiSaver contributions were cut for high earners, "it still remains politically impossible to make the same sorts of arguments about revising NZ Super."

In The Post, pundit Ben Thomas said the most urgent question in the next decade is how to make paying for an ageing population sustainable.

Newsroom's Fox Meyer pointed out several spending programmes - including the controversial school lunches - were "looming over fiscal cliffs."

RNZ's budget cut

With just $1.3b in nominal spending left, few in the media were expecting any unicorns or rainbows.

Noting that RNZ got a substantial boost of $26m a year in 2023 - in the wake of the failed merger with TVNZ - the government pegged back RNZ's budget by about 7 percent for the next four years. That's $4.6m a year in dollar terms, leaving RNZ with about $62m a year as things stand.

RNZ was not required to find savings last year when many other public agencies and ministries were directed to make cuts, so it was no surprise the axe was swung this time.

"Government-funded media must deliver the same efficiency and value-for-money as the rest of the public sector. I expect RNZ to improve audience reach, trust and transparency ... in a period of tightened fiscal constraint," media and communications minister Paul Goldsmith said in a stern statement.

That was echoed by the finance minister.

RNZ's top brass were also questioned about RNZ's rising salary costs during last year's annual review in Parliament.

Chief executive Paul Thompson told the select committee RNZ was investing in its digital transition "and that all costs money".

"The media system in New Zealand is incredibly fragile - it doesn't make sense for RNZ to also be weak when the government has given us a mandate to be that strong cornerstone," he told the committee.

Māori media take a hit

Māori media funding is under the auspices of the Māori Development Ministry Te Puni Kokiri and Māori broadcasting funding agency Te Māngai Pāho (TMP).

TMP's funding is up marginally to $66m, but the Budget reduces Whakaata Māori's annual funding by about $6m to just over $42m next year.

Māori media were heavily backed by the previous government and its minister of broadcasting and Māori development Willie Jackson, who was also a former broadcaster and media boss himself.

Just over $90m was made available in two separate Budgets to cover the cost of programmes and content. Some of that would last until 2029, and one stream of funding would end in 2027.

Whakaata Māori restructured last year to take account of money running out. As part of that restructure 27 jobs were cut, along with programmes and services.

Māori media and journalism also benefited from the PIJF until 2023. Waatea - the urban Māori radio station and online news service - added seven roles to its news team which also service the iwi radio network.

Interestingly the funding peril has barely been mentioned in the news - or in any politicians' statements, save for a passing mention in one by Willie Jackson and one from the Greens.

New money for regional reporters

Goldsmith's statement was headed: 'Investing in Journalism'.

Two existing schemes covering the cost of reporters in the regions will see $6.4 million over four years : Local Democracy Reporting (LDR) and [https://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/public-interest-open-justice/ Open Justice - both of which have had significant sums of public funding to date.

The LDR scheme - modelled on a UK programme of the same name - is managed by RNZ. It deploys 18 reporters in local newsrooms around the country, which would otherwise be unable to fully cover local affairs.

Previously funded by both RNZ and NZ on Air, all the content created was free online at RNZ.co.nz and available to other interested publishers.

Open Justice is administered by the New Zealand Herald's publisher NZME. This pays reporters to cover courts about a dozen locations and was prompted by diminished coverage of non-high-profile cases in recent years.

Matters before the District and High Courts, Family and Youth Courts and a variety of tribunals too are now much more likely to be reported. But not so much in the South Island. NZME's newsgathering and mastheads are concentrated in the north.

It is important to the judiciary and the government alike that justice is seen to be done - and the Open Justice reports appear on a wide range of news websites.

Open Justice was funded for two years initially in 2022 via NZ on Air at a cost of just less than $3m. Both schemes were previously paid for out of the Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF) set up by the former government in 2020 to run for three years.

The fund was persistently criticised by the parties then in opposition, who made claims about the government buying media compliance and also stifling debate about the Treaty.

Some critics did not like state funding of private sector journalism, or paying the wages of newspaper reporters in private media companies.

But now in government, National's ministers seem to accept regional newsrooms cannot employ dedicated justice and local politics reporters within their own finances. And they are comfortable paying more for journalism that does not encroach on national issues.

The media minister pointedly said in his statement "reporting, rather than opinion" is being supported by the added funding.

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