Today’s decision by TVNZ to reconsider their previous ban on the Māori Party from entering the Multi-Party TV debate is a win for New Zealand Democracy.
MMP was supposed to be about allowing different political perspectives to compete for voters support, but the TV debates have increasingly been about excluding everyone other than Labour and National from appearing.
This muffles our democracy and allows the big parties to dominate.
TVNZ had used a percentage calculation that the Māori Party were never going to be able to match, so it was biased as well as being silencing.
Tamihere’s decision to take the TVNZ ban straight to the Human Rights Commission was a very clever move which has resulted in a better quality debate which is good for our democracy.
Ironically for TVNZ, John Tamihere going up against Labour, National, NZ First, The Green Party, Act, and Advance New Zealand will be great TV ratings.
A great decision that will end up providing a better quality of democracy.
First published on Waatea News.
Tamihere is proving to be a force to be reckoned with 🙂
We need more people like that, those who just won’t take the stupid cr@p any longer.
And TVNZ needs a shake-up, or shake-down as the case may be.
Tamihere has always been a force to be reckoned with….like Winston
I think there is a very good chance that we will have a Labour – Maori party governing arrangement after the election so any publicity is good publicity for Tamihere. We may face the prospect of only four parties making it back into parliament.
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