Gerry Brownlee should resign as Speaker for banning investigative journalist Aaron Smale from Parliament

Govt move to exclude journalist risks chilling effect – Green Party

The Green Party is alarmed by the Government’s move to exclude a journalist from covering this week’s apology for the survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care.

“When a journalist is barred from doing their job, just because they asked the Prime Minister difficult questions, it sets a dangerous precedent,” says the Green Party’s Media and Communications spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon.

“Aaron Smale is a highly respected journalist who has rigorously covered issues around the abuse in state and faith-based care. As a society that values the role of the fourth estate, we should value the work of journalists like Aaron, because it helps us take a critical look at where we have gone wrong and how we may move forward.

“We all know that Christopher Luxon doesn’t like it when journalists persist with tough questions. But it’s another thing altogether to place a ban on such journalists simply for doing their job.

“It demonstrates a lack of understanding of, and tolerance for, the critical role that media plays in holding those in public office to account, on behalf of New Zealanders.

“This is likely to create a chilling effect on other journalists who may be wary of asking probing questions of the Prime Minister or Government in future.

“Barring a leading journalist from an important event like this speaks to this Government’s lack of accountability. It is something we might expect in Putin’s Russia, not 21st century Aotearoa New Zealand.

“Let’s stand up for transparency and accountability by Government, and make it clear that our country does not punish journalists for doing their job,” says Hūhana Lyndon.

I can’t remember the last time I was incandescent with rage.

I feel anger a lot.

Injustice, abuse of power and wilful redneck ignorance all fire me up, but the decision yesterday by Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee to ban investigative Journalist Aaron Smale from Parliament had me yelling, swearing and throwing things around my house with an intensity that scared my neighbours shitless.

I have an enormous amount of affection towards Gerry and I respect his intelligence, but this decision to ban investigative journalist Aaron Smale from Parliament  was so fucking woeful the question must be asked if Gerry should be forced to step down as Speaker because the ramifications here are just disgusting.

I have worked with investigative journalist Aaron Smale and hold him in the highest of regards.

I worked alongside him in 2022 to expose the highest levels of the Wellington Bureaucracy covering up the abuse of children in NZ.

His investigative series on Newsroom highlights the terrible means with which the Wellington Bureaucracy went to hide the abuse of children and then adopted despicable tactics to derail that knowledge getting out and to avoid legal precedence.

The vast, vast, vast amount of Kiwis have no idea whatsoever that the Wellington Bureaucracy hired private detectives to dig dirt on victims of state care abuse to present in Court to discredit the victims so they wouldn’t have to acknowledge the abuse or pay for it.

Let me say that again – THE NZ STATE HIRED PRIVATE DETECTIVES TO SMEAR VICTIMS OF STATE ABUSE SO THE STATE DIDN’T HAVE TO PAY THEM!!!!

Aaron Smale has been at the forefront of these investigations for almost a decade, and he has asked the uncomfortable questions that none of our other mainstream media journalists are even capable of so to ban him from Parliament so he can’t ask the Prime Minister uncomfortable questions of how involved the State was in re-abusing the victims and hiding that abuse is a fucking abomination from which Gerry Brownlee’s honour can never be cleansed of.

This is not a left-Right issue, I don’t give a flying shit who you voted for, this is a basic human rights issue – the NZ State knew kids had been abused and when confronted in Court, they hired private detectives to smear the character of those victims so they could hide the abuse and this tactic was very obviously agreed to by the highest echelons of the Wellington Bureaucracy, to ban the leading investigative Journalist from entering Parliament when the State is supposedly apologising for abusing all those kids is a sickening moment in NZ democracy.

The only redeeming feature is that Gerry capitulated late yesterday afternoon after an enormous backlash from the victims who look up to Smale and agreed to allow him in but only under guard from another Newsroom journalist.

One day this country will know the full story of how the Wellington Bureaucracy re-abused these victims and how instrumental they were in hiding it, and we will only know that thanks to investigative journalists like Smale.

I am ashamed to be a Kiwi this day.

 

Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.