Pulotu Tupe Solomon-Tanoa’i is a former BSA member. (Photo supplied)
Abolishing the Broadcasting Standards Authority, as called for by ACT and New Zealand First, would leave Māori and Pacific communities more exposed to media harm, writes a former BSA member, Pulotu Tupe Solomon-Tanoa‘i.
For many people, the recent suggestion that the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) might be abolished has barely registered.
That’s understandable. With the cost of living, the oil crisis, housing pressures, climate events, and everything else happening in the world, the fate of a media regulator isn’t top of mind for most whānau.
I served on the BSA from 2021 to 2025, appointed as a member following community consultation. That experience gave me a close-up view of its role and value.
If the BSA disappeared tomorrow, Aotearoa would lose more than a complaints office. We’d lose one of the few free and accessible ways for ordinary people to challenge harmful or unfair media content, and one of the few institutions charged with balancing freedom of expression with the rights and dignity of others.
Most people only hear about the BSA when a controversial complaint makes the news. But its role is much broader than that. The BSA helps set and maintain broadcasting standards. It provides guidance to broadcasters and the public. It resolves complaints when they can’t be settled elsewhere. It also commissions research into how New Zealanders experience media in practice.
The media plays an important role in a free and democratic society. It doesn’t just entertain us. It shapes who’s seen as credible, who’s framed as a problem, whose voices are amplified, and whose stories are marginalised.
For Māori and Pasifika communities, especially, that has real-world impacts.
Many of our communities know what it feels like when people speak about us without us. We know what happens when stereotypes are repeated so often that they begin to feel normal. We know how quickly negative narratives can become public assumptions.
Research commissioned by the BSA on harms affecting Māori, Pacific, Asian and Muslim communities found that many respondents believed New Zealand doesn’t currently have the right balance between freedom of expression and harm. Among Pacific respondents, 60 percent supported stronger limits to reduce harm. Among Māori, it was 56 percent.
The same research found that many people from diverse communities were avoiding television or radio because of the content they found offensive or harmful.
That should concern all of us. If people feel pushed out of the public conversation because media spaces feel hostile, then this isn’t just a matter of “switch it off if you don’t like it.”
Real examples where the BSA has mattered
This debate can sound technical until we remember the people and communities affected by these decisions.
In 2019, the BSA upheld a complaint about comments made by Heather du Plessis-Allan on Newstalk ZB, finding they were inflammatory, devalued the reputation of Pasifika people in New Zealand, and had the potential to cause widespread harm.
In 2021, it ruled that the use of te reo Māori on air wasn’t a breach of broadcasting standards, noting that te reo is an official language of Aotearoa and protected and promoted in law. It drew a line by ruling that it would no longer accept complaints about te reo Māori being spoken. Since then, other complaints bodies have followed suit.
In 2023, it confirmed that trans people are a recognised section of the community protected by standards against discrimination and denigration and issued guidance on misgendering and inclusive language.
In 2024, it upheld a complaint about comments made by Kate Hawkesby, suggesting Māori and Pacific patients were being prioritised for surgery because of ethnicity, finding aspects of the broadcast misleading and discriminatory.
You don’t need to agree with every decision to see the pattern. The BSA can provide a pathway for communities that often have less power in mainstream media spaces.
But what about freedom of speech?
Freedom of expression is deeply important. It’s one of the foundations of a democratic society, and it should be taken seriously. But no right is absolute. The right to express yourself sits alongside the right of others not to be seriously denigrated, misled, unfairly treated, or subjected to harmful discrimination.
That’s why standards bodies exist. And despite what some critics suggest, the BSA upholds only a small proportion of complaints each year, demonstrating that the threshold for intervention is high. Its role isn’t censorship — it’s about balancing freedom of expression and protection from harm.
The case that sparked this debate
Much of the recent political attention stems from a complaint about comments made by Sean Plunket on The Platform, in which he reportedly described tikanga Māori in dismissive terms.
The first issue isn’t whether those comments breached standards — that question hasn’t yet been decided. The issue that’s caused all the controversy is whether The Platform falls within the BSA’s jurisdiction, as set out by the Broadcasting Act 1989.
The BSA has determined that internet-based transmissions can, in some circumstances, come within the current law’s definition of broadcasting. Critics disagree and say any extension into online-only content should come from parliament.
That is a legitimate issue for debate. But there are processes in place to deal with such disagreements. If necessary, that issue can be tested on appeal to the courts. But until parliament updates the 1989 law, the BSA has to work with the legislation that exists today.
Yes, the law is outdated
The one thing critics and proponents of the BSA agree on is this: the current law needs reform. The Broadcasting Act was written long before the internet transformed the media landscape. That’s a real problem, and reform has been needed for many years.
Aotearoa needs reform in the media regulatory space. We need clearer, fairer rules that reflect how people consume content now. We need consistency across old and new platforms. We need accessible complaint pathways. We need protections that recognise the experiences of Māori, Pasifika, and other communities who have too often borne the brunt of harmful narratives.
But we need to be careful not to confuse disagreement with a single decision as evidence that the whole institution has no value.
But don’t we already have other places to complain?
Some people ask whether the BSA is still needed because New Zealand also has complaints bodies such as the New Zealand Media Council, which oversees print media, and Netsafe. Those organisations do important work, but they aren’t identical.
They cover different types of content, different platforms, and, in the case of the Media Council, can only regulate their own members. In some areas, there is overlap. And there is a significant gap across all these bodies, especially online.
That patchwork system is exactly why a major government review was undertaken between 2021 and 2024 to explore a safer, simpler, and more modern framework for media and online content regulation. Its goal was to make it easier for the public to know where to go with concerns, ensure all major platforms were covered, and better respond to harms affecting New Zealanders, especially children and young people.
That work recognised that the real issue was fragmentation and outdated rules, not the need to simply abolish one institution.
Sometimes institutions only become visible when they’re under threat. The BSA may not be glamorous. It may need updating. But before the BSA is scrapped, we should ask a simple question: Who benefits if communities lose one more place where they can be heard?
Pulotu Tupe Solomon-Tanoa’i is an executive leader, legal professional, and storyteller whose work spans law, media and governance. She has hosted the chat showTalanoa with Tupe*,* broadcast on Sky83, served on the Broadcasting Standards Authority from 2021 to 2025, and has been recognised nationally for her work advancing diversity and inclusion.
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