The government’s decision to abandon the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media (ANZPM) Bill came as no surprise after months of increasingly negative speculation. Officially, it stems from the prioritisation of “bread and butter issues” during a cost-of-living crisis, but it’s hard not to see this as a significant policy failure for Labour.
The bill had proposed to establish a multi-platform media entity comprising RNZ and TVNZ, with substantial public funding. The proposals were controversial, however, and generated over a thousand select committee submissions.
