Fair Go, Re: News, Sunday facing staff cuts at TVNZ
TVNZ's flagship current affairs programme Sunday, long-running consumer affairs programme Fair Go and the more modern Re: News are affected by a proposal to cut up to 68 jobs, industry insiders say.
The three programmes were all considered “at risk” in a proposal announced by the public broadcaster to cut up to 68 jobs.
RNZ has reported a hui for all TVNZ news and current affairs staff is set to take place at 1pm today, though it was not clear yet what the meetings would mean and whether the programmes would be fully cut or face significant redundancies.
TVNZ said yesterday it would begin consultations on cutting up to 68 jobs or 9% of its workforce. The state-owned broadcaster – which last week reported a six-month loss of $16.8 million and indicated breakeven was years away – said the cuts would be “across all business areas”.
Those who were affected were told yesterday with more details expected today.
A well-connected source believed TVNZ’s job cuts would potentially include about 40 journalism roles.
Sunday, hosted by Miriama Kamo, has a team of seven reporters including Mark Crysell, Conor Whitten, Mava Moayyed, Kristin Hall and Tania Page.
Kamo told RNZ that the news from yesterday’s meeting was “devastating”.
“It's devastating not just for our business, it's devastating for ... what it means for our wider society. Of course we saw Newshub go and that has really, I believe, dire implications for our democracy.
“When we start cutting into news programmes at our state broadcaster then that really speaks to how dire things are and I am very, very concerned about what the landscape looks like going forward,” she told RNZ.
TVNZ workers concerned with the company’s process will fight proposed cuts said E tū, the union for media workers.
One E tū member at TVNZ said workers were particularly feeling the pressure around not yet knowing their fate.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the news of TVNZ's restructure was “incredibly unsettling”.
“The media play an important role in New Zealand, a very important role in our democracy and I know it's incredibly challenging for the whole of the sector,” he said.
It comes off the back of the proposed closure of Newshub, announced last week, threatens about 250 jobs in journalism, making it the biggest potential blow to the profession to date.
Stuff’s Newsable podcast spoke to former TVNZ presenter, Mark Sainsbury, who hosted current affairs show Close Up on TVNZ 1 between 2004 and 2012.
He said it was “devastating especially the way things are at the moment”.
“I just feel so much. These are friends and colleagues and they are all waiting to hear what’s going to happen.”
In 30 years he had lost count of the number of restructures he had been through but “this feels very, very different”.
He said Fair Go and Sunday staff had both been called into a meeting which meant “something is going to affect them”.
“These are the premiere programmes on TVNZ.”
He questioned what TVNZ would look to provide as the state broadcaster given the scale of the proposed cuts and the changing landscape.
He was worried especially about regional coverage and what would happen to regional newsrooms.
A red-tape cutting “Ministry of Regulation” is under way with a new chief executive, former Oranga Tamariki chief Gráinne Moss.
The promised ministry, which the ACT party campaigned for, will not be fully operational for months, but with Moss appointed and the ministry officially created, the process of assembling staff and seeking money in the coming Budget is under way.
ACT leader David Seymour, the National-coalition Government’s inaugural minister of regulation, said yesterday he expected the ministry to have a staff of 60 working across three tasks: improving “abysmal” regulatory impact assessments for government policy, investigating bad regulations in certain sectors to “nuke” them, and developing regulatory skills across government.
“Given how woeful regulation has been, having a very small ministry is going to make a big difference.’’
Seymour said he was “thrilled” with the appointment of Moss as interim chief executive, as she was one of few people to have started a new ministry.
Irish-born Moss was the first chief executive of Oranga Tamariki, the child welfare agency created out of the former Child, Youth, and Family in 2017.
But her tenure was troubled by years of ongoing criticism of the agency and calls from Māori leaders for her to resign - which she did in 2021.
“I see her as being a victim of exactly the sort of politics that the ACT party has campaigned to stop over the past few years,’’ Seymour said.
“And I believe, from my interactions with her, that she has exactly the kind of characteristics that are required to get people enthused about a new job and enthused about a new workplace.”
The new ministry - which has become the fourth “central agency” alongside the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Public Service Commission, and Treasury would be part funded by the $6 million a year the Government has freed up closing down the Productivity Commission.
Seymour said he expected three teams of perhaps six staff each working on different sector reviews, inspecting regulations placed on the likes of early childhood education and building and construction.
Further staff and resource would be drawn in from the current team of 10 Treasury who complete quality assurance on regulatory impact statements. This team was “woefully insufficient” for the job, he said, and should be doubled.
“Last year, Treasury did quality assurance on only 10 regulatory impact statements ... at a time when dozens, hundreds, maybe not thousands but certainly hundreds of regulatory initiatives are passed, and no one was checking if they actually made sense.
“So we've going to seriously ramp up that capability.”
And resource would be brought over from the cross-agency “G-REG” group that seeks to improve regulation across government.
Once ministry staff produce a review of a sector, a omnibus bill which changes multiple laws at once would be prepared to draw a line through regulations to be abolished. “There are a huge number of laws on the books and no one can even remember who was responsible, for example, the earthquake legislation ... that's done extraordinary damage to New Zealand, for almost no benefit,’’ Seymour said.
“Let's say we did a review of the earthquake laws, which we may well do something in the building materials space, and the building regulations face for that matter. We present a proposal to say, well, these laws need to change.”
If the minister responsible for that area of law disagreed with the attempt to abolish regulations, Seymour said, the public would at least know “who’s responsible”.
“All we're doing, in a way, is a giant transparency exercise, designed to make politicians much more careful regulators.”