The 'high bar' against censoring radio just got lower

On 5 September last year, Barry Soper stumbled over a departing Green MP’s pronouns on Newstalk ZB. His co-host pulled him up on air within seconds: “You are literally just being a boomer right now.” Later in the segment, Soper described the MP’s successor as “quite a normal fellow”.

Nine months on, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has ruled the segment breached broadcasting standards and ordered NZME to broadcast a statement, at drive time, on a Friday, with the wording approved by the Authority before it goes to air.

“The correction took four seconds and one word: boomer,” said Jillaine Heather, Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union. “The state’s version took nine months, involved four appointees, and resulted in a written finding that people ‘do not inadvertently call other people it’. Somewhere in that gap is everything you need to know about this regulator.”

The comments were unkind, and the Free Speech Union is not defending them. The co-host corrected Soper live and NZME removed the segment from its platforms. That is speech policing itself, fast.

The Authority’s own decision says the bar for state intervention is high. Freedom of expression is “the starting point”. Broadcasters may voice opinions that are “controversial or unpopular, provided they do not cause undue harm”. A breach usually requires “a high level of condemnation, often with an element of malice or nastiness”.

The Authority decided a stumble, a chuckle and a few clumsy asides met that threshold, ruling that this carried “the high level of condemnation necessary to encourage discrimination”. It upheld the complaint on “potential harm”.

The Authority also found the hosts’ ridicule “extended beyond what was necessary” for legitimate criticism of an MP.

“Commentary on a sitting MP’s resignation is core political speech, the most protected speech there is,” said Heather. “In a free country, the state does not measure out how much mockery of a politician is necessary. Politicians get answered, criticised and laughed at. They are not shielded from rudeness by a regulator.”

Likewise, discrimination is serious, which is why it has a meaning: treating people differently to their detriment. “The Government declined to put gender identity into our discrimination law in February. However, four appointees put it there in June,” said Heather. “Whatever side of that debate you are on, that is the wrong way around.

Questions like that belong to Parliament and the courts, not a broadcasting panel on its way out the door.”

“Treating misgendering as discrimination does not just punish speech, it mandates it,” said Heather. “You cannot talk about a person without referring to them somehow. When a regulator rules out one way of referring to a politician, it requires another. What is left is scripted speech.”

“The Government has already decided the Authority should go. This is how it has chosen to spend its final months: scripting Friday drive time. If you don’t like what’s on the radio, argue back or switch off. A state script is never the answer.”

ENDS

Notes to editor:

The decision is Tang and NZME Radio Ltd (2025-072), released 10 June 2026, concerning the 5 September 2025 broadcast of Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive on Newstalk ZB. The Authority upheld the complaint under the discrimination and denigration standard, the rule that broadcasts must not encourage discrimination against, or denigration of, any section of the community. A separate complaint under the promotion of illegal or antisocial behaviour standard was not upheld.

The Authority interpreted “sex” in the standard, which mirrors section 21 of the Human Rights Act 1993, as including gender identity, relying on the practice of the Human Rights Commission and a 2006 Crown Law opinion. No New Zealand court has ruled on the question. The Law Commission’s Ia Tangata report (September 2025) described the current law as unclear and recommended Parliament clarify it; the Government confirmed on 24 February 2026 that it would not progress the recommendations.

MEDIA CONTACT

Jillaine Heather

CEO, Free Speech Union

media@fsu.nz