Broadcasting Minister threatens Plunket with Board complaint

Interesting story found by the NZ Herald about Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey.

It seems Minister Maharey was upset by Sean Plunket, and when RNZ refused to give him an apology he threatened to take his complaint direct to the RNZ Board.

Now this is a no no in two ways.

The first is that complaints about Radio NZ get escalated to the BSA, not the Board, and one expects the Minister of all people to know this.

The second is the Minister is specifically forbidden by law to meddle in operational issues, so his threat to go to the board on what is an operational issue, would breach the Broadcasting Act.

Presumably one of his staff pointed this out to him, before he did follow through on his threat.