Our Sub-Leader in Indian Newslink Digital Edition May 1, 2024
Venkat Raman
Auckland, May 1, 2024
It is a pity that Melissa Lee, one of our finest media personalities, with decades of experience in the industry, was dismissed by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon from her Ministerial portfolio of Media and Communications on April 24, 2024.
As a Member of Parliament since 2008, she maintained a close relationship with the media as the National Party spokesperson and it was ironic that she had to lose the portfolio at a time when the media industry is in a crisis and needs her expertise.
Prime Minister’s anger
Mr Luxon proved that he is a tough boss and that he would not tolerate slow response from his Ministers. With the same wave of hand, he dismissed Penny Simmonds from her Disability Issues portfolio because of her insensitivity to the affected people.
Paul Goldsmith, a Senior Cabinet Minister is now the Media and Communications Minister.
Staying with Ms Lee, the Prime Minister also demonstrated how angry he was by removing her from the Cabinet, although she continues to hold two more important portfolios- that of Ethnic Communities and Economic Development. Many observers have praised Mr Luxon for his decisiveness saying that his action would send a strong signal to others to remain alert.
However, waters on the other two sides have not yet been tested. Will Mr Luxon take the same type of action if ACT Party and New Zealand First Party Ministers were to err? Time will tell.
What was Ms Lee’s sin? As she admitted hours before this piece was written, “I am focused on actually delivering for the portfolios that I have responsibilities for. I think what happened was that media was facing very difficult times, very quickly and it has actually come about quite suddenly. Although we were thinking that, actually there needs to be some changes. It just came about, really, really too fast. Things in government actually take time and perhaps I was a little slow, but what I can say is I tried my best, and this decision has been made, and I respect the Prime Minister’s decision.”
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Slow response
Ms Lee’s ‘slow response’ related to her comments to the media soon after Warner Bros Discovery decided to pull the plug on the Newshub television programme, effectively reducing the news service to a single source, which is TVNZ. As a second blow, TVNZ announced that it would curtail some of its TV! programmes including Fair Go as a part of its cost restructure.
Her troubles compounded when, reportedly, her Cabinet Paper failed to deal properly with the complexities faced by the media industry and that Mr Luxon who was a member of the Cabinet Committee was not amused.
Newsroom Analysis
According to Newsroom, Ms Lee presented a paper to the Cabinet on March 4 at Mr Luxon’s request. The Paper contained issues relating to the closure of Newshub and TVNZ job cuts.
“But things got rocky for Ms Lee after she started proposing ways to fix these problems. Newsroom understands that Ms Lee got ahead of the Cabinet process when preparing her next Cabinet Committee paper and was ordered to carry out further consultation with Coalition Partners, specifically NZ First. After almost a month of working with officials and consulting with coalition partners, Ms Lee tried again. But she came up short. Her attempt to take a refreshed proposal to the Cabinet committee on April 8 would have been a factor in Luxon’s Cabinet reshuffle,” a Newsroom Analysis said.
When Newsroom asked Mr Luxon whether that sub-par paper played a part in Ms Lee’s demotion, he said: “It is not about that. It is genuinely about the fact that there is innately more complexity and if you are sitting in my position, leading a leadership team, think about what I have tried to do about the casting Ministers and the responsibilities that they have. It is important to have the right person for the job,” he said and added that there were synergies with the portfolios held by Mr Goldsmith.
Mr Luxon said that it was important to have the right person for the job. There were “synergies” with Goldsmith’s other portfolios.
The problems of Penny Simmonds
Penny Simmonds was appointed Minister of Tertiary Education and Skills, Minister of Environment and Minister of Disability Issues when the Cabinet was formed on November 27, 2023. She was quick to disestablish the mega Polytechnic Te Pukenga and announce measures to ease procedures in the environmental areas.
But as Minister of Disability Issues, she caused major trauma to many people by changing purchasing rules for disabled people’s equipment and support services.
Disability groups accused her of implementing changes without proper consultation. They have said that the changes have caused anguish and their petition was signed by more than 10,000 people in less than 24 hours.
The changes included restrictions to the funding of purchases that “would be considered something that every citizen has to pay for.”
Autism New Zealand Chief Executive Dane Dougan described the changes as ‘appalling.’
“People in the autistic community needed time to absorb the impact of significant changes and do some planning for what they would spend their funding on but that had been taken away from them by the way the changes were announced,” he said.
The government argued that the total amount of funding was not being reduced but Labour Party spokesperson Priyanca Radhakrishnan said that it was in effect a cut.
Disability Issues portfolio was not new to Ms Simmons. As the National Party Spokesperson in opposition, she was a vociferous advocate and seemed to care for the problems of caregivers and others related to the sector.
