By Giles Dexter, RNZ political reporter
An investigative journalist who was barred from attending New Zealand’s national apology to survivors of abuse in care has now been granted accreditation.
Parliament’s Speaker has now granted temporary Press Gallery accreditation to journalist Aaron Smale for tomorrow’s apology for abuse in care. He must, however, be accompanied by a Newsroom reporter at all times.
It follows a significant backlash from survivors and advocates to the initial decision.
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Smale has covered abuse in care, and the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the abuse, for eight years. His work has appeared in multiple publications and websites, including Newsroom, Newshub, The Listener, The Spinoff and RNZ.
Last week, speaker Gerry Brownlee declined an application from Newsroom for Smale to report on the apology.
Parliament’s Press Gallery had asked for an explanation, as a refusal was quite rare, especially when a reporter met the gallery’s criteria for accreditation.
It was told the application was declined, with the Speaker citing Smale’s conduct on a prior occasion.
This afternoon, the Press Gallery wrote to the Speaker, requesting a more fulsome explanation.
Speaker’s about-turn
In an about-turn, the Speaker approved the application.
The initial decision to decline Smale’s application was met with backlash by survivor groups and advocates, as well as politicians and Newsroom itself.
At a media conference at Parliament in July, Smale and the Prime Minister had an exchange over the government’s law and order policies, and whether the Prime Minister would acknowledge the link between abuse and gang membership.
According to Newsroom, Smale had also attended a media event at a youth justice facility in Palmerston North, and pressed Children’s Minister Karen Chhour over whether it had been appropriate to associate the memory of the Māori Battalion with the new youth justice programme.
“The Beehive was in touch with us to say they believed he had been too forceful and too rude, in their view, in those two occasions,” Newsroom’s co-editor Tim Murphy told RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme.
Murphy said that Smale had conceded he had pushed the children’s minister “a bit far”.
“But the one in Parliament, he was asking specific questions and kept asking them of the Prime Minister and I think that became irritating to the Prime Minister,” Murphy said.
‘Most informed’ of journalists
Describing Smale as “the most informed, possibly, probably of all New Zealand journalists” on the issue of abuse in state care institutions, Murphy said political discomfort should not be a reason to exclude Smale, and the ban should not stand.
“He should be there, and he should be asking questions, because he’ll know more than virtually everybody else who could be,” he said.
Murphy said Smale’s intention for his coverage of the apology itself was to write an observational piece through the eyes of survivors, and he was not intending to “get into a grilling.”
The Royal Commission Forum, an advisory group to the commission, said denying Smale accreditation was “profoundly concerning” and a damaging decision in the lead-up to the apology.
The Green Party said it was alarmed by the move, and said it set a dangerous precedent.
“As a society that values the role of the Fourth Estate, we should value the work of journalists like Aaron, because it helps us take a critical look at where we have gone wrong and how we may move forward,” said the Green Party’s media and communications spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon.
“Barring a leading journalist from an important event like this speaks to this government’s lack of accountability. It is something we might expect in Putin’s Russia, not 21st century Aotearoa New Zealand.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
