BSA Decisions Ngā Whakatau a te Mana Whanonga Kaipāho

Summary  

[This summary does not form part of the decision.] 

The Authority has upheld an accuracy complaint about a statement, ‘the Government's shiny new Investment Boost scheme allows businesses to claim back 20% off their tax bill when purchasing new assets’, in a 1News item reporting on features of Budget 2025. The complaint concerned an inaccurate reference to deductions being from the ‘tax bill’ of a business rather than its ‘taxable income’. The Authority found the statement overstated the tax savings available under the Investment Boost scheme which was a material error in the context. As the correct information was readily available to TVNZ, it also found reasonable efforts were not made to ensure accuracy.

Upheld: Accuracy

No order

The broadcast

[1]  The 23 May 2025 broadcast of 1News included an approximately seven-and-a-half-minute item reporting on various parts of the Government’s Budget 2025. The 1News host introduced the segment:

Plenty of Budget scrutiny today as the Government got down to business, promoting its centrepiece policy. The tax incentive for business now in effect after passing into law. But with major funding changes across a wide range of sectors, the Government is also facing a lot of hard questions, including from young families who'll have less money in their pockets. Here's Political Editor...

[2]  The 1News Political Editor began the segment discussing how beneficial the Government’s new Investment Boost scheme has been for businesses, while interviewing a manufacturing company representative:

Political Editor:                    The Government’s shiny new Investment Boost scheme allows businesses to claim back 20% off their tax bill when purchasing new assets.

Company representative:   I would suggest that it is not enough, but in saying that also I would suggest that this is the first positive move that we’ve seen from any government in the last 30 years to assist manufacturing companies.

…

Hon Nicola Willis MP:         It helps them become more productive, it helps them grow, and ultimately it will mean they can pay the workers here more.

[3]  The report then moved to considering issues associated with Budget 2025’s changes to the Best Start programme and protests around ‘the $12.8 billion pocketed in pay equity savings’:

Political Editor:                    But tens of thousands of families with new babies will be worse off through changes to the Best Start programme. In a baby's first year, every family receives the payment, no matter their income — around $73 a week or just under $4,000 a year. That'll now be means tested. So, households earning over $97,000 each year won't be eligible. For two working parents on the minimum wage, it means they miss out.

Political Editor [to Willis]:    How do you justify minimum wage households not being able to access that payment at a very crucial time for young babies?

Willis:                                    Well, those households will in many instances be eligible for other Working for Families supports.

…

Chloe Swarbrick MP:          This is just bully boy behaviour.  Last year, they came for school kid’s lunch money and this year they’re coming after the resources necessary to support our smallest New Zealanders.

Political Editor:                    As the Finance Minister delivered her budget yesterday, outside, protesters furiously condemned the $12.8 billion pocketed in pay equity savings.

Protestor A:                          We are a democracy. Act like it please.

…

Political Editor:                     But Nicola Willis says Treasury’s forecast in 2020 had pay equity at $3.7 billion over four years.

Willis:                                      I think you can see from that number… just how much that scheme has blown out.

Political Editor:                     The post–Budget tour rolling on as the reviews begin to roll in.

…

[4]  A report by 1News Senior Political Reporter on other ‘controversial moves in the Budget’ followed:

1News Presenter:                The Budget's also sparked another war of words between environmentalists and [the Minister for Resources]. [1News’ Senior Political Reporter] takes a look at some controversial moves in the Budget.

Senior Political Reporter:    Our Government is looking to invest in   future gas fields, saying we need gas to keep the lights on.

Rt Hon Christopher Luxon:   We do need gas for New Zealand for the foreseeable future and that’s all that we’re doing.

…

Senior Political Reporter:     The group [Greenpeace] finds it hard to fathom.

Greenpeace rep.:                 It really is Trump-level crazy to take money from women workers through the cancellation of their pay equity claims in order to give it to fossil fuel companies. This is the 21st century. We know that climate change is real.

Senior Political Reporter:    Another controversial move in the Budget is setting aside almost half a billion dollars for prisons and another $33 million for the serious young offender boot camps.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins:         The boot camp pilot has been an unmitigated disaster…

…

Luxon:                                    It’s a component of making sure we’ve gone after gangs because of the serious violent crime that they’re prosecuting. We’re making sure that we’re going after serious young offenders and importantly, we’re toughening up our sentencing laws.

[5]  Finally, a report by 1News’ Nelson-based Reporter addressed investment in the health sector:

1News Presenter:                The Budget's investment in projects like the Nelson Hospital rebuild was welcomed by people 1News spoke to, but there are some reservations as it’s not clear how much funding it’ll get and whether there will be enough beds.

…

Reporter:                               The Government won’t say exactly how much has been put aside and while it will add 41 more beds, that’s almost 50 fewer than Labour pledged.

… 

Reporter:                                [Doctor interviewed] says it doesn’t address today’s problems.
Nelson Hospital has the worst wait times of anywhere in the country. A senior Health New Zealand team was flown in after doctors here raised concerns about patient safety and about staffing…

…

Reporter:                               The Budget included funding for urgent care and 12-month prescriptions but some, like GPs, were disappointed.

ProCare representative:      So, we need significant funding just to make sure we can be sustainable as a sector.

Reporter:                               A bill someone has to pay.

ProCare representative:      So, what will happen now is that practices will need to put up their prices again just to keep the lights on.

…

Reporter:                               The funding welcome, but much more still needed.

The complaint

[6]  Karl-Heinz Kammler complained the broadcast breached the accuracy standard of the Code of Broadcasting Standards in New Zealand for the following reasons:

• The statement that a ‘business can deduct 20% of their investments from “their tax bill” … is a misrepresentation’.
• ‘In reality, the deduction is not from the tax bill but from the taxable income.’
• Television New Zealand (TVNZ) has overstated the tax savings and ‘I request that this mistake is publicly corrected.’

The broadcaster’s response

[7]  TVNZ did not uphold the complaint for the following reasons:

• ‘The Committee agrees that the broadcast could have articulated more precisely how tax can be reclaimed under the Investment Boost tax incentive, but we do not agree the broadcast’s characterisation of the scheme amounted to a material inaccuracy.’
• ‘The story in question provided a generalised overview of the Investment Boost scheme. It did not purport to provide a detailed examination of the accounting considerations underpinning the scheme.’
• ‘While not expressly explaining that the 20% deduction would apply to taxable income, the story nevertheless conveyed the key point that the scheme would induce a tax benefit for business relative to the value of investment in productive assets.’
• ‘Detailed information about the scheme is readily available to anyone motivated to learn more about how it operates.’

The standard

[8]  The purpose of the accuracy standard (standard 6) is to protect the public from being significantly misinformed.¹ The standard states:²

• Broadcasters should make reasonable efforts to ensure news, current affairs or factual content:

o  is accurate in relation to all material points of fact

o  does not materially mislead the audience (give a wrong idea or impression of the facts).

• Further, where a material error of fact has occurred, broadcasters should correct it within a reasonable period after they have been put on notice.

Our analysis

[9]  We have watched the broadcast and read the correspondence listed in the Appendix.

[10]  As a starting point, we considered the right to freedom of expression. It is our role to weigh up the right to freedom of expression and the value and public interest in the broadcast, against any harm potentially caused by the broadcast. We may only intervene where the level of harm means that placing a limit on the right to freedom of expression is reasonable and justified.³

[11]  Determination of a complaint under the accuracy standard occurs in two steps. The first step is to consider whether the programme was materially inaccurate or misleading. If it was, the second step is to consider whether reasonable efforts were made by the broadcaster to ensure the programme was accurate and did not mislead.

Was the programme materially inaccurate or misleading?
[12]  The statement complained about referred to the Government’s Investment Boost scheme, introduced by Budget 2025. The Investment Boost scheme enables businesses to deduct 20% ‘of a new asset’s value from that year’s taxable income, on top of normal depreciation’.⁴

[13]  The broadcaster has acknowledged the statement — that the 20% deduction was from a company’s ‘tax bill’, as opposed to a fraction of the value of new assets from its ‘taxable income’ — was inaccurate. We agree. The statement overstates the tax savings offered to businesses. However, the accuracy standard is concerned only with material inaccuracies. The first question for us is whether this error was a material one.

[14]  Technical or other points that are unlikely to significantly affect viewers’ understanding of the programme as a whole are not considered material.⁵ The Authority’s assessment of a subject’s materiality is made with reference to the particular programme and the audience impact of the relevant statement in that context.

[15]  The error in this case was made in the context of a seven–and–a–half minute segment addressing multiple features of Budget 2025. It presented an overview of key issues rather than an in–depth analysis. An error impacting one of multiple topics in an ‘overview’ programme would not always affect viewers’ understanding of the programme as a whole. However, given the framing of this programme, we have found the error was material:

a)  As signalled in the introduction, the Investment Boost policy was the Government’s ‘centrepiece policy’.

b)  It was the lead item discussed in a story examining the winners and losers under Budget 2025. 

c)  The first part, presented by 1News’ Political Editor, emphasised the contrast between businesses being supported through tax savings, while ‘minimum wage’ families lost support under new Best Start programme thresholds and pay equity claimants had rights extinguished following ‘the $12.8 billion pocketed in pay equity savings’. 

d)  The next two parts were:

i)  a report presented by 1News’ Senior Political Reporter examining other ‘controversial moves’ in the Budget (including the investments in future gas fields, prisons, and serious young offender boot camps), and

ii)  a further report examining areas of investment, and alleged underinvestment, in the health sector.

[16]  Overall, this was a programme focused on challenging, and highlighting the social consequences of, the Government’s investment choices. When comparisons have been invited between the benefits delivered to businesses under ‘the centrepiece policy’ and the losses within other sectors of society, it is materially misleading to overstate those benefits. 

Were reasonable efforts made to ensure accuracy?
[17]  Having found the programme was materially inaccurate or misleading, we have considered whether TVNZ made ‘reasonable efforts to ensure accuracy’ — but consider it did not. The audience, hearing such information on 1News, will expect it to be correct. This was not a live broadcast reporting information on Budget Day as it came to light. The relevant budget details had been released the previous day and were available online.⁶ As noted in TVNZ’s decision, TVNZ had itself correctly reported the relevant details in its 22 May 2025 ‘Budget Day coverage’.  

[18]  In these circumstances, we consider reasonable efforts to check the report's content would have enabled TVNZ to avoid the error. We therefore uphold the complaint under the accuracy standard.

For the above reasons the Authority upholds the complaint the broadcast by Television New Zealand Ltd of an item on 1News on 23 May 2025 breached Standard 6 of the Code of Broadcasting Standards of New Zealand.

[19]  Having upheld the accuracy complaint, the Authority may make orders under sections 13 and 16 of the Broadcasting Act 1989. We do not intend to do so on this occasion. We consider the publication of the decision is sufficient to publicly acknowledge and correct the breach of the accuracy standard, and to censure the broadcaster.

Signed for and on behalf of the Authority

Susie Staley
Chair
3 September 2025   

Appendix

The correspondence listed below was received and considered by the Authority when it determined this complaint:

1  Kammler’s original complaint – 26 May 2025

2  TVNZ’s decision – 24 June 2025

3  Kammler’s referral to the Authority – 30 June 2025

4  TVNZ’s confirmation of no further comments – 4 July 2025

¹ Commentary, Standard 6, Code of Broadcasting Standards in New Zealand, page 16
² Standard 6, Code of Broadcasting Standards in New Zealand
³ Introduction, Code of Broadcasting Standards in New Zealand, page 4
⁴ The Treasury | Te Tai Ōhanga “Budget at a Glance: Investment Boost” Budget 2025 <budget.govt.nz>
⁵ Guideline 6.2
⁶ For example, see The Treasury | Te Tai Ōhanga “Budget at a Glance: Investment Boost” Budget 2025 <budget.govt.nz>