Annoyed that New Zealand on Air carelessly emailed around the Government's plans for censorship and propaganda, Prime Minister John Key has made Broadcasting Minister Craig Foss sack the funding body's board and replace it with singer Paul Holmes, drama school dropout Paul Henry, theatrical makeup artist Michael Laws and kickboxer Tony Veitch.
"Censorship is about avoiding controversy," said Key. "These guys are controversial, so clearly they won't be censoring the media. They represent a New Zealand I'm most comfortable with, and they are the type of people I want shaping New Zealand's culture."
When it was pointed out that a politically motivated attempt to stop a poverty documentary screening before an election was different from criticism of the new board's racism, alleged hate speech, mocking of disabilities, violence and misogyny, even though both could lead to "censorship", Key countered: "Nandor's on the Creative NZ arts board, so I can put my mates in at NZ on Air and we're even, right?
"I doubt you'll find a politician willing to change the system of political appointments to cultural tastemakers."
Declaring former Italian Prime Minister "Burlesque-oni" as his hero, Key continued: "By the way, did you notice that some ancient book about Ma Baker got unbanned by the Chief Censor the other day? So yeah, clearly we're an increasingly free country, and we'll be even freer once I've scrapped the Race Relations Commissioner, the rest of the Human Rights Commission and the Ombudsmen, as they all stop people doing what they want, like exploiting workers and telling funny jokes.
