Destiny threatens TVNZ with legal action over debates

Destiny New Zealand may take legal action over its exclusion from a TVNZ Marae debate, after a court ruling forced TV3 to include additional party leaders in its leaders debate.

The evangelical Christian party's Waiariki candidate, Hawea Vercoe, said he would seek legal advice to support his case for inclusion on Marae's August 20 live debate on the Waiariki electorate.

The move follows United Future leader Peter Dunne and Progressive Party leader Jim Anderton succeeding in forcing TV3 to include them in its leaders debate last night.

The two MPs took TV3 to the High Court over its decision to hold the debate without them.

Justice Ron Young ruled that TV3 should include the leaders.

He said TV3 had made an "arbitrary" decision in determining who would be present in its leaders' debate.

Mr Vercoe said there were similar problems with Marae's decision-making process in regard to live debates on each of the seven Maori seats.

While Marae had originally said it would only feature the two leading candidates in each seat it had broken that rule by including a third candidate in its first debate.

However in the next week's debate they had excluded Destiny NZ's Tamaki Makaurau candidate, who was third-placed on polling.

"Maori voters have the right to be fully informed of all their options. The exclusion of Destiny New Zealand from the Marae live debates is, as Justice Young ruled, 'detrimental to New Zealand's parliamentary democracy'," Mr Vercoe said.

TVNZ has yet to respond.

- NZPA