It’s a trap!

Stuff reports:

Winston Peters has thrown NZ First’s support behind a re-animated plan for publisher NZME to buy Stuff while keeping its editorial operations seperate.

But any decision would still have to go through the Commerce Commission, which has blocked a merger between the two companies before.

Peters said on Thursday morning that if Commerce Minister Kris Faafoi backed the new “Kiwi-Share” proposal for the buyout NZ First would support it in Cabinet.

A good analysis of this from Lew:

I thinK Winston's support for the media market reforms is grounds for concern. He's a bad actor when it comes to journalistic scrutiny, and I struggle to see any scenario where he agrees to help media outlets without also increasing govt leverage over them

— Lew (@LewSOS) December 11, 2019

This is absolutely right. The only interest Winston has in the media is for them to be compliant. He wants the two major print media companies in NZ beholden to him.

The thought of the Government over-ruling the Commerce Commission to protect the media (who would then be indebted to the Government) is awful. Hopefully Kris Faafoi is too sensible to even bring the matter to Cabinet.