Radio host Kate Hawkesby's suggestion Māori and Pasifika patients are prioritised for surgery due to their ethnicity was misleading and discriminatory, the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) has ruled.
Hawkesby made the comments in June 2023 on NZME talkback station Newstalk ZB, on which her husband Mike Hosking also hosts a show.
The claim about ethnic priority for surgical waitlists breached both the accuracy and discrimination and denigration standards, said the BSA, which has ordered NZME to air a statement summarising its decision and to pay the Crown costs of $1500.
An NZME spokesperson told Newshub the company accepts the BSA's decision but does not have any further comment.
During the broadcast, Hawkesby discussed Te Whatu Ora / Health NZ's new Equity Adjustor Score in the Auckland region, which uses five categories to place patients on the non-urgent surgical waitlist: clinical priority, time spent waiting, location, deprivation level and ethnicity.
The BSA ruled Hawkesby's claim Māori and Pacific people were being "moved to the top of surgery waitlists" gave the misleading impression that ethnicity was either the only or the key factor involved in the assessment.
Hawkesby also reinforced or embedded negative racial stereotypes with her comments, according to the BSA, inciting "potentially harmful comments" from listeners which were also read out live on air.
"Hawkesby's comments played into the stereotype that Māori and Pacific peoples disproportionately take up resources and are given undeserved special treatment in Aotearoa New Zealand's society, at the expense of other ethnicities. While not said explicitly, in our view, the exaggerated and misleading nature of Hawkesby's comments had the effect of evoking this type of prejudicial bias," the BSA said.
"The conduct was serious, featuring repeated and sustained inaccurate descriptions of the Equity Adjustor Score over the course of a one-hour broadcast, which in turn had the effect of embedding negative stereotypes about Māori and Pacific peoples. This was despite accurate information being to hand.
"There was a high level of public interest and some controversy in the introduction of the Equity Adjustor Score at the time, meaning while there was value in discussing and generating debate about the issue, it was important for reporting on the subject to be accurate.
"The broadcaster chose to frame an important news story in a misleading and inflammatory manner. The framing of the issue created an environment where potentially harmful comments from the audience were foreseeable, and the broadcaster chose to read many such comments out on air.
"As a result, the broadcast had the potential to cause serious harm, both to Māori and Pacific peoples - minority groups which already experience significant disadvantages in our community - as well as the audience more generally."
